I hear you, it’s definitely a zen state.

I live walking distance from the ocean, so it’s nice to set a pellet up and monitor it from the beach. Run back when it’s time to wrap/spray/etc, and then hang on the sand until the internal temps remind me it’s time to head home and rest everything in a cooler.

All of my sausage, fish, and jerky goes in the vertical smoker. I have to manually tend the fire on that, but the temp swings and fuel consumption are much more stable, so it’s generally quite a bit easier than minding my normal offset.

Chilling in the yard to tend fire and empty a 30 rack with the neighbor is fun for sure, and my stick burner develops better bark than the pellet, even if I use wood in it. So when I want to go all in on a competition, or I’m doing like 8 briskets at a time for a huge event I’ll run the stick burner. Otherwise it’s something in the pellet smoker.

I generally agree with this order, but my journey took me in a different order. After having propane forever I moved to a Weber and the snake method, but then I went with an offset with a real fire box.

After getting really good results but not always having enough time to stoke the fire for 12+ hours I bought a very high end pellet smoker that I converted to also use charcoal and wood.

My stick burner gets used maybe once a year now. I’ll go pellet at least once a week, and charcoal or wood in the converted pellet at least once a month. I also can build a makeshift konro inside my pellet smoker, and I use that all the time.

Oh right, I also have an offset vertical smoker, and hunt a lot of my own protein, so yeah, it’s a deep hole I’ve dug into.

In most areas of the US that take BBQ seriously, grilling != BBQ.

Grilling means direct heat, BBQ in those areas refers to indirect heat, usually with some smoke component.

and I sharpen those every 30 minutes

I’m sorry, what?

If I sharpened my knives after every 30 minutes of use I wouldn’t have any steel left after a couple of months, tops. My knives are shaving sharp, I use them for several hours every day.

If your knives hold an edge and are profiled correctly, sharpening every 30 minutes (even a quick touch up) is entirely unnecessary. Professional meat cutters and fishmongers annihilate cutting for 10 hours a day and require razor sharp tools, and they don’t spend even close to as much time as you’ve claimed touching up their edges.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sharp knives, but either you’re exaggerating or doing it wrong.

I live near beach, it’s pleasant year round. Much of my living space is permanently open to the elements, the rest of it has sliding/french doors and large windows that are open most of the time the dwelling is occupied.

It’s definitely a shelter.

That said, stuff from outside sometimes gets inside. I clean, no biggie.

I’m guessing it was a rear projection TV, maybe a DLP