UncleBuck

KBB is my go-to. Cooks slow enough on longer cooks, but also hotter than say, B&B or Franklin, when you wanna go hot-hot. Ony my briskets, butts etc..., I've always liked to go low and slow until the wrap, and then go wide open and finish quick after. Have had a hard time getting B&B/Franklin up very hot at that point, but KBB will get around 300 much easier. But it would take much more lit KBB and much more time for me to even imagine getting KBB up to what I did the Jealous Devil, in the amount of time I did. So basically, I'll use Jealous Devil for hot-hot-hot.

Speaking of WSM, haven't seen this thread up in a while, so: Any of you guys try the Jealous Devil briquettes in your WSM, specifically 22s, yet? Finally got a hold of some and threw a lit chimney in the basket on top of maybe 20 more un-lits. No pan, and in (what seemed like) no time* I was up to 500. Put some cross cut ribs and burgers on, and obviously that dropped the temp down, but they still went pretty quick. *figured I'd edit to explain what I feel is "no time." Once I dumped the lit on-top of the un-lit, I let it stay for five minutes before putting the rest of the body on to start heating up and catching the un-lit. Once all assembled, I had all three vents wide open, obviously, and the door open for about another five minutes before closing. The thermo quickly got up to 500 after this.

That is insane. Matches up, as the 22" is $100 more, on Amazon. Bought mine 3.5 years ago, at around $120 less.

Didn't grab any pictures at the first stop, but had a couple of CFS experiences this weekend. First at Trail Boss Steak and Grill in Bandera. I had the pork schnitzel, but my wife got the CFS. The pork schnitzel was VERY good, and I tried my wife's CFS and it was also very good, though it didn't have that traditional crust. Next day we went over to Antler Cafe in Spring Branch or wherever you want to call it, and we both went for the CFS. The waitress asked if I wanted brown gravy on my potatoes. Seemed kinda wild for going along with a traditional CFS white gravy, but you live but once.... I thought it was really good, and a more traditional CFS crust. My wife liked it, but preferred the one at Trail Boss. Antler Cafe:

Just when I start thinking maybe we should get The Boy to try out for the local select team, I see it can be funky over there too, huh? Our coach in little league (majors) this year has maybe one year experience. Drafted blind 'cos he doesn't really know any of the kids 'cos he's been out of town for a couple of years. Already had his staff picked out before talking to any of the parents who might have wanted to help, except for one. The other two assistants don't have kids on the team, and after two practices I've only seen one of them, for the last 20 minutes of the first practice. This guy has like four boys between him and his wife's kids who could play on the team, but apparently all four were not greatful enough for the things they have so they're teaching them a lesson. They're at practice and available to run bases etc... or whatever, but like, it's still really weird. Then the coach's son is not really good, but there's another kid on the team who is actually worse, who honestly looks like he's never played baseball before. Like EVER. Kid runs around with his glove and hand sticking out, hunched over, like he's going to shovel up the ball up from 15 feet away. Can't throw. I feel terrible for this kid, like I almost want to pull him to the side and work with him solo, because he's too far behind to really learn with where all of the other boys are at, and it's not fair to the whole team to slow down practice that much for him. I wonder if his parents really thought this through. He's probably at coach-pitch level. He at least needs to be with the minors kids. Then to top it all off, in the group text this week the coach says he wants us wearing the long pants because -and I'm not making this up- "we're going to be sliding!" Luckily there's a strong group of dads here. We can help a lot. But I dunno, it's kinda scary right now.

My kids like chalupa night. Of course, I do not, so I go off on the side and make myself double-deckers. I make the refried beans out of either beans we had left over from a weekend meal or HEB's Charro Beans. Real quick and simple with just some oil and a fork, but you can go real quick with a hand blender. Hamburger meat seasoned with s&p, a little fajita seasoning, garlic powder and chili powder at the end. Throw chalupas in oven for a few minutes, take out and then apply beans and cheese and put back in for a few minutes on a foil lines baking sheet to melt cheese. Warm up a couple of tortillas for me on the comal or whatever my wife calls it. Take out the chalupas and the kids can put their own meat and lettuce/tomato/avocado on or whatever else the wife pulls out. I just take my chalupa, flip it upside down onto my tortilla, karate chop that bitch down the middle and go with meat, onion, salsa and lettuce. Maybe some avocado if I'm feeling dirty. God's Taco.

We did an excursion where we rode jetskis and snorkeled. That part was okay. Feels kinda rushed, and I can ride jetskies anywhere, but that's what the lady wanted to do. The snorkeling was decent. They also did horseback riding in the water and all of that stuff. We didn't do that. Ate at their little restaurant/bar which was actually good, called Lionfish Louie's, apparently opened by some guy from South Carolina who moved to there. Do some drinking there, and you realize quick they've been holding back in the drinks on the ship. We talked with a couple who was going to rent a car and just drive around the island. I dunno if I'd do that, but... Ladies at the souvenir tents do not like "no thank you."

And Cathy's down the road in POC, just a few months back. Had a decent chicken fried steak themselves.

Bubba's is definitely a good spot, and the taqueria there in Seadrift as well from what my wife tells me, and I think I trust her with that. Have only ever had Canales in Tivoli once, and it was steak night. It wasn't terrible, and wasn't expensive, but I'd probably not go out of the way for it.

We were staying at Gibbs back in January and went there since it's basically across the street. The DJ was annoying, but was a good place to dive in. Thing is, from every map I've seen of the Alamo grounds, it would appear that Moses Roses would have been just on the other side of the wall (I went ahead and circled it in red).

What are some good+ places in Helotes/Bandera-ish? We'll be in that area for a day or so next month.

Me: I love sausage and brisket pretty much all of the time but damn, is that cheese in the sausage? Pass. I'll do jalapeno, though.

Man just cook your best chili and go for it. I competed in a big cookoff this past November and I worried about the same things. There were no rules against beans or using whole vegetables etc... I just did my 100% powdered recipe that I had settled on. My thought was that maybe mine will do better with less things for the judges to be picky about. Less beans/veggies to worry about being too overcooked/texture/not a consistent size/texture/appearance etc... Got 2nd place out of 69 entries. Just cook your meat right, get your gravy right, and don't blow them away with spice, just let them know it's there. Don't try anything too different, stick to what you do. If you're the only one with a traditional entry, it'll stand out. Then it's all about the judges.

I'd bring my own trophy, and let everyone know that I won because "I thought this was a "chili" cook-off, not goulash!"

dammit I want frito pie now.

Wow, so this thread took a turn. Look, of course "chili" is just meat and the gravy, (onions etc...). Somewhere along the line tomatoes became acceptable, so whatever. But no filler. And when I see a thread called "chili w/o beans," I find "w/o beans" to be redundant tbh. There's chili, and then there's chili WITH something else added. Or there's cowboy chili, or whatever other names you want to call chili that has had fillers added. Do I like Skyline Chili? No, but good on them for at least clarifying that it's not "chili" chili. We all love Frito pie, but that's no longer chili either, it's Frito pie. I think we can all agree with that, right? Okay, good... BUT..... ...to say the chili queens didn't add other stuff to their chili on occasion is just inaccurate. You can argue about beans all you want, but how about peas? Yes, there is mention of peas being put into chili by chili queens to stretch it out toward the end of the day/night. Chili and beans, in some instances, were at least eaten on the same plates served by chili queens as early as the 1880s or so, I've seen that. Mixed beforehand? That I have not seen, but I don't see why that would be strange in an effort to stretch it out, seeing it had even been done with peas. BUT once this happened, it was no longer just chili. It was chili and/with peas. Chili and/with beans. Chili and/with whatever (or whatever names they may have had for it). Chili can be a starting point if you wish. You can throw chips and beans and cheese and noodles and potatoes and corn and rice and whatever else you want to into it after that, but it needs to be noted that it is no longer simply "chili." Names, words, they matter. Tradition matters.. The name "chili" should not be bastardized into meaning anything other than what it is, or we'll lose it.

See you guys speaking of Kerrville places. We ate at Billy Gene's(?) last year. I remember it being pretty decent. Don't even remember what I had, tbh. Think a burger/patty melt or something.

Lol. We live further south than that and it's not really a thing down this way. Maybe it skipped us.

We went up to SA this weekend and hit a few joints. These were all first timers for me. Went straight to Chris Madrids. Once I got around the cheddar cheese, the burger was good. This isn't really a complaint. You know what you're getting yourself into when you order it, it was just more than I expected. Also, home-cut fries were good. For breakfast the next morning I decided on Pete's Taco house. The Lady ordered papas rancheras w/bacon and carne asada. I got my normal bacon egg and cheese and then carne guisada w/cheese for the kicker. The guisada was good, maybe coulda taken some more salt, but I get it that some joints cut back on salt. The tortillas were like soft, fluffy quilts that you barely noticed were there after taken a bite, yet they held up to the gravy. Sunday morning before leaving town we went to El Milagrito Cafe. Had I known ahead of time that someone had dropped a bomb on the street construction situation in that area, maybe I'd have not gone, but am glad we did. I had, again my usual bacon egg and cheese, and then for the kicker I got their picadillo taco cut the lettuce and tomato. Wife got huevos rancheros plate with a pork chop. The rancheros suace was good, and she liked that the potatoes had chorizo in them, and also that the eggs had a fried corn tortilla under them. The tacos there were good, and though not as fluffy as at Pete's, it was that same softness, that still held up to the picadillo. Also I liked all of their salsas.

It was.

That was me. Had edited my reply to that because it appeared via some recent picture reviews that there was inside dining. We didn't make it there this weekend, as simple traditional puffy tacos were the main target on the tex-mex side, and the ones at Rolando's look a bit too large and not of the experience I was after. Thanks, though.