I chased competition bbq for a while, had a really nice stick burner on a trailer with all the bells and whistles. And it cooked nice.
it had major drawbacks, boy did it use fuel and you had to cook a lot or it was not worth it
so I downsized to a non trailer unit and it cooked great, used less fuel and I had better temp control overall
My success in comp cooking was kinda medium, in smaller cookoffs I did real great, in the larger ones there seems to be a huge tendency for the big teams to win. Not that I feel they did any better. Maybe I am biased there.
Anyway, no matter what was going on, we always had a few weber's going on cooking to give stuff away to fans and for our food, we had a blast showing off what we could cook on the kettles, many times I think the stuff was better than the stuff off the stick burners.
things have changed a bit in the comp circuit, it seems that computerized pellet burners and self feeding coal burners are becoming a rage and they remove the temp control problems from the pitmaster and put it into a computer that is sampling constantly and adjusting to keep things to a tight controlled computer program. Hard to compete against doing it freestyle
I also got told I had diabetes and some of the food I was cooking is really bad for me. So I sold out.
I took me about a month to figure out that grilling is great for diabetics, the method drains the fats from the meat. and you know, all those vegis you eat are great grilled, not only that but a lot of the sides I cook for my guest I do not have to eat, I just make a bunch of baked beans and I make some regular beans for myself.
And so it goes, I love to grill, I do it all the time, probably 3 times a week or more, and I have never in my 57 years on this planet found a grilling platform as versatile as the Weber. I can BBQ and it is easy to control the heat, I grill, I do a lot of beer can chicken with the best success of any form of grill I have ever used. My 3/2/1 ribs are the talk of the town, my briskets are great ( if I had a 26 incher I think they would be perfect)
I only own one other grill, a 36 inch ranch kettle by another manufacturer that is used for big get togethers and it is used to grill burgers, dogs, steaks, and the perfect santa maria style tritip. besides that I use my smokey joe silver, my maters touch kettle and my recently found green metal bowl handle 3 vent mid 70s 22 inch which cooks great. (40 years and still cooking is not flimsy)
So go tell those guys who think you can only bbq or grill on some super expensive stick burner to go pound sand, a good Grillfella knows you can cook great BBq on just about anything if you just apply the right methods to the equipment, and the Weber is the most successfully selling back yard grill for a reason, it has proven over a half century of being one of the best grills out there. It is rugged enough that many of us have 40 and 50 year old grills we use on a regular basis.
Being good is all about method and keeping records till you get it right, not about the most expensive cooking unit out there. Sure a big thick unit will work best in comercial places and last a long time, but do you need a unit in the back yard that can cook for 100 people everynight.
Topic: Aaron Franklin - anti-Webber? (Read 10748 times)