Good afternoon, fellas! All I can say is WOW! What an experience! I'm so tired still after sleeping for eleven hours that I feel like mush. Been sitting back watching football and not even thinking about unloading.
Anyway, the American Royal was awesome! Not sure if ya'all wanna read this but I'm gonna tell ya anyway...
I got there FINALLY around 3:30 pm Thursday and set up by myself. It was a ton of work but I got most all of it done and organized by 9pm or so, including the 10x20 canopy (never heard a peep from the KCFD about a thing). Wayne dropped by around that time and had 2-3 homebrews with me. After he went back up to his site, I finished up some additional work, grabbed a beer and headed to the next ZIP code to find Wayne's site. I found him next to his site with the Squeal of Approval gals who are awesome BTW. We had a few additional beers (Squeal has Boulevard Brewing Company as a sponsor). I slept in my car with the sounds of trains all damned night (our site was next to the tracks in the bottoms by the old stockyards... tons of trains come through there). When I'd opened my tent, I found the tension rods had dry rotted the cords and were in pieces so no tent. I tossed it!
Friday morning, another guy I know (not from here) called my cell and said breakfast would be ready by the time I could get to his site (also in the next ZIP code!). I hoofed it up there and got myself a couple of plates of biscuits and fresh homemade sausage gravy, fried eggs and juice. Came back and got my meat inspected and the work was on! BTW... still no team mates! My wife had to work until noon and my other teammate is a real estate agent and had a couple of things come up. My wife arrived at 1:30 and Hank around 3pm I believe. I already had all the competition meat rubbed and back in coolers and the ribs and pork loin in smoke for dinner. We cranked out dinner of pork loin (just went simple... cut a slit in several places and stuffed in pieces of jalapeno peppers and garlic and rubbed with a pork rub and cooked indirect in the Webber kellte), St. Louis spares, hot wings, regular smoked wings, grilled chicken breast, baked beans, oriental style broccoli slaw, chips, salsa, veggie tray with dip, brownies and homemade chocolate chip cookies. We ended up having about 19 people for dinner if I count right (my mom's co-worker came with her and said she will talk to her husband but that she wants me to cater her 50th birthday party in February!). Hank and I excused ourselves from the visiting about 8pm to get working. We let everyone else talk while we got fires started and ccranked up briskets and butts. After around 11pm, everyone had left. We closed the front of our canopy (sides already closed and my wife slept on our queen sized inflateable air mattress while Hank and I worked. Hank went to sleep around 1:30am and I kept a watch on things while he got some shut eye for about 2 hours. Finally with both of us up and me on my third wind, I decided to grab a bit of sleep around 4:30 but couldn't sleep. I got around 45 minutes of sleep before getting up at 6am to start the rib coals and fire up the BSKD. By now, as Phil said in his post, I was panicking... the brisket was STUCK at 152* and had been since before 2AM!! Phil helped me stay focused and I felt a lot better after his advice. While I was talking to him, the brisket got UNstuck and moved about 4 degrees in 20 or so minutes. Good deal.
Anyway, we nailed the turn ins... surprisingly, I didn't feel stressed too much at all until we started working on brisket. I was prepared for crunch time mentally (not physically with a lack of sleep). I knew what to expect and was actually probably a bit too early on two of our five turn-ins. I even had time to sit down and relax for about five minutes once. I over-estimated the time it was going to take my wife to get to the turn in table. It was only about five minutes even with the crowds. We'd walked in before and came up with seven minutes and added 2-3 minutes for the crowd, which wasn't there like we expected. As I started to cut the brisket, I got REALLY dizzy and started to feel my knees go weak. I leaned onto the table and my wife grabbed a bottle of water and poured it down my throat and I got my senses about me, regrouped and focused to finish out the work. I could not believe my brisket... of all places to reach out and touch brisket nirvana - the Royal! I was stoked over the tenderness and flavor. The ONLY problem was the smoke ring was only about an eighth inch think. I was worried about harsh flavor from lots of wood like I got last weekend from my first brisket in the WSM so I cut back a bit on wood and wish I hadn't! Didn't look like I wanted it too but our presentation I thought was great! Finished up with the sausage category - turned in a regular fatty stuffed with finely chopped jalapenos (minus veins and seed) and tiny pieces of cheddar cheese and rolled in Jay's Hen 'n Hog Dust. Got the idea from Wayne) We all thought they rocked but apparently the judges didn't. No dice there either and I thought that would be my best chance.
We got everything loaded down just before the rain hit. Pulled under the viaduct to keep dry and went to the awards ceremony and sat with the Meatheads and Squeal of Approval and near where Rod was sitting. Hey, at least I knew some of the winners (Rod and Squeal) so I felt honored and in the company of greatness!
Overall, I don't yet know where we stand but I am pleased. Family and friends really enjoyed my food and homebrew, we pulled the BEST fatty, ribs and brisket I've EVER cooked. My teammates thought our chicken was awesome (I think they just didn't look great), I believe I got a catering job, met four Brethren I'd not met before (Rod, Rich, Jim and Ray), watched a few Brethren walk (Rod and Ulcer Acres) and I learned a LOT (one of which is don't take everything except the kitchen sink! I'll pare down a bunch for small contests!). I changed my mind... I think I'd do the Royal all over again even though there were a few downfalls such as---
1. My pork I was not happy with;
2. After 6pm or so on Friday, NO more water trucks;
3. My site location was practically on the train tracks;
4. They refused to enforce quiet hours at 1pm even though I complained to no less than 8 police officers and four American Royal reps, the live band near us kept playing until 1:30. Finally, I got rude with them and said it wasn't fair to those trying to take their sleep shift and also not fair to us who were awake so those sleeping could relieve us later. After I used that and the money I spent on this thing, it was about five minutes before they went inside to shut the band down.
It was a lot of fun, met great people, enjoyed our guests and you all helped get me ready... thanks for all that and especially to Poobah for helping keep my focused and even keeled in the face of a potential disaster!
Onward to DeSoto Kill Creek Farm in two weeks! Wayne, like i said... since you got RGC there last year, I'll take that and let the Meatheads get GC this year! :wink:
