So we did our 4th competition in our rookie year this weekend, Pigs & Peaches in Kennesaw GA. Had an awesome time and just though I would share a little of our experience and pictures since we did our best ever! 2 calls and 2nd overall Backyard!! Met a few of the Brethren out there and that was really awesome. Very cool guys. Each competition we seem to learn a good bit, both about competition bbq and comfort. I hope some of this can help both myself from feedback and others who may be starting out too.
We were in the backyard division with about 25 teams. Cooking Chicken, Ribs, Butt. No brisket turn in for the backyard, not sure if that is normal but didn't care since I have yet to nail and really good brisket (or even decent brisket for that matter). We hadn't done much chicken though since our first 2 comps were MBN backyard. So we had done a bunch of new chicken recipe practice runs and were really happy about those.
It was pretty hot on Friday, but the beverages cooled us off along with us bringing a FAN. I have zero idea why we hadn't done that before :crazy: but it made all the difference. My teammates wife set us up with most of the ingredients and prep for the peach desert Friday night which didn't do spectacular, but we enjoyed and was nice to have something other than BBQ. Another thing I wanted this time around was more sleep. The previous 3 I slept in my zero gravity clone chair and it is ok, but I never got more than an hour of continuous sleep and in the morning it took awhile to get awake. So I bought one of the xl cots from BassPro and man did I ever sleep like a rock. Granted it was only from around 1am-5:30am, but it was continuous sleep. Laying down makes that a lot easier. I was awake and ready to go when my alarm when off.
So now on to the turn ins. We were extremely happy with all 3. The chicken was really tasty with bite through skin so nice to see the practice paid off (8th Place Chicken). Then the ribs which we have previously done well for us were almost 100% how we wanted them (3rd Place Ribs right behind another Brethren). Then the pork, which we had been just below middle of the pack, we had made some changes and again super happy with everything we put into that box (2nd Place Pork).
So now for some photos........
Peach Desert was some kind of cinnamon biscuit on the bottom with bourbon maple glazed grill peaches and then spiced whip cream. I pretty much helped zero on this other than watching my buddy grill the peaches
.
Butts cooking. Not sure how far along this was.
One of the boxes prepped on Sat morning. I did a bunch of research on how to make the boxes and some teams spend hours making their boxes and getting all the leaves of parsley the same exact shade of green and having leaves the same size. This time around all I did was avoid very yellow or brown/nasty looking leaves and didn't try too hard. Our appearance scores were the best ever :-D. Less work and better results!
This is the ribs right before foiling them. They look shocking!
Mmmmmm. Raw chicken.
Chicken turn in (8th).
Nice bite on the leftovers.
Cutting ribs
Ribs turn in (3rd). We did a different presentation of our ribs that at first I didn't like and we disagreed on a little, but then I said ok. It worked.
Pork (2nd). Got a nice money muscle and many good chunks.
So there you have it. I need to mention we did run 1 different new cooker. Got a used TnT Southern Smoker shortly after our 3rd comp and it runs awesome and can hold a ton of food. Did the butt and ribs in there and they chicken on a 22.5 WSM.
We will be in Winder for the Jug Tavern and is all Pro KCBS so we will see how our stuff stacks up there. But I can tell you for sure we will not be changing anything. Well except we are going to cook brisket which I need to figure out before then. Thanks for looking.
Last and definitely not least thank you to all those that help on this forum, which is everyone really. I've put up many a question about competitions and bbq in general and probably wouldn't have the success and fun without that help. Thanks!!!
-Jason
We were in the backyard division with about 25 teams. Cooking Chicken, Ribs, Butt. No brisket turn in for the backyard, not sure if that is normal but didn't care since I have yet to nail and really good brisket (or even decent brisket for that matter). We hadn't done much chicken though since our first 2 comps were MBN backyard. So we had done a bunch of new chicken recipe practice runs and were really happy about those.
It was pretty hot on Friday, but the beverages cooled us off along with us bringing a FAN. I have zero idea why we hadn't done that before :crazy: but it made all the difference. My teammates wife set us up with most of the ingredients and prep for the peach desert Friday night which didn't do spectacular, but we enjoyed and was nice to have something other than BBQ. Another thing I wanted this time around was more sleep. The previous 3 I slept in my zero gravity clone chair and it is ok, but I never got more than an hour of continuous sleep and in the morning it took awhile to get awake. So I bought one of the xl cots from BassPro and man did I ever sleep like a rock. Granted it was only from around 1am-5:30am, but it was continuous sleep. Laying down makes that a lot easier. I was awake and ready to go when my alarm when off.
So now on to the turn ins. We were extremely happy with all 3. The chicken was really tasty with bite through skin so nice to see the practice paid off (8th Place Chicken). Then the ribs which we have previously done well for us were almost 100% how we wanted them (3rd Place Ribs right behind another Brethren). Then the pork, which we had been just below middle of the pack, we had made some changes and again super happy with everything we put into that box (2nd Place Pork).
So now for some photos........
Peach Desert was some kind of cinnamon biscuit on the bottom with bourbon maple glazed grill peaches and then spiced whip cream. I pretty much helped zero on this other than watching my buddy grill the peaches
.
Butts cooking. Not sure how far along this was.
One of the boxes prepped on Sat morning. I did a bunch of research on how to make the boxes and some teams spend hours making their boxes and getting all the leaves of parsley the same exact shade of green and having leaves the same size. This time around all I did was avoid very yellow or brown/nasty looking leaves and didn't try too hard. Our appearance scores were the best ever :-D. Less work and better results!
This is the ribs right before foiling them. They look shocking!
Mmmmmm. Raw chicken.
Chicken turn in (8th).
Nice bite on the leftovers.
Cutting ribs
Ribs turn in (3rd). We did a different presentation of our ribs that at first I didn't like and we disagreed on a little, but then I said ok. It worked.
Pork (2nd). Got a nice money muscle and many good chunks.
So there you have it. I need to mention we did run 1 different new cooker. Got a used TnT Southern Smoker shortly after our 3rd comp and it runs awesome and can hold a ton of food. Did the butt and ribs in there and they chicken on a 22.5 WSM.
We will be in Winder for the Jug Tavern and is all Pro KCBS so we will see how our stuff stacks up there. But I can tell you for sure we will not be changing anything. Well except we are going to cook brisket which I need to figure out before then. Thanks for looking.
Last and definitely not least thank you to all those that help on this forum, which is everyone really. I've put up many a question about competitions and bbq in general and probably wouldn't have the success and fun without that help. Thanks!!!
-Jason
