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Pitmasters keep telling new guys to learn on offsets, but my 22 inch kettle taught me way more in 6 months
Everyone in this hobby says you have to start on a stick burner or you'll never really learn fire control. I went the other way. A guy named Ray who runs a BBQ trailer out near Lexington told me to grab a $100 kettle instead and just cook on it 3 times a week. Six months later I can hold 250 for hours and read my coals by how they look, not by a thermometer. The kettle forces you to manage small fires, and small fires teach you fast. The guys I know who started on big offsets are still fighting temp swings because they never learned to build a clean, small coal bed first. So what did you actually learn on, and would you do it the same way again?
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christopher5941d ago
I started on a $60 rust bucket from a garage sale that had a hole in the bottom big enough to lose a brat through. Learned more from that leaky thing than I ever did from the offset I bought later, mostly because I had to babysit it every 15 minutes like a needy cat. Ray gave you good advice. Small fires make you pay attention because there is no room for error when your coal bed is the size of a dinner plate. I still cook on a kettle most weeknights and save the stick burner for when I want to stand around drinking beer and pretending I know what I am doing.
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