Hello All

[Pooky]

Hi,
My name's Tom and I'm a Q-aholic.
I've been visiting the forums for a couple of months now and thought that it was about time that I joined up. I've always been into great food and my friends and I were always keen grillers - Making and marinating things ourselves rather than going down the shop-bought sausage and burger route and always keen to experiment.

I first became aware of real BBQ a few years ago whilst in the US with my ex (She's a native New Yorker) - I picked up a book called "Mastering Barbecue" by Michael Stines for 99c in a thrift store and the more I read about briskets, butts and ribs, the more excited I got. Although Long Island isn't traditional BBQ country, by any stretch of the imagination, I managed to find a couple of good BBQ joints and would regularly go and gorge myself whenever over there.
Back in the UK, I'm lucky enough to be only about 45 mins away from John Hargate's awesome BBQ Shack and I try and visit monthly, although I'm yet to meet the man himself - I know he's around on these forums, so hopefully that'll change soon.

However, to truly feed my addiction, I've decided that it's about time that I learned how to do it myself, so after much deliberation and deciding whether to go home-made (UDS) or "off the peg" I reckon (due to cash-flow) that I'm now about 6 weeks-2months max away from finally getting myself smoking. For a long while I was going to go down the Ugly Drum route and I've found some great plans, but I finally decided, for versatility, ease of use and portability (something that'll fit in the back of the car), I'm going to get myself a ProQ Excel 20.

As I say, it's a couple of pay packets away, but I can hardly wait and having had a look at these forums, it seems that you're a great community of friendly, knowledgeable pitmasters, which makes the whole experience even more exciting - I can't wait to get involved!

PS - Sorry for the essay - I got a bit carried away!

[Chris__M]

Hi Tom, and welcome. You're going to enjoy it here - the folk are pleasant and helpful.

[keith157]

As you say there are some very knowledgeable pimasters here who are more than willing to help, There are also acolytes like me who have learned bits from here and are learning more. You'll love it!!

[BigG]

Hi Tom and welcome to the forum, You've got far more patience than me waiting another 6 weeks !

G

[Pooky]

Thanks for the welcome folks and Big G, trust me, it's forced patience and more like agony - If I didn't have to wait for some money, I'd be smoking as we speak! Awesome looking UDS by the way - I am still very tempted to build one and it would certainly save me some dough, not to mention be a extra satisfying, but I know what I'm like and would probably take a while to get it finished - I love my bells & whistles and would no doubt over-complicate it!

[BigG]

Thanks for the compliment on the UDs mate cheers I thoroughly enjoyed building it, like you said I ended up over complicating it adding my bells & whistles (still work in progress thinking up more B & W's ) one thing I've learnt is the UDS can smoke just as succesfully as a bare minimum, all the the extras and toys just satisfy our need to fiddle and show off and to fine tune the temperatures. They use these in China in the street and just wack a hole in the side with a machete` for air intake and hang food on wire coat hangers accross the top with no commercial parts/fittings. Mine seems to hold excellent temp of 225-250F with just the one of the 1.5 inch valves fully open, you could drill a hole in it and use crumpled up tin foil to block/restrict air instake and just leave the bung hole open in the lid as an exhaust and use any old pan as a fire pit in bottom for now (pinch one of the Mrs roasting trays and a cake cooling rack) and get smoking and see how it goes, All the toys and gadgets you can add later. I've had a couple of friends already come over for some Real Barbecue and both asked "where did you buy that BBQ Smoker from"??? You can't beat the satisfaction of replying with "I built it myself from scratch"

G

[Toby]

Welcome to the forum!

[BigM]

welcome Mate PS Credit card

[Pooky]

Haha - That would get me in A LOT of trouble