Hey Guys,
I'm back !! Once again, an excellent contest. Sledneck and son Steven, were great honorary Bad Bones Team members. Excellent work ethic and Sledneck was a huge help in making critical decisions.
As you saw by the results, I placed top 10 in three categories but managed to end up 15th...That's because our chicken came in a dismal 70th !!!
Normally I'd be very dissappointed, but there is a great story to this that had me smiling from ear to ear. Sledneck, as you all know is a master of 13th place chicken, so I was counting on his expertise. Chicken needed to have the temps pumped up a bit higher based on time so we decided to move to the kettle to finish off with sauce. I was in the middle of making the sausage box, and Sledneck went to take out the rack in the Spicewine...
Problem is he did not remeber that the Spicewine racks are popout racks from the frame during an attempt to removes the rack and readjust his hand positioning.. :shock:
So... approx 20+ pcs of chicken came crashing to the floor right in front of the firebox door. (Guess what's usually in front of a firebox after cooking all night !!) A handful did not hit the floor and some others had to be salvaged that ended up on top of others.( I will not give counts here to protect us) :icon_blush:
We managed to get them on a hot grill to sanitize.. I mean crisp the skin. and gave them a good saucing.. Needless to say we realized SAUCE DOES NOT COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS !!
We managed to make a halfway decent box from appearance working with some of the smallest pcs in addition to a few of the largest (and not as well cooked).
Taste issues speak for themselves and tenderness was just not there do to the loss of time dealing with the mishap for the larger pieces, scrambling to pick them up, find gloves or tongs etc.
Sledneck was a bit down when during the awards especially when after no calls for chicken he heard me get calls for all other categories.
This mishap made the event extremely memorable and I was glad I got to experience it with a friend who did everything else right cooking with me. I will also give Sledneck a ton of credit for helping me with my 6th place ribs which was always my weekest category in terms of placings. Some adjustments during rib selection and box layout by his recommendations were spot on.
So, three Top 10 calls as the largest, best contest in the NE is fine by me. I got to spend it with several brethren I know and a few others I met.