Newspaper Page Text
The True Citizen, Wednesday, May 5, 2010 — Page 3
Jody Ellison and Mike Small with their custom grills.
LU
I
5=
Smoking habit
Grill construction business is grown
from love of barbeque
By Elizabeth Billips
lizbillips@yahoo.com
“We like smelling barbeque
smoke,” Mike Small says as it bil
lows from the crookneck smoke
stack behind his Waynesboro
home.
While some barbeque enthusi
asts are cooking on Big Green
Eggs, he and business partner Jody
Ellison flip chicken halves on their
big red apple.
It’s just one sample from the grill
collection they’ve built from the
trailer-up, mostly using recycled
propane tanks. They say the thick
walls do a better job of holding
heat and smoke.
By weekdays, the friends head
up the City of Waynesboro’s gas
and water departments, respec
tively. On nights and weekends,
they design and weld their cre
ations.
“We like to cook, and we
wanted something that could ac
commodate a pretty big crowd,”
Jody says, pointing to the first big-
daddy they constructed to help out
at civic and community events. It
can hold more than 35 whole pork
butts and was the drawn-out prod
uct of a lot of trial and error.
“It took two months to build,”
Mike says.
“And almost a divorce,” Jody
adds jokingly as then wives peg
the job in the three-month range.
But the long hours paid off.
The girls at Best Office Solu
tions borrowed the grill for the
2007 Racks by the Tracks, and
their team, “The Blondes, the
Baldies and the Butts” stole the
show and the big cash prize.
“We knew then that we had
something that cooked good,”
Mike says.
Using that grill’s basics as their
prototype, the pair started turning
out charcoal/gas combo grills with
more bells and whisdes ... lazy
Susans that keep cooks from
reaching across hot grates to flip
then fixings ... dual racks that al
low for either close-to-flame sear
ing or “low and slow” cooking ...
and sliding charcoal grates that let
grillers build their fires away from
the food and reload more easily.
“We don’t like fire in the grill,”
Mike insists. “It bums off your
seasonings.”
This weekend, Jody and Mike
will turn up a little heat of then
own. They’ll showcase then cre
ations at the Boss Hog State
Championship Cook-off where
they’ll put then grills to the test
against some of the highest ranked
competitive barbeque teams in the
country. While getting “called up”
in any of the four meat categories
would be a big plus, they both say
they’re mainly out to have a good
time and talk shop with people
who share then love of barbeque.
“We’re just a couple of good ole
boys having fun,” Jody says as he
pulls the chicken off the grill.
“That’s all.”
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