Smoking a Turkey for Thanksgiving?

It seems that fried Turkey may not be as popular as it once was, and turkey on a smoker may be coming back for some, and the usual way to cook Thanksgiving dinner for others.

A few imortant things to keep in mind when cooking a turkey in the smoker;

1. The best size to smoke is no larger than 14 lbs, above that, depending on the type of smoker you have, airflow, and consistent temp may be an issue.

2. If your cooking your bird on an offset cooker, consider putting cheese cloth over top of the turkey while it cooks. This will prevent ash and creosote from ruining your Thanksgiving Turkey.

3. Last, but certainly not least, be very careful with the smoke. Turkey is a very mild flavor, so a very light smoke is all it needs.

Below is a segment from my DVD “Backyard BBQ with HomeBBQ.com”, this segment is fixing Turkey. The video itself is from my channel on YouTube.. Enjoy!

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The HomeBBQ.com DVD’s can be purchased through www.homebbqvideo.com or Amazon.com

Getting Ready for Grant, and a Few Other Things

As I try to shake the rust off, get the cookers cleaned, the trailer ready, meats lined up.  We are cooking  next weekend (9-27-08) at the Grant BBQ Fest in Grant, FL.  If you are anywhere within driving distance to Grant Florida next weekend. This is one contest, you really should not miss.  This is the same organizers of the famous Seafood Fest that is put on every year in Grant.

As always there will be a very strong lineup of teams trying to win this contest, and the chance to get invited to the Jack Daniels Invitational.

 This contest also benifits a great cause, and that is Toys For Kids. There will be plenty of activities for kids, live music, and lots of BBQ to eat, as in this event many teams will be selling their BBQ, and the proceeds goes to this great cause.

 As I said before. If your anywhere within driving distance to this contest, come over next weekend and check it out, and make sure you stop by us and say hi. You can find out more information about this event here http://www.grantbbqfest.com/

Not too often will you see me discuss outside of the realm of BBQ, but today you will. Those that know me, know that music is and always has been a big part of my life. And, for those that have known me for a long time know, that several years back (in the late 70’s, and early 80’s) a friend of mine named Al Brodie and myself, ran a small sound and lighting company, and in doing the sound and lighting for some small, and and even a couple of very well known groups. We also spent much time trying to promote local talent, and it was always exciting when you came accross an individual that you knew was something special.

But, back then was nothing like today, many very special talents went undiscovered. Where today, we have the internet, and something called reality TV shows.

There are 2 in particular that have really stepped into the forefront, and those shows are American Idol, and America’s Got Talent. I really enjoy these shows, because it really allows you to see some real raw talent, develop into stars.  America’s Got Talent will be showcasing their Final’s for 2008 next week, and they have the strongest top 5 field they have had since the show started. There are at least 3 (and maybe 4) of the top 5 that have the potential to become superstars.

There are 2 acts I believe, have separated themselves from a very talented top 5, and in my opinion they are Nuttin’ But Strings, who bring incredible originality, and entertainment value to their act.

And my favorite in this competition is a young man by the name of Eli Mattson. Eli is truelly something special, a cross somewhere between Billy Joel, Elton John, Bruce Hornsby, and some Eddie Vedder mixed in, has shown he can take you on a journey into a song, like very few can. Good luck next week Eli, its time to become a champion, and good luck as well to the rest of the top 5 in this competition.

I will leave you with a very special performance given by Eli, on America’s Got Talent.

What Appeared to be Becoming Fiction, is Now Reality

For over a year I have been talking about it, and almost 9 month’s ago, they were filmed, and now they are a reality. As of today, Grilling With HomeBBQ.com and Backyard BBQ with HomeBBQ.com are officially available for sale, and shipment.

At the begining of January, I sent out a notice to all of my loyal customers letting them know they could purchase the DVD’s, pre-release at a substancial discount. Many purchased them, the unfortunate thing was, they were not ready until now. I deeply apologize to those who have been waiting patiently for these, this is something I am brand new to, and had no idea what obstacles I was about to face. I have lots of boxes outside my front door right now waiting for USPS to pick up, and they are finally on their way to you.

The DVDs are initially being made available through CreateSpace.com’s on Demand program, and are now also available through Amazon.com, the product ASIN’s at Amazon are as follows;
Grilling With HomeBBQ.com - B001DKY3H2
Backyard Barbecue with HomeBBQ.com - B001DL1DKG

You can purchase them directly through CreateSpace.com here;
Grilling with HomeBBQ.com - http://www.createspace.com/252519
Backyard BBQ with HomeBBQ.com - http://www.createspace.com/252518 

In about 3 to 4 weeks, they will also be available through Amazon’s Unbox. This is an exiting time for us, and hope you thouroughly enjoy these DVDs.

Another Year Gone By

Well Folks, today is my birthday, so I figured it would be a good time for a post. But it’s also a good time to wish my twin brother Happy Birthday. I will bet many who know me never knew I had a twin brother, but I do.

So here goes, Happy Birthday Keith, I hope we both have many more!

Just like the title says, it’s another year gone by and as a famous phrase from one of my favorite movies says “they go by in a blink”.

It has been a very interesting year, some good times, and some not so good times. But you have to take the bad with the good, and make the best out of it. My brother and I are 48 years young today (I couldn’t find a picture made with 48 candles).

I have been working hard on getting 2 DVDs released, and am just about finally going to get there (for those that have purchased the pre-release, I am expecting to have yours to ship to you within a couple of weeks, and they will include everything I promised).

The DVD’s are; Backyard Barbecue with HomeBBQ.com and Grilling with HomeBBQ.com.

For those that have not purchased the pre-release they will be initially for sale through Amazon and CreateSpace.com. I hope to have them in volume to be selling them myself, and in normal distribution channels in the not so distant future. One thing I did find out, is this is not an easy thing to do, and definately not an inexpensive project to undertake.

I want to thank Rennie Knopf of Elite Video & Recording, and FK & Cindy Whited, it would not have been possible to get these done without them.

They were filmed in December of last year, at the beautiful home of FK & Cindy Whited, and we initially projected a release in February of this year. This was extremely aggressive as we found out, and have been plugging through set-back, after set-back. This appears to be behind us now, and we will finally get them released.

We will also be exploring some digital distribution options as well, and will keep you updated here on that as well.

Until next time!

Getting back in the swing of things?

I’m glad to have the blog type of format back on my site, some may remember a few years back when I actually had a blog…

I would like to talk about somethig that has effected us a great deal this year, in the amount of competitions we would normally do, and that is the price of fuel, diesel specifically.

During the summer months we would normally do a minimum of 3 to 4 contests outside of Florida (Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama), during July and August, and this year it will be zero. At $0.60+ cents a mile to tow that trailer, who can afford that? I sure can’t.This has to be at least starting to hurt some contests, especially the ones that don’t have alot of teams real close to them.

But the fuel cost is effecting everything you buy right now. Just about everything moves on a truck, and the cost of diesel is driving, and will continue to drive freight prices through the roof.

But back to barbecue for a moment.. All the bbq competitors need to be concerned with some of the contests just going away, without teams, they can’t have an event, or at least not like they intended. BBQ contests for the most part (at least here in Florida), are good money generators for the charities they benefit. So what is the answer (besides our government, actually doing something about what would appear to be a super inflated price, driven by greed and speculation)?

For the competitors, it’s more prize money evenly spread accross the field, and giving more teams the opportunity to at least break even. But, this then puts alot of pressure on the organizers to increase those prize funds, to make their contests attractive to teams that travel. So, from the organizers stand point, they need more corporate sponsorship, and I’m not talking about Mom’s Garden shop down the street.

It’s about time Corporate America recognize that many charities benefit from what we do, and direct some of the marketing dollars they spend elsewhere into the competition bbq arena. Many contests would give them the same exposure they already get with those dollars, and they would also be able to benefit from the fact those dollars are used to generate income for charities.

Obviously, I would rather be at a competition right now, instead of complaining about why I can’t be at a competition. If your an organizer, and your reading this, think outside the box and take a stab at that big corporation as a sponsor. If your event is next year, you have about 4 to 5 months before those companies finalize those marketing dollars for 2009.

If your one of those large companies I’m talking about, then also think outside the box. Look at BBQ Contests as a viable way to spend those marketing dollars, and also creatively benefit your tax deductions, and then go that contest and eat some GOOD barbecue! And if your the Government reading this, then please, fix this rediculous problem!

Until next time!

Our New Website

Welcome to our new website, it has certainly been a challenge, getting this together. I apologize for the re-register and realize it has just been 2 1/2 years since we did this before, but this was something that needed to be done to keep up with the times.

The cut-over to the new site was premature, do due several sql injection attacks on my site. However we will be working while your using the new site.

Many new features here, that I think you will enjoy. We have multiple authors which is spelled out in the News article a little clearer.

This web site is now capable of all the new blogging and social craze going on with the web. I hope you enjoy the new site!