BBQ smoking as relaxation
For a very long time, cooking was a mystery to me. Though I'm still far from being a master chef, my journey began with understanding why. Cooking was traditionally the domain of mothers and grandmothers in our family. This is a typical experience for many Generation Y children as far as I can see. Across generations, traditional gender roles dictated that women managed household cooking while men focused on other responsibilities. No one in my family considered it important to teach young men how to cook and care for their family through meal preparation.
The entire process seemed so intimidating that I was too afraid to even attempt it. Fearful of making mistakes, I avoided cooking altogether. Everything changed when my stepfather invited me to help cook during Christmas.
Soups for starters
I was fascinated with camp fires from my earliest memories. We started with roasting bacon as kids at our grandmothers' garden. Then came cooking various dishes in a cauldron over real wood to produce that unmistakable smokey flavor. When I started to build my own life in tiny apartments, I tried to recreate that feeling with an electric compact grill. I think you can imagine how different it was from the original, not even close. So the real solution had to wait.
Before that, I had to learn to cook first. I had to believe that I could actually prepare edible dishes. Then step it up to enjoyable ones. I started with the absolute basics: eggs. But for real. I was completely lost when it came to cooking, living off the meals my mother prepared when I visited them on weekends. Once those ran out, I'd usually order a pizza and call it a day. I had a long way to come, you see. With my precise financial tracking, I quickly realized how unsustainable this was. I needed a real solution. So I dove into basic soups and whatever fried dishes I could manage.
Once you know how easy soups are, the process becomes like second nature. But at first? Totally incomprehensible. How do you even chop things up? What about spices? How long should this cook? So many questions, and no cookbook in sight. Back then, my laptop was just for gaming and music - searching for recipes wasn't something that came naturally. It turned out that I was so wrong. I found tons of websites with recipes for every skill level, from total beginner to wannabe chef. I just needed a bit of courage to actually get started.
Seasoning & patience
I went to the nearby supermarket, bought all the necessary ingredients and tools I was missing, and I headed back to the kitchen to start chopping. At first I was miserable, second guessing every move. Shouldn't I cut this shorter or into smaller pieces? Did I buy enough of a given ingredient to prepare a tasty dish that I'd actually like? Isn't it going to be too salty? I let every doubt go and put everything into the pot, pouring in the necessary amount of water. It started to boil and then, nothing. I mean, I was so excited that I couldn't be patient.
That's one of the biggest lessons of cooking for me. Learning to become patient and somewhat precise with timings. I wasn't. I couldn't wait for anything. I was either racing through life or completely stuck. So waiting for a soup to boil, then turning down the heat and letting it cook evenly seemed to last forever. I was nervous. I wanted to get it right the first time. I wanted to be proud of myself, to achieve perfection on my first try. High standards and even higher expectations.
If I remember correctly, I was so scattered that I forgot a key activity: tasting. I completely missed that I could gather feedback instantly right on the spot. As the timer ran down, I switched everything off and presented a nice bowl of steaming soup to myself. I was ready. I lifted the first spoonful to my mouth, excitement peaking, and then came the realization. Its taste was as dull as anything I'd ever eaten. The culprit? Missing seasoning. Not that I forgot it completely, I'd just criminally underdone it, following a recipe that wasn't made for my taste. And that was nobody's fault. I was inexperienced and didn't know much about discovering my own flavor preferences.
You cannot prepare something that's right if you don't know what right is and how it could be built up piece by piece. You have to experience those pieces in a process to become able to reconstruct it. To achieve that, you have to start doing and experiment with the ingredients to figure out your own taste. Then capture that so you can circle back later to make adjustments.
Reigniting old flames
After a decade of cooking and countless delicious meals, I dreamed up this romantic notion. I craved the experience of cooking outdoors, even if it was freezing cold. I loved the meats I'd prepared on my little compact grill and had grown to appreciate proper grilling. So I started wondering: What's even more challenging, in a good way? How can I get even more involved? The answer was warm smoking.
When we moved into a house with a garden, it seemed the perfect time to start experimenting. I'd been lucky enough to try long-smoked dishes before so I thought to myself: ‘It can be that difficult right?’. I wasn’t right this time either. The first challenge was research: finding a beginner-level, budget-friendly smoker. Turns out, that's basically non-existent, so I stuck with the most affordable option to start learning. Challenge number two? Fuel.
Not all wood works for smoking. Mainly fruit and nut trees are recommended. Pine? Don't even think about it. Related to that, how do you even get the right wood? It's not like I have a forest in my backyard, and I'd never bought smoking wood before. The wood can't be freshly cut, those chunks are still wet inside, which ruins the whole smoking process. These days, you can buy anything online, but it wasn't as straightforward as I thought. And don't even get me started on charcoal versus briquettes. It was a way deeper rabbit hole than I'd anticipated.
As I was conducting my research, my birthday started to get close. I promised myself that would be my deadline, I wanted to have everything figured out by then. Come my birthday, I was watching the last videos in the garden next to the offset smoker, trying to understand how to manage fires in such a device. Excellent!
The act of keeping the fire alive
Getting started is pretty simple. I purchased a charcoal chimney which makes it foolproof. Once that's done, I just have to wait for the briquettes to get properly ignited, that takes around 30 minutes. The ignited bunch goes in, then comes the firewood to get going as well. I just need to get it burning right so I can avoid that unwanted thick white combustion smoke, and trust me, that's not what you want. That would give you that bitter smoke flavor. So far, so good.
One caveat though I learned recently: ambient temperature matters, like a lot! When I started experimenting, it was spring, and I kept learning throughout the summer, which meant T-shirt weather for most occasions. This meant the bigger challenge was how to not overheat the smoker and burn through fuel too quickly, or turn smoking into grilling. During my most recent attempt, I could finally try my hand at smoking in cold weather.
Finding the balance
There's a delicate dance of keeping the right sustained temperature in the smoke chamber while also producing that perfect, thin bluish smoke. Way harder to do than I thought at first. Your only options are the amount of burning fuel and the air you let through. These two need to be balanced throughout the smoking process and will be altered by ambient temperatures. During warmer times, I could easily get away with less fuel, but as it was freezing outside, I had to overcome a much bigger temperature difference.
I'll be honest, it was frustrating at first. I tried to be moderate with the fuel because I didn't know how the smoker would react, having only experienced its behavior during summer. This resulted in me underdoing it, so I had to constantly battle the unwanted thick smoke. After I became fully frustrated, I tried going overboard compared to what I'd normally use. And voilà, I finally found the sweet spot. It was properly satisfying.
There's one rule I forgot to mention so far: no peeking in the smoke chamber where the meats are. That could mean losing all the precious and delicious smoke I worked so hard for. This means complete free fall and needing to trust the process entirely. If a given type of meat requires 3 hours, then 3. If more, that's your mark. It's nerve-wracking, as I build up the smoke, I tend to build expectations and tension as well. I want it to turn out good.
Because of all this, I kept a very close eye on the fire and the type of smoke I was producing. It involved me in a way I thought was behind me. Before presenting what I made, I had no idea how well it'd turn out. It was a complete surprise to me when I first cut into it on my plate. To my biggest shock, it was one of the best prepared meal in the smoker!
The whole might sound tiresome and it is, as I’m still learning how to achieve the best possible results and I’m learning by doing. That’s kind of the point for me, as this is the best part of anything that I learn. Where everything is so new and seemingly complicated that it requires my full attention. I cannot switch to autopilot and just lay back. When I get this involved, my mind relaxes like crazy and that part is worth everything to me.
The truly best part
Another surprise? The family absolutely loved it. Honestly, that's a big part of why I chose this cooking method. I wanted to create a unique experience at home, something that requires attention and can be shared together. There's nothing quite like seeing everyone gathered around, enjoying a meal that took time and care to prepare. I'm deeply happy when a dish turns out well and everyone's enjoying what they're eating.
This all comes back to my love of serving others. I love having fun in the kitchen, but even more, I love the pure joy of seeing my family happy. Even if it's just that rare smoked meat making an appearance on our dinner table.
It’s perfectly okay to ask for support. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. While I believe everyone is their own best expert, I’m also a big believer in asking for help to create change together. It’s comforting to have someone by our side as we go through transitions. If you’re feeling motivated to expand your comfort zone and curious about how I can support you on your journey, let’s talk.
