Southern Thunder Bbq Cooking School

I took the class last November and loved it! The instructors were, fun, engaging, funny, and very knowledgeable. It was an all-​day course, but the time seemed to just fly by because everyone was having a good time. There was a comfortable mix of skill levels among the students — from guys who had been ‘queing for years to first timers who have never even lit a smoker. There was even one guy taking the class for the second time as an «honored alum» because he just enjoyed himself so much the first time around.
Everyone came out of the class confident about their ability to make some BBQ. Everything was hands on. I was very happy that a lot of the material had to do with the science and lore of cooking. These are guys who have spent decades perfecting their craft — they’ve done all the experimenting, research, and failing required to get to the professional level in the BBQ world. They even recently took grand master at a pro tournament competing against the famous BBQ Pitmaster Myron Mixon.
Everyone comes home with a really nice bound book with everything we learned in class and more. We also got to keep our ‘Que University aprons, which are actually really nice. They also feed us the food we made, which was amazing. The bloody mary bar was a nice initial pick me up with breakfast. And despite the fact that the venue had a bar with $ 2 craft beers, people seemed to be more interested in the class than they were in tossing back too many, which is really a testament to the instructors and material (engaging and well paced).
I’m the kind of guy who likes to teach himself how to do things, but I’ll have to admit there’s just no substitute for this class. Having pros stand over your shoulder/​hold your hand through the hands on stuff is invaluable. And there are little gold nuggets of wisdom dispersed throughout the instruction that you can just tell these guys fought hard to acquire for themselves.