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Saw a guy use a leaf blower on his smoker at a Gas Monkey parking lot | BBQ Pitmasters - Talk Freely

Saw a guy use a leaf blower on his smoker at a Gas Monkey parking lot

I was in Dallas last month picking up some oak chunks from a guy off Craigslist, and we met in the Gas Monkey Garage parking lot, right? While we're loading up, this dude pulls in with a beat-up offset smoker in his truck bed. He fires it up, and then he whips out a leaf blower to stoke the firebox. I'm not talking a little air blower, I mean a full-on gas powered leaf blower. The ash went everywhere, like a snow globe made of creosote. He looked so proud, said 'gets it roaring in under a minute.' I gotta ask, has anyone else seen this level of pit master improvisation, or is this guy asking for a grease fire that melts his face off? I mean, I get tenderloin temp control is hard, but that seemed next level reckless.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_angela1mo ago

Whoa, that's some wild stuff! I actually read about guys using electric leaf blowers on stick burners over on the BBQ Brethren forum a while back. They swear by it for getting the fire going fast, but they use the cordless ones on low, not a full gas-powered beast in a parking lot. That dude's method sounds like a disaster movie waiting to happen, especially with all that ash raining down on his food. I get wanting a hot fire quick, but there's a big difference between a little boost and treating your firebox like a pile of autumn leaves. Did you at least stick around to see if he actually ate the food after all that?

kim1911mo ago

Last summer I watched a guy at a campground try to jumpstart his charcoal chimney with a can of starting fluid and a spatula, and honestly, the leaf blower guy sounds like he's got more sense than that guy did. The spatula guy singed off his eyebrow and then blamed the coals for being cheap. But yeah, I didn't hang around to see if he ate it either, mostly because the smoke was so thick I could taste it from three picnic tables away. That ash cloud thing is no joke, it gets everywhere like glitter at a craft fair, and no amount of sauce is fixing that grit. Maybe next time he'll just use a hairdryer on cool setting and call it a day.