08/28/2023
The story of JBQ part 1:
This journey started when I got my first Char-Broiler Offset smoker almost 10 years ago. I couldn’t quite figure it out, and was too proud to look up recipes or or “how-tos”. Instead, I smoked endless amounts of flavorless meat that would make your tongue lose feeling(turns out, you need to clean out the fire box every now and then otherwise your bark will consist of ash). I finally got around to figuring out how to smoke jerky, although the first batch was quite repulsive. I didn’t do anything crazy special, I just thin sliced the meat and topped it with SnP. Smoked for 4 hours and there you have it, I fell in love with smoking.
A few months later, I asked my father in law to teach me how to brine and smoke his family famous turkey, to which he obliged. I was ecstatic! I was about to learn my first family recipe that didn’t come from my bloodline. Fast-forward a week or so, and we are throwing orange peels and apple slices (and the kitchen sink) into a trash bag full of wine, water and orange juice. Then he says, “give that turkey a bath!” …so I’m in the bathtub with a turkey carcass…just kidding, I slipped it into the ritualistic concoction that was in the bag lined cooler. We waited 72 hours or so, lit his smoker, which I chopped down my own apple tree just to provide for this cook…(what? It’s the least I could do, he paid for the turkey and the brine ingredients. Right?)…we pulled the turkey out of the brine(it look no different than when it went in, I was disappointed)…flopped it on the grill, then stoked the apple wood fire for the better part of 6-7 hours. That was the best meat I had eaten at this point in my life, it was also the first time my Father-in-law and I had a true bonding experience. A core memory, some would say.
I would say the rest is history, but we are just beginning. Tune in for part 2, coming soon.