Wrench_H
is Blowin Smoke!
So this is my first year doing competitions and I did two. In my first, we got 6th in pork, and between 22 and 38 in a 42 team field in everything else. I was pretty stoked, and then proceeded to practice a ton, and went to my second one recently and completely bombed. We were in the bottom 10 in everything, and finished 36 out of 43 teams. I thought our brisket was good, and our pork was the same box we did good on before. Our ribs were the one thing that I thought was bad, and surprisingly enough, we would have finished in the 8-12 range in those if we didn't have a paint brush bristle on the bottom side of one of them(we had 5 people looking at our boxes and somehow we all missed it).
My first pouty thought was to give up, then after about an hour I was extremely determined to come back stronger next year. I know how to improve my chicken, but I'm not sure how much better I can cook pork and brisket. I guess after all that rambling, my question is how do you guys improve? I'm guessing a lot of you are going to suggest classes, and perhaps I'll eventually change my stance on this, but my stubborness tends to say that once I pay $700 and take a class from one of the greats, I'm no longer cooking my own food, but rather trying to reproduce theirs. Thanks for any help on ideas.
My first pouty thought was to give up, then after about an hour I was extremely determined to come back stronger next year. I know how to improve my chicken, but I'm not sure how much better I can cook pork and brisket. I guess after all that rambling, my question is how do you guys improve? I'm guessing a lot of you are going to suggest classes, and perhaps I'll eventually change my stance on this, but my stubborness tends to say that once I pay $700 and take a class from one of the greats, I'm no longer cooking my own food, but rather trying to reproduce theirs. Thanks for any help on ideas.