The Backyard Chef

As a wedding present to myself, I ordered a custom smoker from BBQ Pits by Klose in Houston, TX. As I mentioned in a previous post, some people describe Klose pits as the Rolls Royce of the 'cue world. You may have seen David on the television program BIG on the Discovery Channel, in which he made the world's tallest BBQ grill. Pretty cool, though they depicted Dave as a bit of a talker and (ironic...?) tall tale teller extraordinaire.

Anywho, the Backyard Chef (BYC) is the cooker that I ordered. It is a 20" deep, 48" horizontal grill w/ one and a half shelves that has a built in 24" X 24" vertical slow smoker with three shelves for holding foods or, duh, slow smoking. It comes on 8" tires w/ the addition of a propane burner in the firebox that enables me to cook over gas and/or charcoal/wood. The pit is individually hand welded by one builder out of 1/4" steel (except for the firebox where the wood is burned, that's 1/2" steel). The total weight of this thing is about 1,000lbs approximately. Imagine the shipping cost on that thing from Houston to New York City.

I will be able to cook up a mess of grub on this thing-- for perspective, on my current cooker which is about 18" deep and 30" wide, I'm able to cook a 12lb brisket, 13lb turkey and 10lb ham all at the same time, w/ a little room to spare. The new cooker is much bigger-- you do the math.

I'm as anxious as a kid in a candy store. The pit won't be here till spring, but it's the number one topic of talk for me, my brother and the cue makers in our midst. When my friend Robbie of Big Island Bar-b-que did the catering for my wedding, we spent alot of time daydreaming about the BYC-- though, he has a Lang 84 Deluxe and it doesn't seem to hold him back. His team was the first from NYC to ever be invited to cook at the Jack Daniels Invitational