Hello, all. My name's Jason, and I enjoy cooking with fire - methane indoors, charcoal outdoors.
I first joined the Weber family in 2002 with a Smokey Joe that I set up on the back stoop of my row house. I don't remember what happened to Little Joe, but I got my first 22" Kettle in 2003 after moving into a house that I was renting. I had to give that Kettle to my brother in law and set aside the grilling bug in 2006 when I moved back into an apartment with no good place to set up even a portable grill. Luckily, in 2010, my job moved me to Michigan, I bought a house, and I was able to keep a Kettle for more than two summers. Money wasn't exactly limitless, so I stuck with the 22" OTS, thinking that I'd likely upgrade to a nice gas grill in a couple of years.
Well, then I realized just how much a person can do with a basic Kettle. My whole outlook on grilling changed when I successfully executed a smoked pork butt on my grill. I don't do a whole lot of low and slow, but I've gotten the whole direct/indirect thing pretty well down to a science. My new favorite cut to grill is a pork shoulder steak - I saw some chef on the Food Network whining about having to cook one, and scoffed at him. If somebody like me, with zero formal training and a basic Kettle can do what I do to that cut of meat, then he should have no problem getting good results in his high-dollar kitchen. Anyway...
After ten years of dutiful service, my OTS has one sweeper blade that's hanging on by a thread. I started looking at replacement parts, and by the time I've bought replacement grilling and charcoal grates (apparently I like to burn my grill hot, but I don't see any enamel damage) in addition to the new sweeper, I was approaching the cost of a new grill. Other than a weird bruise in the enamel on my lid - it looks like the lid was dented from the inside - and a little superficial rust around the welds, the bowl is still in good shape, so it's definitely a candidate for restoration. For the time being, though, I was able to present the business case to the Missus that it's had a good run, and get her to entertain the idea of getting a new grill. My experience with my 22 has convinced me that the Kettle purists are on to something, so other than adding a few bells and whistles (and grilling area) I didn't seriously consider anything other than a new Kettle which resulted in me getting my new 26" OKP.
Of all the things that could have led me to WKC, it was the grill baskets that came with the 26. The first time I used them, I wondered why I had been piling charcoal on the side of the grate like a sucker for all these years. As well as they worked, I wondered if there was a better mousetrap out there, which led me to start researching the Slow n Sear, and brought me to WKC. I was happy to learn that the 26" grill has been around for almost the entire history of the Weber Stephen company, and happier still to learn that if I'm ever accused of caring too much about my grills, I can point to a bunch of people who have it way worse than I do.
Topic: Michigan Checking In (Read 1617 times)
