Hello Mr. Pits -- I am the other half of Meat and Three that attended. Well done on the boxes. I think they look great. Your total score was really, really close to ours and even closer to Divine Swine. It was virtually a dead heat for places 2 through 4. Personally, I'd give extra points (if possible) for using the drums. I think that is way cool.
For everyone -- this was a "no garnish" competition, and it wasn't under KCBS rules/criteria. "Independent" is how I would put it. I think we struggled with the boxes a little. It was near impossible to place anything in the box without getting sauce smears that couldn't be cleaned up.
Box size -- the organizers did call these "9 inch boxes", and they were 9x9 at the top, tapering to 8x8 or less. It is a really tiny box. Not much "dome area" with the lid. It was difficult to work with these boxes. We had to shift from larger chicken thighs to smaller ones because of the box size. Luckily, we'd done several, and could pick and choose thighs.
Hope to see you around -- I thought this weekend was fun. As Smokin' D (not to be confused with the team called "Smokin' Ds", who came in last) said, we'll be at Old Orchard Beach and the Harvard Fall Festival.
