First Solo MIM Contest

After a hard fought battle to make it to this weekend's Memphis in May sanctioned contest in Princeton, NJ, I'm home resting a sore body.

Because of onsight judging, we had much more equipment than normal so set up and breakdown was killer, especially with only 2 people. Did the chicken and seafood grilling contests Friday and placed 3rd in seafood!

Although the turnout was small (11 teams I think), the competition was amazing. Myron Mixon, Jack McDavid, Ribs Within, Seabrisket, and a few teams that only do MIM contests.

Anyway, we got all 16 racks of ribs cooked, though they were a little more tender than I would have hoped. We did our turn-in box then immediately had our first on-site judge. For our first stab at this, I think we kept the judges engaged for the entire 15 minutes, including one untrained judge, one KCBS judge and one MIM-judge who flew up for the contest.

Unfortunately we weren't one of the top 3 so didn't do finals judging, but got to watch my neighbors Jack's Old South, present to judges in all three categories. We broke down, went to the awards, and came home. Although we haven't gotten the score breakdowns yet, it looked like we ended up in seventh place. Not great, but given all of the obstacles, our level of experience, and the competition, I felt pretty happy about what we pulled off. Pix to follow...

And some pix...

Thanks, guys. The best part of the weekend was when our certified MIM judge came back by to say hi after everything was done. When we asked for feedback, he had nothing but praise for our meat, presentation, site, etc. And the other judge with him said he had been raving about our dry rub and sauce. The other two onsite judges must have hated us but that was nice coming from a judge and former MIM competitor.

CTSmokehouse said:

Way to go! What did you do for seafood?

Yours in BBQ,

Cliff

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Miso glazed salmon.

Full Results

Best T-Shirt - Pig Pen BBQ

Best BBQ Sauce - Seabrisket

Best Hot Sauce - Jack's Down Home BBQ

Poultry
1st - Pig Pen BBQ
2nd - Jack's Old South
3rd - Front Street Smokehouse

Seafood
1st - Jack's Down Home BBQ
2nd - Front Street Smokehouse
3rd - Smoke in Da Eye

Whole Hog
1st - Jack's Old South
2nd - Jack's Down Home BBQ
3rd - Ribs Within BBQ
4th - Pig Pen BBQ
5th - Our Couch

Shoulder
1st - Jack's Old South
2nd - Jack's Down Home BBQ
3rd - Front Street Smokehouse
4th - Seabrisket
5th - Pig Pen BBQ

Rib
1st - Jack's Old South
2nd - Jack's Down Home BBQ
3rd - Pig Pen BBQ
4th - Ribs Within BBQ
5th - Seabrisket

GRAND CHAMPION - Jack's Old South

Nitrofly said:

Great Job Clint
I'm way scared of the on site judging. Don't know how they
would take a couple of BAAAHHHBEQUE !!! BAAAHHHBEQUE !!!
When are you going to do your MiM contest??

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Yep, that contest was lacking some BAAAAHHHBEQUE cries. Though I do think I heard some faint cries coming from the direction of Vermont Saturday evening.:biggrin:

The organizers are planning to do it again next year so hopefully it won't conflict with anything and we can get some more brethren there (though Myron in front of my banner was almost as good). Nice venue (with a hotel on site), very accomodating to competitors' needs (they even provided hoses and extension cords), and good prize money for those who won.

backyardchef said:

Good for you, Clint! Looks and sounds like you had fun. I know firsthand how good your ribs can be, so I expect a 1st in that category any time now....

Sorry I couldn't be there to help out......

Edited to add-- Any pics of the stuffed chicken? That sounds incredible.

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The stuffed chicken was an experience considering I made it up and had never actually tried it. I called it "deconstruced chicken jambalaya" but not sure how it did other than not making top 3. Flat breasts of chicken, topped with grilled poblano peppers and a layer of jambalaya, rolled up and smoked then sliced... Looked pretty cool and tasted great! We'll see what the final scores look like.