So I went to my first bbq competition this weekend with a buddy who cooks bbq with me. It was so awesome! Got a call in ribs (7th) which was crazy since we had no idea how our bbq ranked in general to what other people and teams would cook. It was the "Smokin Pork-n-Butts" in Jackson, GA a MBN event.
The competition was everything I expected and way more. I don't even know where to begin so i'll probably just ramble for a while now
. The amount of fun from cooking, to talking with the other teams, to eating everyones food, and the friendly atmosphere was great. Oh, did I not put beer in that list? I guess that is becuase it takes part in each of those .
I'm sure everyones first BBQ Comp experience is a little different and a little the same. For us we had done about as much reasearch online through multiple forums/websites (a lot from this one so thank you Brethren) on what to expect from a competition. We did an overnight practice cook a few weeks back and I'm sure that helped for us to figure out our cook times. So we luckily were not too surprised by anything. The only thing we knew would suprise us was when we got there, went through our stuff and figure out what we forgot as we kept saying we would forget something. So when we got there and unpacked we realized the only thing we forgot was paper towels. DOH! But we knew heading down there the local stores were just down the street so we could grab anything we needed. Funny thing was we didn't really need any paper towels right away then at the judges meeting Friday they gave out goodie back and they had paper towels in there.
Along with Ribs we also cooked Shoulder and Chicken. The shoulder I thought looked and tasted awesome. We cooked 3 butts and got 1 good money muscle along with chunks and pulled from all three. We were really happy with the way it looked as we have been practicing the butt for a while now. We got 13th out of 18 and weren't too upset but though what we had was better than other teams. Go figure right? A little disappointed though since we tried the hardest here i think.
Chicken was an ancillary category and that turn in was Friday night. We haven't really cooked a lot of chicken for competition practice and since it was something extra on Friday night we figured why not. Now the chicken experience was interesting because we really didn't try with this. We just wanted to submit what we normally cook and see how it ranks. We did some trimming and know we need work there and only seasoned it with the same rub we use for ribs and shoulder. No brine, no marinade. Just season, smoke and sauce at the end. Since we smoked it fully on the smoker the skin is always a little chewy. I know high heat can help here and many cook on a kettle, but we did what we normally do. The funny thing is for something we didn't try exceptionally hard at (like the shoulder) we got 6th out of 15. I guess our rub, sauce and meat is good because the skin pulled off in 1 bite as normal.
So not bad overall cooking wise, especially getting that call in ribs. Nice to know our bbq is at least decent. We had no expectations go into it and the biggest thing was just how awesome all the teams, judges and MBN folks were. People looking to help out and give tips without divulging secrets of course. We have another coming up in May and already can't wait. Going to try and tweak the flavor of the shoulder as we thought appearance looked great.
So here are the pics.
Here's the setup. Brought the Brinkmann and WSM
Smoking chicken for turn in and also some wild boar sausage my buddy brought.
Check out the mud on Saturday morning. Being in GA we got some of that bad storms that hit a lot of the south. Lots of rain and wind. Luckily no tornados that did so much damage in the south.
Teams ran out to buy hay and we followed suit. Funny how something so simple can be so uplifting.
Here is the shoulder turn in box. Any feedback is definitely welcomed. The money muscle was great. I think we need to align our chunks on the left better, and we also did some pulled on the right.
And here are our now world famous 7th place ribs.
Random pic at night. Getting the WSM ready.
The competition was everything I expected and way more. I don't even know where to begin so i'll probably just ramble for a while now
. The amount of fun from cooking, to talking with the other teams, to eating everyones food, and the friendly atmosphere was great. Oh, did I not put beer in that list? I guess that is becuase it takes part in each of those . I'm sure everyones first BBQ Comp experience is a little different and a little the same. For us we had done about as much reasearch online through multiple forums/websites (a lot from this one so thank you Brethren) on what to expect from a competition. We did an overnight practice cook a few weeks back and I'm sure that helped for us to figure out our cook times. So we luckily were not too surprised by anything. The only thing we knew would suprise us was when we got there, went through our stuff and figure out what we forgot as we kept saying we would forget something. So when we got there and unpacked we realized the only thing we forgot was paper towels. DOH! But we knew heading down there the local stores were just down the street so we could grab anything we needed. Funny thing was we didn't really need any paper towels right away then at the judges meeting Friday they gave out goodie back and they had paper towels in there
.Along with Ribs we also cooked Shoulder and Chicken. The shoulder I thought looked and tasted awesome. We cooked 3 butts and got 1 good money muscle along with chunks and pulled from all three. We were really happy with the way it looked as we have been practicing the butt for a while now. We got 13th out of 18 and weren't too upset but though what we had was better than other teams. Go figure right
? A little disappointed though since we tried the hardest here i think. Chicken was an ancillary category and that turn in was Friday night. We haven't really cooked a lot of chicken for competition practice and since it was something extra on Friday night we figured why not. Now the chicken experience was interesting because we really didn't try with this. We just wanted to submit what we normally cook and see how it ranks. We did some trimming and know we need work there and only seasoned it with the same rub we use for ribs and shoulder. No brine, no marinade. Just season, smoke and sauce at the end. Since we smoked it fully on the smoker the skin is always a little chewy. I know high heat can help here and many cook on a kettle, but we did what we normally do. The funny thing is for something we didn't try exceptionally hard at (like the shoulder) we got 6th out of 15. I guess our rub, sauce and meat is good because the skin pulled off in 1 bite as normal
. So not bad overall cooking wise, especially getting that call in ribs. Nice to know our bbq is at least decent. We had no expectations go into it and the biggest thing was just how awesome all the teams, judges and MBN folks were. People looking to help out and give tips without divulging secrets of course
. We have another coming up in May and already can't wait. Going to try and tweak the flavor of the shoulder as we thought appearance looked great. So here are the pics.
Here's the setup. Brought the Brinkmann and WSM
Smoking chicken for turn in and also some wild boar sausage my buddy brought.
Check out the mud on Saturday morning. Being in GA we got some of that bad storms that hit a lot of the south. Lots of rain and wind. Luckily no tornados that did so much damage in the south.
Teams ran out to buy hay and we followed suit. Funny how something so simple can be so uplifting.
Here is the shoulder turn in box. Any feedback is definitely welcomed. The money muscle was great. I think we need to align our chunks on the left better, and we also did some pulled on the right.
And here are our now world famous 7th place ribs
.
Random pic at night. Getting the WSM ready.
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