Well... The Naperville Last Fling Rib Cookoff is over for this year. I'll provide a report in two fashions... An Executive Summary (for those with short attention spans (e.g., Executives)) and the unabridged versions (for Brethren you enjoy reading my rambling postsw
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Executive Summary: My feet hurt, my back hurts, my forehead is sunburned, and we didn't get a call, but we had fun.
Unabridged version: Had a great day! This was a fun local comp, with 20 teams cooking on everything from Traeger pellet cookers to a homenmade double 55-gallon drum cooker. Lots of WSMs, quite a few offsets.
We arrive at the site at 7:00 to find that it was fisrt-come, first-served for spaces. We grabbed a spot and got everything set up. I had the WSM coming up to temp and started preparing the ribs. The first round of judging was broken into three waves (they had 6 judges). Basedon my space number (given out shortly after we arrived), we were scheduled to be in the first wave with a rib and sauce pickup time of 1:30, so I started cooking based on that time. About an hour later, they announced that they were changing the way they assigned pickup times and they did a random draw. Fortunately, I drew 1:30, so my schedule was OK. Some of the guys, Mad_Dawg included, had planned on a later pickup time based on their spot number, but then drew an earlier time. Mad_Dawg had planned on 2:30, but then drew 1:30. After the first round, they were going to pick the top 6 and have them turn in additional ribs and sauce, so I held back three slabs to be ready for a second turn-in, just in case.
I put a regular and a hot fatty on with the first ribs, for snacks later, and spent some time talking with the other guys. Besides Bryan, I met Rick from Smoke Hunters, and Joe (can'tremember Joe's team) both of whom I have conversed with on the Virtual Silver Bullet site, plus a bunch of others. Once the fatties were done, my daughter cut them up into bitesized pieces and passed them around to the other cookers (I held a few pieces back for me!). The fatties were a big hit! We also made some Chocolate-Strawberry Paninis as a practice for the dessert categori at Peoria with Parrothead next weekend. Tasted great, but didn't look like they should have. Then we made some great wings (I used a Honey-Chili sauce that I bought at Williams-Sonoma) and ate them for lunch. Each time, my daughter was the Ambassador of Food, and she delivered samples to Bryan and some of the other guys. Bryan sent back some turds that were great!
At 1:00, we pulled the first three slabs and glazed them and got them ready for turn in. They were done just right, and I was very happy with the results. We also turned in two little cups of my homemade sauce. Then we waited for the judging of our wave to end and then the turn-in and judging of the other two waves, and we didn't make I into the final group for sauce or ribs. Bummer. The last three slabs were a late lunch and snacks for passers-by.
BUT! I learned a lot and made some new friends. After we knew we were done for the day, my daughter asked me if it was all worth it. You guys with kids who have hit their teenage years, or have fled the coop will understand my answer best...
"I was able to spend an entire day with my 16 yeard old daughter. Of course it was worth it!"
As usual, she rolled her eyes and gave me The Look! :shock:
Post Mortem: We were pretty well organized, and I was vey happy with the ribs. They may have been the best that I have turned out. I can't complain about our performance. I did get to taste the winning sauce, and, between you and me, it was farking ketchup! I was not impressed. That team also placed in ribs, and their ribs were so heavily sauced that all I could taste. So, for next year, I'm gonna make to sweetest, stickiest sauce I can find, and I'm gonna let my ribs soak in it until they are saturated!
Also, they had an "Ambiance" category, and these people take it seriously. The team that took second place did a ranch theme and they had bales of hay, steer heads and a stuffed bear! Another team did a Red, White and Blue theme. The guys that on, however, were pretty clever. It was Rick, from the VWB site, and his team is Smoke Hunters, so he did a hunting theme, complete with duck and goose decoys, including some of those decoys with the spinning wings. It looked pretty cool.
I have some pics, and as soon as I can get them off the camera I will post a like to them
Sorry for the long post...
