TwilightChrome
Is lookin for wood to cook with.
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2015
- Location
- Bridgewa...
We had a great time at Mohegan Sun Fest BBQ festival. It was our first KCBS contest ever, and we met a lot of great people and enjoyed the entire event. It was very well-run. We were pretty well-prepared for everything from doing dry-runs all Spring and didn't have to scramble much. We made all our turn-ins and thought our food was very good. The judges didn't exactly agree so I wanted to see if folks here had any suggestions. I know it's hard to say how our food was without taking a bite, and we shouldn't read too much into any one contest's results, and we were up against some really accomplished competitors, etc. We are interested in improving rapidly though, so your suggestions are appreciated if you have any!
Our scores:
https://goo.gl/photos/Cfu3eMEjCaCtHGsk8
All cooks:
Our chicken did OK on appearance but taste and tenderness were pretty much all 7's. We did Myron Mixon's cupcake chicken, I learned it from taking his class in February. The thighs were brined with his recipe, we used a standard rub but without salt to avoid double-salting. We ran the cupcake chicken in disposable pans half-filled with chicken broth. Finishing sauce was Myron's new Honey Hickory sauce. Cooked until it was in the 170's and probe tender, around "room-temperature butter" resistance. I really liked the flavor, we had bite-through skin, and tenderness seemed good. Those small pucks of chicken lose heat very rapidly though. I am wondering if the heat was part of the issue, and/or if I need to change the sauce or rub up. Pic here:
https://goo.gl/photos/Eu3wzXT2MNZWpiYH7
Our ribs won the Rib Challenge on Saturday and I thought the ones we cooked on Sunday were even better. I expected this to be our best category. We joke that they taste like "MORE!" or that they are "addiction ribs" because you just want another bite immediately. One judge agreed with us but the rest 7'd us to death. I thought our appearance was decent but could have been much better. I believe tenderness was as far as you can go without being fall-off-the-bone. The racks formed an upside-down U when held, and were probe tender. We did NOT re-therm after cutting, maybe we should have? Pic here:
https://goo.gl/photos/dy9ZaYrYon6TtWk36
Our taste and tenderness was generally in the 8's for pork. I know we could have used more time to re-therm the meat here after cutting. I was slow in cutting the meat, saucing, and arranging.
We were pretty proud of the brisket we did. I honestly thought we screwed up by running the point for about 30 minutes too long because we forgot about it during turn-ins. The burnt ends were a little drier than I like them to be. Had I pulled them on time I feel we could have done even better. We did have time to re-therm the slices and chunks before turning in.
Amongst our team we came up with the following ideas:
* Get cutting, saucing, and arrangement time down low enough to always allow for re-therm time.
* Use a primed, insulated bag to carry the turn-ins
* All of our team members have taken the CBJ class; use this to judge some contests this summer and see how other teams' stuff is for taste and tenderness. Compare our flavor profile to what they have.
* Offer to swap some food with other teams local to us to get some opinions.
* Research flavor profiles some more, try some more top commercial products out from teams that are winning now
If you have any suggestions after reading this, please feel free to comment. I have pretty thick skin, so if you think our process is off or should be rethought, let's hear it.
Thanks,
-TC
A link to them all pics on Google Photos https://goo.gl/photos/H3C8NeY8k2NY3KvWA
Our scores:
https://goo.gl/photos/Cfu3eMEjCaCtHGsk8
All cooks:
- We trimmed at home on Thursday, vacuum-sealed, and had everything in the Yeti all weekend. No problems staying well below 41 degrees.
- We used tried and true commercial sauces, rubs, and injections. Butcher's injections, Blues Hog Original mixed with Tennessee red, etc, etc. Basically just battle-tested things seen on "BBQ Brethren" that we tried at home during practice cooks and agreed were delicious.
- Everything was cooked on a Stump's Stretch or WSM. 260 overnight for the large proteins, 285 in the morning to finish those off once wrapped and to do the small proteins. Wood was recharged in the morning as well.
- We finished everything and had it in the Cambro by 11:20. I did not want to go hot-off-the-pit at all to avoid running out of time. Our goal was to re-therm each meat before boxing it. We managed to do so for 0 - 15 minutes depending on time left.
- We were sticklers about tenderness. I cooked everything until it was probe-tender deep into the meat. Either my standards are way off (I don't think so), I should have cooked a little over-tender to account for temperature loss, or something else is up?
- We did not use an insulated carry bag to carry the food to turn-in. Lines were not long to turn in and we were maybe 90 feet from the turn-in station so we figured we did not need it. Upon retrospect, I think an insulated bag that had been primed to be warm would have helped. It was pretty windy.
Our chicken did OK on appearance but taste and tenderness were pretty much all 7's. We did Myron Mixon's cupcake chicken, I learned it from taking his class in February. The thighs were brined with his recipe, we used a standard rub but without salt to avoid double-salting. We ran the cupcake chicken in disposable pans half-filled with chicken broth. Finishing sauce was Myron's new Honey Hickory sauce. Cooked until it was in the 170's and probe tender, around "room-temperature butter" resistance. I really liked the flavor, we had bite-through skin, and tenderness seemed good. Those small pucks of chicken lose heat very rapidly though. I am wondering if the heat was part of the issue, and/or if I need to change the sauce or rub up. Pic here:
https://goo.gl/photos/Eu3wzXT2MNZWpiYH7
Our ribs won the Rib Challenge on Saturday and I thought the ones we cooked on Sunday were even better. I expected this to be our best category. We joke that they taste like "MORE!" or that they are "addiction ribs" because you just want another bite immediately. One judge agreed with us but the rest 7'd us to death. I thought our appearance was decent but could have been much better. I believe tenderness was as far as you can go without being fall-off-the-bone. The racks formed an upside-down U when held, and were probe tender. We did NOT re-therm after cutting, maybe we should have? Pic here:
https://goo.gl/photos/dy9ZaYrYon6TtWk36
Our taste and tenderness was generally in the 8's for pork. I know we could have used more time to re-therm the meat here after cutting. I was slow in cutting the meat, saucing, and arranging.
We were pretty proud of the brisket we did. I honestly thought we screwed up by running the point for about 30 minutes too long because we forgot about it during turn-ins. The burnt ends were a little drier than I like them to be. Had I pulled them on time I feel we could have done even better. We did have time to re-therm the slices and chunks before turning in.
Amongst our team we came up with the following ideas:
* Get cutting, saucing, and arrangement time down low enough to always allow for re-therm time.
* Use a primed, insulated bag to carry the turn-ins
* All of our team members have taken the CBJ class; use this to judge some contests this summer and see how other teams' stuff is for taste and tenderness. Compare our flavor profile to what they have.
* Offer to swap some food with other teams local to us to get some opinions.
* Research flavor profiles some more, try some more top commercial products out from teams that are winning now
If you have any suggestions after reading this, please feel free to comment. I have pretty thick skin, so if you think our process is off or should be rethought, let's hear it.
Thanks,
-TC
A link to them all pics on Google Photos https://goo.gl/photos/H3C8NeY8k2NY3KvWA
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