Hello from Guam!

Hello all, this is my first post here, i joined specifically to pick all of your brains if i may about competing. I am new here, but definitely not new to smoking :wink:

First a little about me, i am Active Military and will be retiring after 24 years of service here real soon. My wife and i plan to locate ourselves down in the Florida area and we will be starting our second career in the US Competition cooking as well as catering.

I started smoking in about 2004 on an oklahoma joe offset gifted to me by my father in law, and took a few classes on how to use it and the rest is history lol. I have cooked on quite a few different types from electric, to gravity feed, to many "converted" oil tank style charcoal grills (which is what the navy rents on every base). While i like the idea of the set it and forget it style of electric and pellets, i truly enjoy the constant monitoring of a stick burner. My favorite i have ever used was a lang 84 that a neighbor lended me to cook for a party a few years back, it was quite an amazing rig to be using for sure! We have competed in quite a few "local" military competitions, but nothing that was actually sanctioned by KCBS or the like.


I am in the planning process of deciding how i want to set up at events. I THINK i have pretty much decided of either the Yoder cimarron or the Jambo enclosed. Having that said, i would like a little advice about rigs...specifically about advice of a toy hauler as i would really like to have the living quarters for the wife and the team. We want to be able to roll it out on the porch and get to cooking, but i have concerns of weight. We want to take a front garage style and gut it out and replace the bunks with tables and all stainless steel for the prep area and boxing, but i am not sure if the front ramp would be able to hold the 1,500(ish) pounds of the grill and personel.

Having that said, for those that have rig in this configuration, how do you do it, and if you did it all over, what would you change? Our budget for the trailer is $35k, so i have tons of options, but i have only one chance to get it right, so im nervous of pulling the trigger without having seen some similar set ups and opinions of people who use them. Thanks!

Well, the reason im going the toy hauler route is for a dual purpose. One one hand, my plan for years when i retire has been to travel with my wife all over America, and having the smoker with us will give us the ability to enter into some comps as we go. If we just want to drive to some parks and see some things we can ��.

Sooo, in a sense i am starting small with only big purchase really is the smoker. With one of my sons going to culinary school, the investment for the top quality smoker will be repaid by being able to pass it down to him should i want to quit. So you see, i am testing the waters of bbqing while still doing what i want by trans-America traveling.

West River BBQ said:

I'm guessing the answer to your question lies somewhat with the manufacture specs for their rig. Besides how sturdy the construction of the porch, I would be very interested in tongue weight. Did I read correctly that you intend to gut the inside and put up tables/counters?

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Yes just the “garage” part. I’d like to have a few stainless work tables in that area vice the 2 fold down beds typically found in them as well as a few over counter storage areas. And while I am aware that a lot is dependent on which model I chose, I was just trying to find out how others are doing it.

I’m basically starting in reverse order by choosing a smoker and then I’ll shop for the RV that meets my needs. As for towing, that’s a non issue with a Dodge 3500

Blanton said:

I’ve seen a Jambo enclosed winched up into a toy hauler. Scary to watch. Not sure what th weight is, but I wouldn’t want to be moving it around. Good luck with what ever you end up with.

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Yeah, i was hoping to just wheel it out onto the gate and use it as a porch, not all the way off except maybe to clean it at the house where i can control that part better

Is there anyone that uses a toy hauler thats will to share a couple pics of your set up at a comp?

Are there teams that compete out of thier catering/vending rig? In other words, if i just used my BBQ consession trailor at a comp, as long as i wasnt vending and only competing, is that allowed?

It almost feels like i sould need 3 trailers, one for RVing, one to vend at back home, and one for competing lol. Im trying to figure out the best way to both start my roadside bbq buisness while still going on the road occasionally to compete and enjoying the retired life. If i have to change directions on which smoker i use, i guess i can as long as i give myself plenty of practice time. Switching to a gravity feed is easily doable, i just have 0 experiance with those, but i do know they can win. There are so many options to chose from, and $10k for a smoker is alot of investment to find out i dont like it and miss the stick burner.

The wife and i have tossed up the idea of a simple truck top rv and pull a smaller trailer that is set up for vending, i found one that fits the ticket just fine complete with an old hickory smoker set up on a porch with a minimal kitchen inside (most of our cooking back home would be at a local commissary kitchen anyways).