January 29, 2004. Didn't do to bad today. Probably the best Thursday I can remember. Nothing great but almost twice as much as other best Thursdays. Nice thing was is was kind of a steady pace.
Found out something about the Brunswick Stew while I was at Sam's Club talking to 2 of the meat cutters, one was Mark with the new Klose. Paul mentioned about a recipe he has for the stew that everything is out of a can, all the meats and everything else. Mark said it is so good that he could hardly tell the difference from his own. I also know someone that claims his wife's stew, also made the same way, is the best. Crayton, the mechanic, said he had hers but mine was better. But the 2 meat cutters brought to my attention an ingredient they both use that I don't, barbeque sauce! We figured roughly how much sauce per gallon of stew. When I got home and put everything up from shopping I went to work on the stew. I took several samples to Crayton and his employees...all of them liked the new better! I brought some to a county office where one of the inspectors has been frequenting my bbq lately. Not the inspector that bought the whole butt a month ago and several racks of ribs last week. He had just picked up his young son from school of whom had a rather ravenous appetite at that moment and seems to like my bbq quite a bit. This particular inspector used to reside in Brunswick, GA where they have stew cook offs! He loves bbq and stew so who would be a better judge. It took him a while to decide which was better although I didn't have the old to compare with. His son loved it!
I left another container for someone else in the same building that has never tried my food but after I thought about doing that that evening I really thought it may have been a stupid thing to do. I left it for the Environmental Health Inspector! Gees it is like I am inviting her to inspect me. I've known her for several years and my first thought was since I am here at the county building I'd like her to try a bit of my food. She really is a really neat women and a very fair inspector. She is definitely not out to get people but to help and insure food safety. She hasn't inspected me in quite a while because she said she hasn't had any complaints and is extremely busy in the county. Anyway I called her this morning and when I identified myself she almost screamed at me "that was the best Brunswick Stew I have ever had"! After some conversation I realized she just wasn't just being a nice person but she really meant it. Then I said to her "you know I think I really made a bad mistake" She then got real quiet and serious and asked "what do you mean", like I had done something bad that concerned her department. I said to her that I was teasing her with my product and now that she likes it she'll come and visit me and inspect me. She thought that was humorous. Even so I may have put my hand up and volunteered, something I was taught never to do when I was in the USAF. Oh well! Stupid me! I must be one of those people that like danger and is always looking for it.
Went back to Sam's ribs. They were $1.51/pound for cases. I was buying from Milton's frozen St. Louis style for $2.37 then about 4 weeks ago they went up to $2.67. After trimming the Sam's IBP ribs I thought the Milton's ribs were worth while but not now. I am going to try selling the ribs without the skirt, or flap, but leave the rest of the bone and cartilage. I'll use the skirt that I trim off for the stew. For a while I used to buy Sam's ribs and trimmed them St. Louis style and Kansas City style. We'll see what the customers say...they'll be getting more per rib!
January 26, 2004. I changed the date below. I wrote that on Saturday evening the 24th, I had the 23rd as the date.
Well here it is Monday morning and everything is frozen with ice. We had a mild ice storm yesterday as predicted. I didn't prepare to open yesterday and didn't although I was in the "Q" almost all day messing around cooking for me cooking for my friends and rearranging this and that. I opened the windows but never turned on the OPEN sign. Traffic was light all day due to the frozen precipitation that began by nearly noon. No one came a knocking!
I did 4 chickens yesterday all cut into halves. I put 2 on each shelf and turned 1 skin up and 1 skin down to see what would happen. I have never cooked chicken on any other shelf but the bottom. The manufacture suggests to use the bottom rack for chicken...not sure exactly why because the heat is fairly consistent throughout the oven. The moderator of the Cook Shack/Fast Eddy, a new forum, did a thorough mapping of the oven temperatures. Here is a link to that post so you can read his explanation. It is the 4th post down written by SmokinOkie. The results were that all the chickens were all done about the same time and they all looked about the same. The very top shelf chickens skin were drier on the outside because they were not being basted by chickens above them. I didn't check closely enough to see if skin up or down made a difference, however I have always noticed that there is always a pool of liquid sitting on the chicken when skin side down! No doubt the skin holds the liquid, which is what is supposed to occur, and does create a very moist meat. Things were in kind of a rush because the weather was deteriorating so rapidly. Tommy didn't come get his chicken because of the roads and I wasn't very hungry to taste mine. Crayton, a mechanic, came and got his, he is only a 1 minute away. Crayton called me after he had eaten and we discussed the outcome. He and his family loved them once again. I gave him a whole chicken a few days ago as bait! He had told Tommy it was the best chicken he had ever eaten! He said the skin was perfect, they were juicy, and overall great. I thought perhaps I went a little heavy on the rub. He thought maybe a little less next time. Crayton's chickens were the 1st chickens I have prepared for sale. He paid $14.00 for the 2 of them. I think $7.50 for a whole chicken and $4.00 for a half would be a fair price to the public.
Speaking of pricing. I think when I do my next menu I'll price everything to end with $.99 or $.95. I wanted to do that from the beginning but Tommy talked me out of it. He also wanted the whole dollar price to include sales tax. I absolutely refused that. He says the $.99 thing is a waste of time that people know. Yes I told them they know but they don't think about it. When we see $4.99 we think $4.00. Shortly after that there were many times he would point out to me a price of something such as $4.49 and he would say it was only $4.00. Just like when we look at the price of gasoline. $1.439 we say $1.43! He finally shut up about that, never agreed with me but did shut up!
January 24, 2004. Today was wonderful...like getting back to normal or even better. Normal is what I considered before the disaster of the holidays. Beginning with Thanksgiving everything was down hill with little customer activity. I was told it'll be at least into the middle of January before things will come back...that statement was right on plus the word of mouth is now noticeably working. It is still pyramiding. I am getting many new customers more than ever and still more and more returns. Today was close to the best day. Yesterday was good, Thursday wasn't so good but that was surely due to bad weather. Tomorrow is going to be a bust for sure. The low tonight here is about 41*F at 7 AM which is when it begins to warm. Not tomorrow! The temperature will continue down to about 36*F with rain and ice pellets...all day! The high and low are 36*F! I was still in the black this last week by $4.24! That is after all my personal expenses, in other words $4.24 is what I had left in the bank after everything. But it looks like next week should show some profit. I need $300 for rent by the 1st and $121 for another bill by the 27th of this month. I have grossed $384 up to today. I'll need to spend some for stock and surely I'll make enough by the 1st and hopefully some profit. I did receive $910 for my ham radio from the eBay auction but that doesn't count and I'll try not to use it.
Sold almost 2 gallons of tea today. It cost for the raw materials about 65 cents to make 2.5 to 3 gallons and I sell it for $1.00 per 20 ounce cup. Nice profit! I have quite a few comments of how good the tea is. It is real brewed Luzzane.
Had another visitor from The BBQ Forum several days ago. It was a Steve W. He bought 10 bags of hickory pellets from me. He has ordered a CS/FE100 and was expecting it to be shipped a few days ago. He is from Charlotte, NC and travels on business to Atlanta frequently. He usually flies both ways but this time he rented a large automobile in Atlanta so he could stop on his way back here on his way home. We had a very enjoyable chat. Hopefully we'll here from him soon on one of the bbq forums.
Have an idea to attract more business. Next Sunday, a week, is Super Bowl weekend. Thought about putting a special on my arrow sign offering on that Sunday only a pound of pork for $5.50 instead of the regular $7 per lb. By the way my menu that you can view above has a few changes for quite awhile. One is that the price of a pork plate is $6.00 and a rib plate is $6.25. I think the rib plate is still a little low. Brunswick Stew is $2.50 for an 8 ounce cup and $4.50 for a 16 ounce bowl. Also the stew can be a side but that is an additional 50 cents for the cost of any plate. And...anybody got any ideas for an Atkins' bbq plate? Its meat and that's the very popular Atkins' diet food! What can I use for sides? Maybe cucumber spears and tomato wedges with radishes or slices of onions? I guess I need to look at the Atkins' book I gave Tommy of whom is not using it! Says it is to complicated. At least he has been buying Lean Cuisine frozen foods lately.
Since I put the costs of all three plates on the arrow sign there has been a noticeable increase in rib plates. I suppose when people see the sign the suggestion of ribs hits home! Cool! See there, I think I am getting a little hang of this entrepreneur stuff!
I put some sort of chemical in my RV holding tank to see if that'll help the previously mentioned problem. No success yet!
The heater in the "smurf mobile" has improved 10 times over since I finally back flushed the heater core. I don't think it is 100 percent but the output is just about hot but not as hot as I think it should be. It'll do fine as it is I am sure. If not I can buy an acid flush expressly for cleaning any crud that builds up in the entire cooling and heating system. But you have to save your old antifreeze or replace it. It's system is so small I may just replace it if I ever do it. I drove to Sam's, a 70 mile round trip, and to my friend JOe's in the NC mountains, a normal 120 mile round trip but I detoured about an additional 30 miles to drive through the beautiful back highways on the way back. After those miles and the additional miles I drive locally I fueled up today with 321 miles on the trip meter. It took 9.38 gallons to fill it! That's about 34 miles to the gallon. Gas here has gone up to $1.439 just lately for regular unleaded 87 octane. Seems like only a week ago it was $1.329. Go figure! If I am correct Georgia now has the lowest state taxes on fuels. Wyoming used to be the lowest until recently. However there are still a few cheaper prices sometimes in OK, TX and MO. If you'd like to check fuel pricing on a daily basis of a country wide retail fuel supplier go to this Flying J link. I used to check it all the time while on the road to make sure I knew what I should be paying if I couldn't get to one of their truck stops. They almost always have the lowest priced fuels and a premium fuel at that. For truck diesel there was no using a credit or debit card because it costs them and then want to provide the lowest prices on diesel. Their gasoline's and RV diesel (which includes a free dump station at the fuel island) are as low as you can find but I am fairly certain you can use your plastic for those purchases.
January 19, 2004. Yesterday was nearly a bust! I got bored bored bored! Tommy called and ordered a rib plate for the ball games. And volunteered to pay for it! I took his money! Also the lady next door, Virginia the candy maker, bought a sandwich...that was it for all day since about noon. It had just stopped raining about 11 AM but remained heavy overcast almost all the rest of the day which again seems to keep people away. Tommy called me after the games and made the comment that his plate was wonderful and a ton of food. He is a big eater and had leftovers. He says when the people get hip to my food that I should have a goldmine! Many of my repeat customers have said the same about having enough leftover for another meal.
Today is the beginning of my weekend and I just may see how well my new little smurf mobile will do on a longer trip and take a drive deep into the mountains and visit my very dear friend JOe. I have left a weather station there that I would like to hook up here and put it on the Weather Underground web site. Its information will show up when someone looks for weather within a radius of my zip code. You may have noticed the new links I inserted above for the weather. You really need to check out the Weather Underground web site for a ton of interesting information. Also check out why Underground is their title. It beats the Weather Channel web site a thousand percent!
January 18, 2004. For the most part things have been going pretty smoothly. It appears the arrow sign has and seems to be helping. I finally changed some of the wording the other day. I have put the 3 plate menu items with prices. Someone came in and said they wanted the rib plate special. I hadn't stated anything about a special on the sign but if he thinks that, and it brought him in, then great!
There are definitely new people stopping now. They have said that they have been wanting to stop for quite awhile. Some just noticed the sign and some by word of the mouth. I think I stated before that word of the mouth works but it is with out a doubt slow. However...I see the pyramid effect taking place. Now after the holidays things are coming very close to back where they were before the holidays. Plus Thursday and Sunday, which had been both very slow days, are picking up to where I don't get so bored or bored at all. But today it had been raining and inclement weather does slow things way down. Perhaps the drive through window will help that problem. I still have no idea when I'll be able to built it though.
Uh oh, my alarm is now going off to pull out some butts in my smoker.
Ok I'm back. The butts are out and just resting kind of cooking their selves!
I feel confident after some of the cold nights and extended cold days and nights that there is no longer any worry about pipes freezing in the "Q" or RV trailers. I say cold...well for here it is cold when it get below freezing. And when it gets into the teens then that is really cold. Usually that only lasts 1 night at a time.
Been playing with chicken trying to get enough smoke flavor while getting the skin crisp or at least not rubbery. This is a task in a smoker. If they are cooked hot, 275*F and above, then they may lack smoke flavor but should have a very nice crisp skin. If slow, 225*F, then the skin may be rubbery but it'll be very juicy. Yesterday I brought the smoker to 350*F and when I put the chicken in on the bottom shelf, butterflied, skin side down, I turned the thermostat to 275*f and let it cook for about 1 hour then turned the heat wide open and let them cook for another 40 minutes. They really came out the best!
I had a visitor a couple of days ago. It was Mark, the meat cutter from Sam's Club with his new Klose smoker. Man what a beauty. Mark spent quite a bit of time with me, he drove that new toy of his about an hours drive to show it off to me. Now I can see why Klose has such a reputation, unbelievable welds, like a machine did them, maybe they do! Mark had ordered it with just about every option, I was very impressed with the gas setup. Not only is it for starting your logs but if you need supplementary heat you have it and it can be regulated. The fire box is a solid 1/2" thick steel! That ought to last several life times. It seemed with it parked in my driveway it was attracting some attention. Mark told me that there were one of my customers that stopped and checked his smoker out when they were leaving. He said one of them was very familiar with "The BBQ Forum". I wished I had known. Whomever you are and are reading this kindly email me or get my attention on the forum, or identify yourself the next time you come by, please! Hopefully he liked it enough that he'll come back! I am quite surprised at how many people everywhere know about the forum but they never write anything, they're just observers taking advantage of all the info that passes there.
Mark's favorite item of the whole thing, almost $5000 worth, is a real pretty plaque permanently set on the front of the smoker reading from where and who it was built by and for whom! By the way, he drove all the way to Houston, Texas to pull it home.
January 8, 2004. Been really cold but nothing has frozen in the 2 trailers. Been able to keep the "Q" trailer no colder than about 53*F when it got down to 15*F the other night. I have been using a small 1500 watt portable electric heater that was given to me by JOe a month ago or so. I think I have noticed the increase in the electric bill which just came yesterday. Winter has really set it. Tomorrow we are expecting a morning of rain and freezing rain!
Well I had to do something I hated to do...I, last night, put my ham radio mobile radio station for auction on eBay (item #3070525050). I have been watching similar set ups for a couple of weeks. It must still be a very wanted radio. I know the antenna system is a hot item. Within 20 minutes after submitting the auction I had bids. And there were 4 within an hour. It hasn't hit the reserve yet but it should. I think I have a pretty low reserve. As you may recall I have sold 2 other items to survive the business now and for the winter. That was about $3000 collected and I have about $300 left today! And that was after last weeks gross income of $283! Where does it all go? I did buy a little Dodge Omni for $700 but only had to made a small down payment. I bought it from a friend mechanic that repaired the vehicle with a valve job after it had blown a head gasket. The owners never came back for it. It is in real good condition inside. Seems to be mechanically sound except for 2 problems. The heater isn't putting out hot air just warm. And when you shift it takes longer than usual for the engine to lose rpm. I think the latter must be because of the oxygen sensor which was probably damaged when the antifreeze saturated it from the blown head gasket. A new sensor is $41...I can put up with that problem for a while! I checked everything about the heating circuit and have determined it must be the heater core. When we get a warm day I'll back flush it and hopefully clear it. Otherwise until I see some money from the business I'll just wear a lot of clothes!
Haven't messed with the holding tank problem yet, been to cold.
Where the city water hooks to the trailer I have a garden type hose and had to put a heat tape on it so it wouldn't freeze these cold nights. I noticed if I turn the water valve off where it comes out of the ground it has gotten a little frozen but thawed within minutes. But that wasn't when it was 15*F. I concluded that when I close the valve I break the continuous water path and the heat from the heated water can not pass through the valve. I have left the valve on and cured that problem. But when it was going to be as low as 14*F I bought a bale of hay and put it around the pipe coming out of the ground. I also took one of my wireless remote thermometers, put it in a Ziploc baggy and put it right at ground level up against the pipe insulation deep in the hay! I set the monitor to alarm me at 29*F. It has only gone down to 35*F so far...and that is on the outside of the insulation.
Have the smoker cooking 4 butts which are now at 170*F internal temperature. I'll take them out at 190-195*F. At that temp they'll pull very easily. So I better get ready for my 6 second walk to work!
January 1, 2004. Changed some pictures above. The first picture from the left is looking towards the tongue. The second from the left is looking towards the rear where someday will be the drive through window. Next is the FE100 and refrigerator. To the right is the beginning of the counter for the serving window I don't use. A plan is to make the that unused serving window a wood fired grill that will be have glass walls and a hinged glass door where I will finish off ribs and chicken. Customers will be able to observe me cooking on the grill. The first picture from the right is a batch of Brunswick Stew simmering and just about finished...matter of fact I just remembered I need to go in and turn it off and let it cool a bit so I can put them in gallon containers. The picture that is second from the right is obviously the RV and LP tank situated next to the bbq trailer.