Summer 2024 Doesn't Officially Start Until You Pour Your First Cold One Out Of The Miller Lite "Big Green Kegg"
Pop quiz time--what are the two best things about summer?
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Ding ding ding! Cooking outside and day drinking.
Don't get me wrong, cooking outside and day drinking are a lifestyle. It doesn't just need to be summertime in order to do either of those things. You can do it in the dead of winter if you want. But let's not act like summer isn't the greatest time to do both of them. There's just something magical about the crispiness of an ice cold beer to go along with spending a hot summer day next to an even hotter grill/smoker. The smell of the charcoal slowly burning right in front of your face makes that damn fine pilsner taste even better.
Now I'm not going to grill shame anyone here. If you're a propane guy, you're a propane guy. If you're a charcoal guy, you're a charcoal guy. But let's not act like charcoal doesn't completely obliterate propane in every way possible. And if you're cooking with charcoal, it doesn't get much better than a Big Green Egg--or any ceramic kamado cooker, for that matter. The fire management is unbeatable. Once you get that temperature locked in, you can let that thing ride for hours without having to touch a thing. But it's not like a pellet cooker where you just get to press a few buttons to lock that temperature in. You still need to go analog to dial in that fire to make sure the heat is just right. You get the satisfaction from actually have to be a "pit master", but you can still accidentally drink a few too many beers and not have your fire go out completely if you forget to check on it for a few hours.
The most important thing to have on hand while you're out there smoking a pork butt for 10 hours on a hot summer afternoon is a cooler stashed with enough ice to last you through the whole cook. The last thing you want to do is be halfway through your cook and then get hit with a sip of warm beer. It'll ruin your whole damn day. Considering the Big Green Egg has an impeccable ability to hold hot temperatures for hours on end, I'd imagine it also has the ability to hold cold temps for just as long. That beer will be just as crispy when you're seasoning your meat as when you're finally pulling it off the pit 8 hours later.
And no, this isn't an ad. But if Miller Lite needs someone to test the product out before the summer gets in full swing, I'm available.