The pitmaster

Stosh Maciejewski

Welder, rail man, South Side kid. He built his first smoker out of a 55-gallon drum in 1998 and he has not let the fire go out for long since.

Shop his sauces Cook his recipes

Pitmaster in denim overalls and a cap working beside a smoking steel smoker

How it started

A drum behind his mother's house

Stosh spent twenty-two years welding rail cars in the Lackawanna yards. On weekends he smoked pork shoulders behind his mother's house on Birney Avenue, in a drum he cut and hinged himself, and handed sandwiches over the fence.

The sauce was his mother's tomato and molasses base, with more vinegar because he likes it sharp. Neighbors started bringing empty jars. By 2004 the jars had labels, and by 2011 the garage was a bottling room.

Today his daughter Lidka runs the line and the shipping table. Stosh runs the fire, splits the hickory and tastes every batch off the same wooden spoon.

Pitmaster trimming a large cut of meat beside an offset smoker — Trimming a packer before sunrise. The fat cap stays a quarter inch.

Rules of the pit

Painted on the shed door in 2003. Repainted every spring.

Fix the fire, not the meat.
Thin blue smoke. If it pours white and thick, the wood is choking.
Season the night before.
Salt needs hours to move in. Pepper waits until morning.
Wrap in paper, never foil.
Pink paper lets the bark breathe. Foil steams it soft.
Rest it as long as you cooked it short.
Two hours in a cooler, wrapped in towels. Slice when the juice stays put.