Bayou Bakery’s David Guas and his grill collection.
At 6 feet high and about 150 pounds, the Urban Cowboy is a showstopper—at least that’s what its owner, David Guas, says.
After hosting Travel Channel’s “American Grilled” last summer and publishing “Grill Nation” in April, Guas has surrounded himself with plenty of smoke machines. But at home, he likes the swagger of a cauldron.
From the Salt Lake City-based Cowboy Cauldron Company, the cauldron works two ways. You can start a fire underneath the steel basin and cook gumbo or jambalaya inside, suggests the New Orleans native and owner of Arlington’s Bayou Bakery, or create a fire inside and add a grate. “It’s very home on the range,” says Guas.
Guas cooks over fire nine months out of the year and about half the days of the week, but for everyday grilling he uses a 55-gallon oil drum barbecue barrel. For whole goats and pigs, he prefers his La Caja China roasting box.
He’s never owned a gas grill.
Eventually Guas wants to custom order a grill from Meadow Creek, a single-axle, towable piece of machinery that can cost upwards of $15,000.
Guas stocks five types of wood—oak for fuel and hickory, cherry, pecan and apple for flavor—and uses natural lump hardwood charcoal, never anything with lighter fluid, to keep the fire going.
And to start the fire: a flamethrower that can shoot 1-foot flames. Guas says, “It makes a sound like a jet engine.” —Stefanie Gans
(June 2015)
