Another year has come & gone, and it's time to carry on BBQ & fellowship into 2018 with the January edition of HOT From The Pit!
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January 2018's Gold Medal Giveaway Winner!
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January's Gold Medal Giveaway Winner is Pitmaster Club Member
BBQueen,
a.k.a. April Billups.
Upon receiving the good news, April replied "OH MY GOODNESS!! I can't believe this! I am so amazed! Thank you SO MUCH! I need to look over the amazing list of options!"
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Remember-
as a Pitmaster Club member, YOU have the same odds as anyone else with a USA delivery address (odds of winning are approx 1 in 1250 in a year, much better than any state lottery) and
as a paid member you get automatic monthly entry, so make sure to keep @AmazingRibs.com in your email safe list so you don't miss that email when it comes!
It WILL be one of you!
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2017 brought forth a LOT of changes at AmazingRibs.com as well as in the Pitmaster Club. All of these changes were for the positive- new content, faster servers, more staff, more members, and more stuff
for our members!
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We can proudly say we're already by far the most popular BBQ website in the world, we've risen from 34 million pageviews to 37 million last year alone on the free site, and approx 220,000 in The Pit! But we're not stopping there. In the next 2 years we hope to surpass KCBS as the largest barbecue association in the world! We want to make AmazingRibs.com immortal, able to survive if Meathead gets abducted by aliens.
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Can we do it? With your support, yes!
(Become even more popular that is, not get Meathead abducted by aliens).
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Recently we completed a year-long and $200,000 process of migrating all of the free website's content from Dreamweaver to Drupal, which is a bigger, better, faster, more secure Content Management System (CMS), with all https: secure pages, and allows more users to publish more great content. Now our authors and editor don't have to wait in line, which means MORE content for you, and faster!
In addition to the behind the scenes changes, we've had a lot of front line changes & fun events. Let's review...
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January 2017
- In January 2017 we brought on Clint Cantwell. Clint was editor of Kingsford.com. He is banging out great innovative recipes and has become the world's leader in "Sous Vide Que", a term we coined for the inventive new technique of combining sous vide with the grill or smoker. His byline and beautiful photos are all over the site. He has also been valuable in advising us on PR, something he did for a living once upon a time. Clint has also been helping us plan our next Pitmaster Club Meat-Up in Memphis, his hometown.
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- Dave Parrish (formerly Pit Boss, now ABCBBQ Dave) stepped down from Pitmaster Club Manager & moderator to focus on his new business of manufacturing the uber-popular Slow 'N Sear and associated products, Adrenaline Barbecue Company, a.k.a. ABCbarbecue.com.
- I stepped up to take over as manager at this time, and the experience has been very rewarding. Some folks say when you love what you do you never 'work' a day in your life. Well I won't lie, it's a lot of work, most of it is invisible & time consuming, but when you get to rub shoulders with some of the greatest people in the world of outdoor cooking, and the greatest members who treat all their fellow members with dignity and respect, it's a wonderful job!
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February 2017
- In February our friends from GrillGrate hosted our first ever Meat-Up in the Bahamas for our Pitmaster Club members! A total of about 80 fun lovers joined in for great food, drink, clear water, music, a boat trip to an island with wild hogs, and another to an island with stingrays and small sharks that didn't mind being petted. We are planning a series of annual Meat-Ups in different barbecue destinations so our members can party with their online friends!
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March 2017
March saw the arrival of a new moderator for AmazingRibs.com, John Bowlsby, or as you know him in The Pit and on Disqus,
Spinaker. He's been extremely active and helpful to readers with questions both in The Pit and on the free site. If you have any question about cast iron, kamado cooking, or the KBQ- he's your man.
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April 2017
- In April, we saw the departure of the talented pitmaster Fuzzydaddy from our moderator team. Shortly thereafter, Henrik Oscarsson stepped in. Henrik lives in Stockholm, Sweden and is a great ambassador for us and barbecue in Sweden. He's built an impressive stick-burning offset smoker from scratch, and has published a BBQ book in both English & Swedish full of original recipes (and has said nice things about us)!
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- Charlotte Wager joined the team full time as marketing director. She has helped define us as a brand and where we are going, and she has helped with Smoke Signals, our email newsletter, making it look and read better than ever, and doubling its frequency. She has also taken over social media.
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- April also was when Paul Sidoriak hopped on board as Head Fire Starter and Sales Director. You know him as allsid in The Pit. Paul is a kamado cookbook author, and he is leveraging his contacts and knowledge of the industry to grow our affiliate relationships with Amazon, GrillGrate, Pit Barrel Cooker, and others. Paul will also post in The Pit deals he spots in the world of outdoor cooking, as well as special deals he works out for our members.
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May 2017
In May we brought on videographer Nate Maliwacki. Nate shoots 1 minute videos of our recipes and other techniques. We are using them on the website and in social media. They have no words, only a few captions, and they are designed to both educate and drive traffic to the website where viewers can get the recipe. We bought him a new camera and some lighting and each video is better than the last.
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June 2017
In June we brought on a very talented man by the name of Ray W. Johnson, who goes simply by RayJ (Ray-Jay). RayJ is one of our new vBulletin experts, and is responsible for implementing new fixes and bug squashing in the vBulletin system, which is what powers The Pit forum. He's also been instrumental in polishing up our membership system, and fixing the broken renewal, auto-notice, and membership statistics system. Another vBulletin expert, Alvaro Arteaga, also works with RayJ and I to keep The Pit running smoothly.
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July 2017
Rick Browne, PhB, joined us full time in July. That Doctor of Barbecue Philosophy title is not joke. It is an honorific that has been granted by the Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) to fewer than 30 people. He is focused on testing tools such as gloves, electric knives, super coolers, and more. Almost immediately after he signed on, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, and because Rick has a background as a photojournalist, we sent him down there to embed with Operation Barbecue Relief, an amazing organization that we support with 5% of our Pitmaster Club membership revenues. OBR dished out more than 500,000 hot meals in Houston, more than the Red Cross, before it deployed to Florida for Hurricane Irma and then to California to help with fire relief.
Rick brought back great stories and photos!
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September 2017
In September Dave Joachim (pronounced "jock-em") joined us as editor. Dave is a famous culinary author with many books to his credit, including several in the barbecue and grilling space. He has brought a real level of professionalism, getting us on a calendar & releasing articles in proper sequence. He has also polished our styleguide and developed a system where writers can see his edits before they go live.
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To the Future!
That's a brief recap of all the events of 2017. What's ahead for 2018? Well, as mentioned we want to grow in what we can provide to our members, and plans are in place!
- Our book Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling was named one of the "100 Best Cookbooks of All Time" by Southern Living Magazine, and one of Christopher Kimball's (Milk Street and formerly America's Test Kitchen) "25 Favorite Cookbooks of All Time"!
- Meathead will be working all year on writing a sequel to his award-winning book! He will be working on it over the course of the next year, hand it in in March of 2019, with a tentative print date of spring 2020!
- Creation of two new Drupal databases- one for accessories and tools, and another just for recipes. We know you want recipe scaling and a much easier print function, so we're working on it!
- Cement our position as the world's leading experts on "Sous Vide Que", sous vide-to-grill/smoker
- Expand into wild game, campfire, fireplace, and tandoor cooking
- Finalize plans for the next Meat-Up and put in place a template for annual Meat-Ups
- Improve the website look and feel
- Offer gift memberships (that's right, we currently don't have the technology for this)
- We're working on increasing and improving the benefits of Pitmaster Club membership. Plans are afoot to make it even more desirable to join the Pitmaster Club!
- A few other top secret maneuvers to be announced at a later date!
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In closing of this section, here are some words from us to you:
"I want to express my gratitude to ALL of our Pitmaster Club members for a great year. Without your support, the advancements from the past year and those planned for this year wouldn't be possible. Thank you for your support and for keeping The Pit the best place to hang out on the web. If I was the manager of some of the other forums out there, I'd have quit long ago, there'd be no joy. The Pit members rock!" -Huskee
"I’d just like to say I’m stoked (haha) to be part of the esteemed team behind AmazingRibs.com! " -Dave Joachim
"Thank everyone for making The Pit the bestest forum one could ever imagine. I've been on forums since 2001, and nothing has ever come close to this place." -Jerod Broussard
"Every time I log in to The Pit I am amazed at what a kind, clever, and smart group of folks are on the inside. I love seeing what everyone is cooking, tinkering on, and figuring out, and how people are so quick to lend a hand or share an experience in an effort to help a fellow member. I have shared a little, but learned a lot and look forward to seeing where the New Year takes us." - Paul Sidoriak a.k.a. allsid
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2017 Turkey Shoot Photo Contest Winner!
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Each November we hold a Turkey Shoot Photo Contest, sponsored by ThermoWorks. Anyone, including non-Pitmaster Club members, can enter. Just take a picture of your turkey cook and submit that picture to the free site by the deadline each year to be entered to win one of six placements, each with their own prize!
We're proud to announce that the 1st Place Winner just so happens to be a very active Pit member, Daniel Peters, or as we know him in The Pit,
6th Borough BBQ! For more details on his cook, click the link above to visit the gallery.
Congrats, Daniel!
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Show Us Your New Grills/Smokers!
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Who doesn't love showing off their new gear, or living vicariously when someone else shows off theirs? I think it's safe to say we all love it! Let's take a peek at some new gear our Pit members have shared the last few weeks...
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Show Us What You're Cookin'!
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And perhaps everyone's favorite portion of the newsletter, the Show Us What You're Cookin' Highlight Reel!
This is merely a sampling of the many wonderful pictures of food our members have shared, there's far more in the thread itself. These highlights date from late December to late January 2018.
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Pit member
texastweeter shares this intriguing post of what he calls "Texas pine cones". It sure looks delicious, but what exactly are Texas pine cones and how do you make them?
Click here to see!
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It'd be easy to keep going, but we have to end it somewhere even though it's hard to stop. There were many masterpieces I had to skip, so if your food shots didn't make it you were in great company...we just can't include them all because there are SO MANY great ones!
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Engineers, cooks, teachers, healthcare workers, doctors, caretakers, machinists, NASA scientists, writers & illustrators, car dealerships, government, mining, car, motorcycle, aircraft and locomotive mechanics- The Pit members are from literally ALL walks of life!
The topic took off, and in its first 5 days got nearly 300 responses! If you haven't already, stop in and let us know what brings home the bacon in your world. And if you're a new member and haven't introduced yourself yet, don't miss out on your chance to say hello in general in our
Introduce Yourself channel!
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Operation BBQ Relief in 2017
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OBR was able to serve 569,450 meals last year, which is the most they've ever served in a single year! This is thanks in part to YOUR donations & membership here (we donate 5% of all membership fees to them). In 6.5 years, they've served a grand total of over 1,750,000 meals! To see more info on their 2017 recap, or to donate,
click here.
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The following is a recent share from Operation Barbecue Relief:
If you haven’t already heard, Operation BBQ Relief has made it to the final round of Sugarlands Distilling Company’s 2018 Year of Giving campaign! This is an incredible opportunity for us to earn a lot of money, but we need YOUR help! We need you to vote every day, with every email address you’ve got, through January 30. The six organizations with the top votes will receive a $10,000 grant! Please vote for OBR daily.
$10,000 will help tremendously in our efforts to provide hot BBQ meals to the people in communities ravaged by disasters. Please take just a few seconds to vote today and over the next seven days. Please share this with your friends and family too. Let’s spread the word about OBR and send those vote totals through the roof!
Voting open through January 30th
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Catch Up on the PitCasts!
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Don't forget to learn a little bit about your fellow Pit members by listening to Greg Rempe's recent weekly interviews on his members only PitCasts, posted each week on Thursday!
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Here are the most recent interviews:
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Don't worry, he edits out those moments where you trip over your own tongue. So even if you're like me or Meathead, Greg will still make you sound good!
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"HOT From The Pit" is the exclusive members only monthly newsletter of the AmazingRibs.com Pitmaster Club from Aaron "Huskee" Lyons, Manager of the Pitmaster Club.
You're receiving this because you're awesome and you're a member of the Club!
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