This is the fourth in a twelve week series where we are unveiling the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas, which highlights our twelve favorite Christmas gift ideas for the barbecue lover in your life!

On the fourth day of BBQ Christmas,
my true BBQ love sent to me
A KCBS Membership

The world of barbecue would be a different place if the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) hadn’t been founded and a membership is sure to change your BBQ lovers perspective on their BBQ world instantly!

KCBS is the premier BBQ organizations in America and sponsors hundreds of barbecue related events and competitions throughout the year in America and a number of foreign countries. The mission of KCBS is to celebrate, teach, preserve and promote barbeque as a culinary technique, sport and art form. By becoming a member your BBQ lover will be on the fast track to becoming the next great pitmaster.

KCBS membership comes with many benefits including the privilege of attending judging classes all over the country in which you will learn how to grade world-class chicken, pork, ribs and brisket – and taste them during the process!

Upon joining KCBS you will also receive:

· 10% off from Harry & David

· 15% discounts off published rates at all Choice Hotels

· The official KCBS monthly newsletter, “The Bullsheet”

· Quarterly specials from KCBSgear.com, the official online source for KCBS merchandise

Members also gain access to members only features on the KCBS website like BBQ recipes and additional discounts. An individual membership is $35 and a family membership is $50 for one year.

Check back next week when we unveil what our true BBQ love is giving on the fifth day of BBQ Christmas!! Here is a hint – Where there is smoke there is flavor!!

Don’t forget what we recommended in previous posts on the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas:

On the first day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A Weber Charcoal Chimney Starter.

On the second day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A Thermapen.

On the third day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A PIGTAIL Food Flipper.

This is the third in a twelve week series where we are unveiling the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas, which highlights our twelve favorite Christmas gift ideas for the barbecue lover in  your life!

On the second day of BBQ Christmas,
my true BBQ love sent to me
A PigTailFood Flipper 

If it’s between 11:30 and noon at a BBQ contest you can be certain that the Pork Barrel BBQ competition BBQ team has their PigTail Food Flipper out and in full use during our chicken prep. The PigTail Food Flipper is a simple, but incredibly useful tool that eliminates much of the hassles of moving and turning food on your grill or smoker. The PigTail’s sharp spiraled snare enables any pitmaster to lightly move or flip their food by lightly piercing the edge of the food and flicking your wrist.

The PigTail Food Flipper does not bleed or bruise meats and can handle anything from a brisket to a hot dog! It comes in two sizes, a 19-inch and a 12-inch. The PigTail Food Flipper 12-inch model retails for $12.95, the 19-inch model retails for $16.95 or you can buy a set for as low as $24.95, which makes for an affordable, yet surely appreciated gift for any BBQ lover!

Check back next week when we unveil what our true BBQ love is giving on the fourth day of BBQ Christmas!! Here is a hint- Membership is a must!

Don’t forget what we recommended in previous posts on the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas:

On the first day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A Weber Charcoal Chimney Starter.

On the second day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A Thermapen. 

This is the second in a twelve week series where we are unveiling the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas, which highlights our twelve favorite Christmas gift ideas for the barbecue lover in  your life!

On the second day of BBQ Christmas,
my true BBQ love sent to me
A Thermapen 

You won’t find Pork Barrel BBQ near a smoker or grill without the trusted Thermapen in hand. The Thermapen is simply the fastest and most accurate thermometer on the market. This amazing product yields accuracies better than plus or minus 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit and provides temperature readings in 3 seconds! That’s what we call fast and accurate – two important features any seasoned pitmaster requires!

The Thermapen is also simple to use. Simply open the probe from the body and the temperature gage comes on. Ready to put it away? Simply close the probe inside the body and it turns off and is protected and ready for it’s next use.

A commercial thermometer of this quality and accuracy would normally cost you $200-$300. The Thermapen is just $89.00 (right now you can buy two for $160). This is a great price for an essential BBQ tool that will last you many years with proper care!

View our Memphis in May interview with the guys who make the awesome Thermapen here.

Check back next week when we unveil what our true BBQ love is giving on the third day of BBQ Christmas!! Here is a hint – it is found on the back end of a pig!

Don’t forget what we recommended in previous posts on the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas:

On the first day of Christmas, my true BBQ love gave to me A Weber Charcoal Chimney Starter.

Over the next twelve week’s we will be unveiling the Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to a BBQ Christmas which will highlight our twelve favorite gift ideas for the barbecue lover in your life!

On the first day of BBQ Christmas,
my true BBQ love sent to me
A Weber Charcoal Chimney Starter

If the barbecue lover in your life wants to become the next great pitmaster it’s time you encouraged them to throw out the lighter fluid and begin lighting their charcoal the way the pros do with a charcoal chimney.

What’s a charcoal chimney you ask?  A charcoal chimney lets you quickly light charcoal without having to use any lighter fluid, ensuring from the start that your food tastes like food and not lighter fluid! Now that is a good thing! 

To use the charcoal chimney you simply place newspaper in the bottom compartment of the chimney and fill the top compartment with charcoal and light the newspaper through the vents at the bottom.  A short 15 minutes later your charcoal is ready for cooking! 

There are several benefits to lighting your charcoal this way: 1) its faster – you’ll have hot coals in an instant; 2) there is no need for lighter fluid – meaning your food won’t taste like chemicals.  Bottom line – you’re cooking faster and it tastes better!  A charcoal chimney will cost between $15 and $20 and will last for three to five BBQ seasons depending on how frequently you use it making it an awesome stocking stuffer or Christmas gift. Add in the fact that you’ll be eating tastier food next year and it’s like you’re giving yourself a gift too!!

Check back next week when we unveil what our true BBQ love is sending on the second day of BBQ Christmas!! Here is a hint – looks like the temperature is just right on that brisket!

Life is nothing more than a bunch of memories – past, present or waiting to happen? Over the course of our lives we’ll have thousands, if not tens of thousands of them. Some will be good and others will be bad. Although they will all illicit different emotions and reactions, they all will illicit emotions and reactions and contribute to the making of new memories. Sometimes our memories mislead us – in those rare moments when we get to relive a memory we often realize it wasn’t as great as we had remembered. Case in point – the McRib sandwich.

Today, McDonald’s is banking on the fact that hundreds of thousands of us will dust off old memories of happier times – times when we believed barbecue could come in the form of a rib sandwich, or better said, a rib sandwich that contained no ribs. That’s right, McDonald’s will answer the call of countless McRib loving fans across the country by once again offering its McRib sandwich at all of its U.S. stores. The fact that the McRib is once again for sale from coast to coast and boarder to boarder is the bad news. The silver lining, if one can be found, is that this smoke and mirrors “rib” sandwich will only be offered for the next six weeks.

I can understand as well as anyone the emotions that can be brought about by food, especially food that I once enjoyed on frequent occasions that can’t be had at the drop of hat today. Over the course of my 36 years on this planet there have been more times than I can count where I craved a certain food so much that the pain in my stomach wasn’t solely caused by the hunger of an empty stomach. Be it Wheel Inn’s Goober Burger that I ate as a kid growing up in Sedalia, Missouri, or my Mom’s homemade fried chicken – I can relate to a food need so bad that if I had to wait 16 years (this is the first time in 16 years that the McRib has been available at all McDonald’s in the U.S.) I too would have stood in line like I was trying to get one of the two $15 50-inch HD TV’s on Black Friday. But those were good memories of good food. How can anyone feel this way about a piece of mystery meat that is formed into a patty that is a sorry excuse for an attempt to look like ribs?

As a kid I grew up in a barbecue family – my Dad would grill or smoke meats in the winter, spring, summer and fall in the sun, wind, rain, or snow – too me, he is the Post Office of Barbecue, no matter the time of year or weather he’d delivery great barbecue to our dinner plates! I suppose my early exposure to real barbecue allowed me to never venture down the path towards fake barbecue – namely, the McRib. Knowing that so many folks didn’t have the luxury of growing up in a rich tradition of barbecue I still have to ask myself how anyone could find themselves lost on the McRib path? There are so many amazing barbecue joints in this country in every nook and cranny of the 50 states that sever authentic barbecue – ribs, brisket, chicken, pork, sausages…you name it they serve it and its all real!!!

There is a time and place for fast food – thankfully we don’t have to settle for fast and fake!!! We can walk into the thousands of barbecue joints across this country and make ourselves a memory that we won’t regret reliving down the road. A memory that will leave pains in our stomachs because we want nothing more than a real slab of ribs from our favorite barbecue shack!!! Do yourself and barbecue a faovr over the next six weeks. If you get the craving for a McRib over the next six weeks, get in your car and drive to the closest barbecue joint in your area and support “real barbecue” by buying a slab of ribs.

You’ve got to ask yourself one final question – can anything really be that good if a giant in the food industry like McDonald’s keeps it off of its national menu for 16 years? Now go out and support real barbecue and get a great meal at the same time!!!

First, although we have never attempted to grill on a shopping cart grill we do commend you for your creativity. We understand as well as anyone that when you get the itch to grill the only thing that can stop that itch is to grill. I suppose there might be times when this itch occurs at a time that you don’t have access to a more typical grill choice like a Weber, hence the reason you’ve got to reach for the shopping cart grill.

Second, if one does decide to grill on a shopping cart grill we believe the person grilling in this picture has gotten it right. We would advise against using a direct grilling method where you put meat or vegetables directly on the cart – always use a pan or stick as demonstrated in this picture to avoid direct contact with the shopping cart. If possible, you might want to give the shopping cart grill a good cleaning before you christen it with its inaugural grilling session.

Third, it is probably advisable to remove all plastic from the cart before you begin to grill. Notice in this picture that there is still plastic attached to the handle and seat. Assuming the fire gets hot enough the individuals dining on this griller’s dish might get the unpleasant surprise of some melted plastic in their meal. Better to be safe than sorry so take the five minutes needed to remove all plastic before use.

So if you’ve got the itch to grill and you find yourself in a pinch without a more conventional grill choice and you happen to have a shopping cart handy you might be able to scratch that itch away. With that being said, we here at Pork Barrel BBQ would advise against it and suggest you just wait until you get back home and use the more conventional options.

If you’ve got funny or interesting pictures of grills or other BBQ tools send them to us at porkbarrelbbq@gmail.com and we’ll post them on the blog.