A sketch..

This weekend's work.

These came out pretty good. They smoked for about eight hours (from 9am to 5pm), and for the last half of that time I washed them about every half hour with a wash made from apple juice, captain morgan's spiced rum, and frank's hot sauce.

Why I love barbecue.

People tell me I'm a barbecue maniac. Over the top. That I'm waaaaaay too into it. And then comes the inevitable question: "Why do you love it so much?"

Hm. Well...

... First and foremost, it's very primal. It's, to me, a connection with the entire long line of humanity. You're cooking over a wood fire. It's obvious that when cooking was invented, this was how it was done. Even three hundred years ago, all food was cooked on a wood fire. But with the modern mechanization of society, we have moved away from wood-fired to "taste-neutral" methods of cooking. My tendency to rebel manifests itself, in this case, in a return to wood-cooked meals. And wood-cooked meals rule because...

... Wood tastes fantastic. Not all wood -- pine tastes like ass -- but for the most part, wood smoke just tastes wonderful.* Oak, hickory, apple, maple, it's all great and has its place. You can't forget that wood smoke is one of the spices you're working with. If you go into very high-end restaurants, you'll see they cook their steaks over a wood fire.

... Boys love fire. See "primal" discussions.

... It's a very slow way to cook, which forces you to go about your day in a slow manner. I tend to run a million miles a minute. I've always got a dozen things going. When one of them is the smoker, it tends to slow my day down, which is what I ought to be doing (ie. resting.) So in that sense, in the slowing-me-down sense, it's very healthy for me.

... It's a positive activity that always makes people smile. No one hates the barbecue man, if he does it right. In fact, people will laud the man who makes excellent 'cue. Which means you always get invited back, you always get free beer, you get introduced to all the hotties etc. Unless the hotties are vegetarians, which has happened once or twice in my life. I really want a vegetarian to balance me, but they get a little turned off by the massive bloody slabs of animal I like to work with. Oh well. I smoke potatoes and onions and stuff.

*: I believe that this is a deep racial memory: When we smell wood smoke, we immediately associate "warmth" and "food". With good reason: Again looking back fifty thousand years, a fire DID mean warmth and food.

THE GOAL.

I made this brisket today. The chicken is my next door neighbor's. This is my old smoker, which we'll be replacing with the monster.

Ran a lot more water through the tanks today.

Propane Stinks.

Since propane tends to float on water, and propane tends to evaporate in air, the liquid level in the tank goes down at a far faster rate than it would if it were just H₂O. Hence, we have to top off the tank at regular intervals.

Last night I dropped the hose in and ran it for 10 minutes or so, which probably equates to fifty gallons or so. You could tell propane was washing out because it stunk horribly, and the liquid had that rainbow sheen that identifies an oil-on-water mix. The tremendous odor of propane permeated my clothes and skin for hours. Duh.

I did it again this morning. But I learned that white vinegar is a good solvent for propane. I don't know exactly if it dissolves the liquid propane, or if the two odors just cancel each other out. But it did a pretty good job.

Step 1: Obtain your propane tanks.

I bought one 250 gallon tank and one 50 gallon tank from Taylor Gas, a propane dealer south of the city. They're 20 years old, rusted, but plenty usable for a barbecue. The metal's around a quarter inch thick.

You have to flush out the remaining propane when you get these things. There's going to be some, not a whole lot. But the way to do it is to fill the tank with water and let it sit for a couple months. The tiny propane bubbles on the side of the tank will work their way out.

So when I got these tanks, they had fittings all over, remnants of their original purpose which were no longer necessary. I used a pipe wrench to pull as many as I could, and then broke out the Saws-All to clip off the top of the big tank. It took about 40 minutes to fill the big tank with 250 gallons of water.

Now, they sit for a month or two, while we get the parts for the trailer.

Intro

Hi. I'm Steve Sparks. I am constructing a big smoker trailer to use for competition barbecue. This is the log of that project.