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!
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!