J
j3nks73
Guest
I know this is long but heck it was a long day and a lot of fun.
Sorry no pics, I thought about it after we were done for the day... :sad:
First off a little background on the cook off.
The local Shiners hold and annual farm fest here every year and last year the local downtown retailers organization teamed up with them to include a rib cook off. The contest is non sanctioned, blind judged, and has three categories, Ribs, hash and sauce. All Teams must be set up and cooking by 9 am Saturday morning and the turn ins are 12:00 ribs, 12:30 hash and 1:00 sauce. Teams are allowed to sell at this event.
This year there was a twist. They were selling people choice tickets for $15 that allowed the holder to sample one rib from each team and rate it.
This is our second year and I will go ahead and say that last year was a complete bust. Tough ribs and for some reason I could not get the hash to come together like it was supposed to so it just tasted off. Sauce was made by my brothers girlfriend and It didn't fair well either in the judging.
All that aside we decided to come back for round two.
My team (Fat Boys BBQ) consists of myself, my brother and a friend of ours plus a small army of friends and relatives to assist. Most of the cooking and food prep falls to me, and my brother and friend take care of things like tables, chairs, coolers, and beer.
We decided this year to cook 22 slabs of ribs and a half batch of hash (100 servings) and skip the sauce. I bought two cases of St Louse style ribs from the local supermarket on Wednesday and Friday morning I was up and at Sam's Club early buying all the other things I needed to cook and sell.
I started the hash at 2pm and began prepping the ribs. I removed the membrane and rubbed with mustard and seasoned with my rub and into the cooler they went. The hash was ready about 9 and I was in bed by 11 after loading the truck and going over some last minute details.
I arrived at 6am and got our grill up and running. Ribs went on at 6:45. and the rest of the team arrived at 7:30. Here is where things went wrong. I bought some rib racks at Home Depot on Friday to accommodate all the ribs because the would not all fit on the grill flat so I placed all 22 slabs on the 4 rib racks then I had decided to cook at a slightly higher temp than normal for the first hour and then cool back down to normal for the remaining time. About 4 and a half to 5 hours total.
When I opened the top about an hour later the ribs looked great the only problem was the tips appeared done. Stupid me didn't think about the higher temps in the top of the grill coupled with the meaty part of the ribs in the lower part of the rack. Some had actually burned a little on the tips. So all the ribs get a flip and squirt.
Fast forward to make a long story even longer the ribs came off at 11 and we turned our entry in at noon. We also began selling at noon and in 45 minutes we had sold about 80 rib plates. A good day weather we won or not I would say. There were other teams that cooked as much as we did and did not sell half as much. I guess the fact the pre-sold 20 plates to two of our sponsor businesses helped.
At the end of a long, hot and tiring day we did not take home a first or second in any of the categories but we had a good time, made most of our money back and vowed to return next year for another run. I will post or scores when I get them in a day or so.
We were close in peoples choice but the last word I got was that they had sold 8 tickets so I only held back 10 ribs. Well they sold 16 tickets and 5 judges didn't get to sample our ribs. I tried to bribe them with free hash but they turned in zeros for us. LOL
We got a lot of compliments on the ribs. People that ate them last year said this years were much better ribs. I went for a little bit of “Candy on the bone” this year and they really turned out good.
Lessons learned this year:
Sorry no pics, I thought about it after we were done for the day... :sad:
First off a little background on the cook off.
The local Shiners hold and annual farm fest here every year and last year the local downtown retailers organization teamed up with them to include a rib cook off. The contest is non sanctioned, blind judged, and has three categories, Ribs, hash and sauce. All Teams must be set up and cooking by 9 am Saturday morning and the turn ins are 12:00 ribs, 12:30 hash and 1:00 sauce. Teams are allowed to sell at this event.
This year there was a twist. They were selling people choice tickets for $15 that allowed the holder to sample one rib from each team and rate it.
This is our second year and I will go ahead and say that last year was a complete bust. Tough ribs and for some reason I could not get the hash to come together like it was supposed to so it just tasted off. Sauce was made by my brothers girlfriend and It didn't fair well either in the judging.
All that aside we decided to come back for round two.
My team (Fat Boys BBQ) consists of myself, my brother and a friend of ours plus a small army of friends and relatives to assist. Most of the cooking and food prep falls to me, and my brother and friend take care of things like tables, chairs, coolers, and beer.
We decided this year to cook 22 slabs of ribs and a half batch of hash (100 servings) and skip the sauce. I bought two cases of St Louse style ribs from the local supermarket on Wednesday and Friday morning I was up and at Sam's Club early buying all the other things I needed to cook and sell.
I started the hash at 2pm and began prepping the ribs. I removed the membrane and rubbed with mustard and seasoned with my rub and into the cooler they went. The hash was ready about 9 and I was in bed by 11 after loading the truck and going over some last minute details.
I arrived at 6am and got our grill up and running. Ribs went on at 6:45. and the rest of the team arrived at 7:30. Here is where things went wrong. I bought some rib racks at Home Depot on Friday to accommodate all the ribs because the would not all fit on the grill flat so I placed all 22 slabs on the 4 rib racks then I had decided to cook at a slightly higher temp than normal for the first hour and then cool back down to normal for the remaining time. About 4 and a half to 5 hours total.
When I opened the top about an hour later the ribs looked great the only problem was the tips appeared done. Stupid me didn't think about the higher temps in the top of the grill coupled with the meaty part of the ribs in the lower part of the rack. Some had actually burned a little on the tips. So all the ribs get a flip and squirt.
Fast forward to make a long story even longer the ribs came off at 11 and we turned our entry in at noon. We also began selling at noon and in 45 minutes we had sold about 80 rib plates. A good day weather we won or not I would say. There were other teams that cooked as much as we did and did not sell half as much. I guess the fact the pre-sold 20 plates to two of our sponsor businesses helped.
At the end of a long, hot and tiring day we did not take home a first or second in any of the categories but we had a good time, made most of our money back and vowed to return next year for another run. I will post or scores when I get them in a day or so.
We were close in peoples choice but the last word I got was that they had sold 8 tickets so I only held back 10 ribs. Well they sold 16 tickets and 5 judges didn't get to sample our ribs. I tried to bribe them with free hash but they turned in zeros for us. LOL
We got a lot of compliments on the ribs. People that ate them last year said this years were much better ribs. I went for a little bit of “Candy on the bone” this year and they really turned out good.
Lessons learned this year:
- Get more help with the prep work. I take on too much without asking for help
- Allow more time to cook the ribs at the lower temp and don't change anything on the day of the contest. Stick with your plan
- Buy more ribs and make the whole batch of hash next year. Also get more tater salad
- When you run out of beer it's time to go home. No sitting in the lot 4 hours after the contest is over bumming beers. 24 is a gracious plenty for anyone.
- Drink more water less beer (see number 4)
