Thanks Yazoo's Delta Q - Results from our first MBN competition

Yazoo's, thanks so much for your input!!! It helped tremendously.

We competed this past weekend at our first MBN competition against
fairly stiff competition, including a past MIM GC, reigning MBN GC, and
many other notables including Stumps. We finished 7th in Pork Shoulder
and it looks like we landed on the same table as either the GC or RGC
of this comp with straight 9.9's in overall score in blind, a 10, a 9.9, and
a 9.8 overall score from on-site. We are ecstatic. Exhausted beyond
our wildest belief (SIGNIFICANTLY more work than KCBS, etc), but worth
every moment.

1st place Seafood, 2nd place Margaritas, 2nd place Hot Wings, 4th place
Chicken, 5th place Sauce, 7th place MBN Pork Shoulder, 14th place MBN
Ribs. Dont know yet about Peoples Choice other than we weren't 1st place,
and we dont know in Stew or Bloody Mary's other than we weren't in the top 4.


A few pics below:

Quick team photo right before on-sites begin:




First on-site judge, me talking about how awesome we are and that the Lang works when we aren't...





Inside the smoker (sans meat) presentation:




Meat - On Site:



Things are going well..... High 5




Different angle from on-site, can see the meat a little:




Dog, not quite as impressed (she's seen this before)


Awards time. Trophy for an ancillary. In this case (pic), just money:



Then, Sunday back home for some R & R:

We'd planned for the "if we make finals" scenario.

We learned a lot on this one, for certain. We cooked 2 too many shoulders, next time
either 6 or 7, but definitely NOT 9. They did a peoples choice where we crammed
(quite literally) 2 extra butts in there. It was full before the ribs, but we had plenty
of clearance (air flow) around everything. We took the butts off, re-arranged REALLY
tight and free'd up the top rack for the 12 racks of BB's. That's another thing; next
time we'll be good with 10 racks of ribs, even if we make finals.

A Lang 84 would've done this with ease. The Lang 60 was TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT. Next
time we'll fit it all fairly well on just the 1 Lang 60 using 6 shoulders and 10 racks of
ribs.

We didnt cook whole hog. Other than we'd need another 2 guys on the team to
focus on this, we'd need that additional cooker. I dont know of any team that did
all 3 categories on 1 cooker...

What a thrill this was. I enjoy KCBS, FBA, GBA type of cookoffs, but frankly there
seems to be more interaction amongst teams in MBN and then there's usually folks
ala. grande coming around both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. For teams
that haven't done this yet, I highly recommend it for the thrill alone.

I will tell you, 4 men on this doing all ancillaries is just too few. We're already looking
to enlist 2 other guys (and hopefully their wives) to help out and distribute the work
load. We did it fine, but come Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning we almost
didnt have the energy to pack up and head out.

Yazoo's said:

Congrats on starting out in MBN, it certainly is different and can be challenging in different ways than KCBS.

A couple of notes from your comments and pics- and definitely not trying to step on any toes. 1. Get eye level with the judge, if you want to stand put them in a bar/barstool type table. If you seat them in a standard size chair, you need to sit. 2. Ancillaries can be fun, but are a drain on your pocketbook and your time. We started winning much more consistantly when we stopped doing them. Too much stress when you need to be watching your competition stuff. I'm not saying don't do them, but don't feel compelled to enter every category.

Congrats again!

Click to expand...

Again, Thank you for your input/suggestions!

GREAT idea on the eye level. You're quite correct, I'm certain. Plus,
I'm sure our main presenter will appreciate sitting down (we were beat).

Friday night was indeed way too stressful, for all the wrong reasons. I
have a feeling that we may not participate in any more ancillaries. I'm
seriously thinking of a feeding the crew a few Subway's; to heck with
cooking something else!!! Plus, the added cleaning! It wasn't so much
the cooking or the managing deadlines, it was the cleaning!!... TOO MUCH.

You didnt step on any toes whatsoever! I appreciate the thoughts/
suggestions.

I think what got me involved in every darned ancillary is that this is sort
of my home field thing; I wanted a showing no matter what the category.
Next time, not so much... The homies now know we can cook.