The Real Deal......

This past weekend during the 4th we decided to fire up the pit at the Lake house and invited over the family to hang out for the day. We had about 43 family members show up in all and I can honestly say that it was one of the most memorable 4th's I have had in a long time. Something most BBQ experts will tell you is that you never leave your post while cooking BBQ. With that being said I got to watch everyone play in the lake and on the boat while I sweated bullets trying to make sure the temp didn't spike etc...I really enjoy cooking for people as it releaves stress and gives me a since of accomplishment when folk's go out of their way to commend you for your efforts. Overall I would have to say that I enjoy cooking "Pit BBQ" more than any other BBQ even more than with competition rig. There's nothing like the flavor of good pit smoked BBQ and that's exactly what we had.

Here are some pic's of our meal. We wound up doing 2 Briskets, 6 slabs of Beef ribs, 3 rack's of Baby back's, 9 links of polish sausage, and 24 chicken thighs.








Patty and the kids and I arrived in Brownwood Friday morning. My parents, sister, and my brother and his family arrived Thursday evening to start getting everything ready for the weekends festivities. We were without a dock up until Friday evening but the guy's that were working on the new one went ahead and brought it over and secured it so we would be able to fish and take out the boat. The last one we had was destroyed in the recent tornado, however the "Pit" didn't get a scratch. We all went out to eat Friday night and went ahead and celebrated my birthday at the restaurant and afterwords went back to the house and watched a few Friday night fireworks. After the fireworks the work began and I started prepping all the meat. My brother stayed up with me until 2:00 AM until the Briskets were put on and decided to go ahead and call it a night. Since dinner was set for 5 PM the next day I had to make sure they were done so we had to put them on the night before.

Everyone showed up around 10:00 Saturday morning and had a great time. It's always nice to spend the day with your family even if you don't always get to relax and play like everyone else.