davos
Wandering around with a bag of matchlight, looking for a match.
Well, about a half-hour west of Madison in a blink and you miss it kind of small town. I've been smoking meats on and off since we bought our little place back 13 years ago. I started out with a char-broiler barrel grill without a firebox. My first attempts were indirect smoking. After some trial and error I was able to get a decent pork shoulder consistently from this approach. It was a ****ty, cheap-ass grill, though and rusted out pretty badly after 8 or 9 years. It wet my appetite, so to speak,to try to do more, though.
We then found a floor model of a Rivergrille offset vertical smoker for which looked like a great price. I didn't know enough to recognize this was a terrible piece of equipment that lacked that had such thin metal it would be hard to maintain heat and would bleed smoke something awful. But I learned a lot using it, despite frustrations at every turn. Switched from lump charcoal to hardwood sticks as a fuel source. Learned some things about managing heat. looked at other upgrading but so many really good smokers were just out of my price range. First time I saw the Bandera in a store, I really liked it. Much more solidly built than either of the other rigs I had worked with. Not 1/4 steel but still more substantial than other lower price grills I had seen. Liked a lot of the design features. Still more than we wanted to spend but more closer to affordable. This past weekend my wife, wonderful person she is, broke down and got me one as a surprise. So, now I've got the components all over the living room floor (the box was falling was not in the best shape and it was just easier to carry it in piece by piece rather than trying to haul the whole thing). I've lurked around here and other smoking forums looking for advice before. I joined up mostly to read the Bandera 101 document and to read about setting this beast up properly. Thought I would pop in and say hi.
We then found a floor model of a Rivergrille offset vertical smoker for which looked like a great price. I didn't know enough to recognize this was a terrible piece of equipment that lacked that had such thin metal it would be hard to maintain heat and would bleed smoke something awful. But I learned a lot using it, despite frustrations at every turn. Switched from lump charcoal to hardwood sticks as a fuel source. Learned some things about managing heat. looked at other upgrading but so many really good smokers were just out of my price range. First time I saw the Bandera in a store, I really liked it. Much more solidly built than either of the other rigs I had worked with. Not 1/4 steel but still more substantial than other lower price grills I had seen. Liked a lot of the design features. Still more than we wanted to spend but more closer to affordable. This past weekend my wife, wonderful person she is, broke down and got me one as a surprise. So, now I've got the components all over the living room floor (the box was falling was not in the best shape and it was just easier to carry it in piece by piece rather than trying to haul the whole thing). I've lurked around here and other smoking forums looking for advice before. I joined up mostly to read the Bandera 101 document and to read about setting this beast up properly. Thought I would pop in and say hi.
