Here I go again

I'm sitting in Saint Louis waiting for a connecting flight to Memphis Tennessee. I'm headed to Memphis in May one of the worlds largest barbecue contests. This will be my first time in Memphis and to tell you the truth I'm a little intimidated. I normally compete in KCBS competitions and I'm very comfortable with the rules and regulations. Memphis in May is a whole new ballgame. There is onsite judging and you have to try to impresss the judges that visit your site. I better drink some extra tequila to calm my nerves !

I'll be cooking with Jack's Down Home bbq and we are entered in the Whole Hog category. Jack is a great hog cook and he has experience in Memphis in May. I'll be helping out with some of the ancillary categories such as Peoples Choice Pork Shoulder and beef. I'm not even sure what types of garnish are legal in these categories but I guess I'll find out when I get there.

Our bbq class was a complete success and we've gotten nothing but positive feedback from the 25 students that attended. We are planning on doing a beginner bbq class within the next few months. We probably won't even cover competition at all in this class. We will teach the novice how to make some tastey ribs and other bbq delights in their backyard.

I competed in Salisbury MD last month with my father and my friend George. We got a couple of calls but ended up 5th overall out of 60 teams. My ribs just didn't want to cook and ended up placing 43'rd. Ouch ! Oh well you can't win them all.

The team now has two new trucks so hopefully we won't suffer through the breakdowns of last year. I purchased a 2007 Silverado Crew Cab. Charlie purchased a 2003 Silverado with a diesel engine. We'll have to win a couple of categories just to pay for our gas this year ! I Smell Smoke will be competing in Connecticut on Memorial day weekend. Wish us luck.

I'll take some pictures in Memphis and post them soon.

14th Annual Snowshoe Grand Champs !!

I'll let the food speak for itself.

Cooking this weekend

We'll be competing in the Snowshoe grilling challenge in Abington Massachusetts this weekend. The categories are Fish, Sausage, beef, and vegetable. It's 2 days away and we're still up in the air on what we are going to cook. I'll take some pictures.

Competition BBQ Class 4/14/07

I Smell Smoke will be teaching an advanced competition bbq class on April 14th, 2007 at the American Legion post 77 in Ashland, MA. This is the real deal folks! We will show you how we prepare Chicken, Ribs, Pork and Brisket for KCBS competitions. The class is intended for people with at least some competition experience. Class size will be limited so sign up early. Visit www.ismellsmoke.com to download an application

Winter Sizzler

Well the first contest of 07 is in the bag and I'm thrilled with the results. We competed against 14 other hardy teams at the First Annual Winter Sizzler in Lincoln NH where temperatures reached a low of about 15 degrees which is pretty warm for the White Mountains in January.

All the teams set up camp on Saturday and started prepping their meats for the contest which would be judged Sunday afternoon. We also cooked up a bunch of wings for a contest Saturday Night. A panel of 12 judges sampled all the entries and all of the leftovers were shared with the general public.

After all our contest meats were prepped and turned in it was time to wander around and socialize with the other teams. The Lunchmeat crowd had a 200,000 btu propane heater under a 10x20 tent and it was like a sauna in there. There were a many types of heating devices from propane burners to outdoor fireplaces and everybody was prepared for the cold weather. If you live in New England you know how to protect yourself from the cold. One of the people that we talked with told us when he first started competing he was very intimidated by us and wasn’t sure if we were approachable. That gave me a good chuckle. We’ve had quite a bit of success in the past few years but we’re still just a bunch of knuckleheads out to have a good time. Anyone should feel free to come on up and say hi. We won’t bite your head off and we love talking Q with anybody and everybody. It may take a few times for me to remember your name but it’s not because I’m stuck up it’s just I’m bad with names.

The night went smoothly and we actually had a motel room close by and we snuck back there for a few hours of warmth and sleep. We’ve reached a point where we can really trust our Backwoods to just chug along all night and do what it’s supposed to. It’s a wonderful thing to get a shower the day of the contest. It doesn’t happen often so you really appreciate it when it does.

Charlie got up at 5:30 am and put the ribs in then grabbed a couple of hours sleep out in the trailer. We had a small propane heater in there and it warmed the trailer up enough to make it bearable. We stumbled back to camp one by one after our turn in the shower. Doug and Carlotta had coffee and donuts ready for us by the time I made it back. We got about a half inch of snow overnight and it really made the contest sight very scenic. I think I would have felt robbed if we didn’t get snow for a contest in January.

This contest was different from the normal contests we compete in because there were five categories that counted towards Grand Champ instead of the normal four. We had the usual Chicken, Ribs, Pork and brisket and the fifth category was Red Chili No beans. We’ve all cooked chili before but never in a contest. Doug brought along a killer recipe and I brought some excellent chili powder that I purchased in Texas earlier in the year. When I sampled the chili I knew it was good but maybe a little spicy for the judges. But hey it was cold and snowing, a little spice might make the day more comfortable. Here’s how we placed in each category:

5^th Chicken
3^rd Ribs
3^rd Pork
1^st Brisket
2^nd Chili

And yup you guessed it Grand Champion. Last year was an awesome year for us and I can only hope that this contest is a sign of things to come for this year. Win or lose we’ll try our best and always have a good time. If you can’t have fun why do it right ?

Preparing for the Winter Sizzler

The team will be competing in Lincoln NH this weekend at the first annual Winter Sizzler Barbecue Competition. When the event was first planned we were expecting temperatures in the 5 degree range but it looks like we could end up with temps in the mid 30's. It's been a strange winter or is that non-winter.

Our large cuts of meat have been purchased and trimmed. Doug is shopping for Garnish, miscelaneous seasonings, snacks for the weekend and possibly something to make for dinner and breakfast. Charlie is gathering firewood to keep us warm, loading up tables and a grill, a gas burner to light charcoal, make chili, and heat water. Hopefully Carlotta is making jello shots. Pat will do some shopping at the package store for us. I have to go to Costco for Ribs, Chicken thighs, Chicken wings, paper towels and aluminum pans. I need to make some injections and gather up all the rubs and sauces that I removed from the trailer for the winter. Clean my cooler and cooker load charcoal and pellets. It's a lot of work getting ready for a bbq competition. This is about the time I put my hands on my head and say why am I doing this.

Ribs 2 ways

I cooked 7 racks of ribs for the Pats game this past weekend. 4 racks of spares and 3 racks of baby backs. I cooked the spares the way I would cook competition ribs which I'm not going to post on this blog, however my team and I will be offering competition bbq classes sometime in the spring if you want to learn how we make them.

I set out to cook the baby back ribs using a recipe I found on the Minnesota Pork Board website, it's the one titled Asian Spiced Baby backs with Honey-Miso Glaze. I made the rub as directed and put the ribs on the cooker then headed out to the Super 88 Market to find the rest of the ingredients. Big mistake. I guess it's always wise to get the ingredients together before attempting a recipe. Since I normally don't follow recipes this was a lesson for me. So what's a guy to do in this situation ? Buy some of the ingredients and hope it tastes ok or buy a commercial sauce that just might do the trick ? I chose the latter. I bought Lee Kum Kee Korean bbq sauce for $1.99 and boy am I glad I did.

I cooked the ribs at 275 degrees in my FE100 pellet cooker. I cooked them for three hours and then wrapped the ribs in foil with some apple juice and Honey and cooked them for one more hour. I then finished the ribs on a hot grill flipping and saucing them several times to get some nice camelization of the sauce. I gotta tell you these were some of the best ribs I've ever had. I'll be making these again in the near future I'm sure.

Pork Butt Report

Yes you can cook 150lbs of pork in an FE100. No it's not the wisest thing in the world to do especially if you have other cookers you can use in conjuction. I loaded 5 butts per shelf and staggered them so I had some airflow in the cooker. The large mass of meat took several hours longer then a normal butt cook for me. I had to move the shelves around several times to get the butts to cook evenly and in the end I had to wrap the butts in foil to get them done in a reasonable amount of time. The end product was excellent but it took a lot of work to get them where I wanted them.

150 lbs of pork, one FE100 and a bottle of Tequila

I'm going to attemp to cook 150lbs of pork on my FE100 this weekend. Should be interesting. Hmmm I might need more Tequila.

The show was fun to watch

The show was both fun and painful to watch. We came out of the gate very strong with a 25 point lead. Our pork couldn't have come out better and the cracklins we included just put us over the top. It was all down hill from there though.

We made our sauce for the tenderloin in a cast iron pan and the sauce started picking up some metalic flavors from the pan. We transferred it to a different pan and thought we were alright. Obviously we were wrong. That must have been the burnt taste the judges were complaining about. Maybe the longer the sauce sat the more pronounced the flavor got, we'll never know since we didn't taste it after turning in the venison. We also had other issues with the tenderloin. We originally wanted to turn in kabobs with cherries bet were informed it was against the rules. We also wanted to use a rub as a garnish but that was nixed too.

I won't even go into the crab. Let's just say it was not the freshest seafood on the planet.

Tonight's the night

Well the episode of the Barbecue Championship series that I participated in will be on tonight at 10:00pm on the versus chanel. I hope it's enjoyable.

Going to get my trailer

I'm sitting at a rest stop on Route 2 in Leominster MA waiting for Charlie to drop off my trailer. I have my fingers crossed that he doesn't have any problems and that I don't have any trouble on my way home.

It's been a long time since that trailer has been home. I'm looking forward to having it back in the yard so I can do some Holiday cooking. Maybe I'll bone out a couple of Turkeys and roast them in the FE one day this week. I also have a new larger firebox for my Caldera sitting in the trailer that Fred dropped off for me at the Jack. I'm curious how long of a burn time I will get with the larger firebox.

It looks like I have a lot of playing to do.

Winter Q

I was chatting with my fellow New England bbq'rs on the NewEngland BBQ Yahoo list last week and made the following post: "We need to organize a contest for December. Not just grilling but Barbecue. I'm Jonesing for a contest. I don't want the season to end" Well that little comment blossomed into a fullblown Barbecue contest that will be held in Lincoln New Hampshire on January 14th and 15th at the Inn Seasons Resort. There will be more info posted on the NEBS website if your interested.

Home Sweet Home

Charlie and crew made it home safely last night. We're glad to have them home safe and sound. I'll have to give him a call tonight so we can plan our next roadtrip..........NOT.

Some Random Pictures

On the road again

Well the 2nd transmission has been installed and the gang is on the road again 200 miles closer to home. Keep your fingers crossed !!

The Saga continues

Charlie called me around 4:00pm. The good news is they traveled around 450 miles. The bad news is the new transimission just crapped out. He's somewhere in Virginia waiting for another transmission to arrive which probably won't be until sometime Friday. I'm at a loss for words.

Jack Continued

With a belly full of Southern delights it was time to prep the meat for competition. We trimmed our butts and briskets at home but we still had to trim Ribs and Chicken. Doug worked on the ribs and Charlie trimmed the chicken while I made up our injections for the pork and brisket. Once the meat was injected we put it in Zip Lock bags and then back into the cooler to rest before it was time to cook. We discussed when we would put the meat on the cooker and had to take into consideration that turn-in times were one hour later than a normal KCBS competition. We also discussed how we would present our meat in the boxes because the rules stated we had to have at least 7 pieces as opposed to the normal 6.

After the meat was prepped it was time to join the parade which is led by the Lynchburg High School band. While waiting for the parade to start I got to spend some time with Guy Fieri from the food network. We met at a bbq class in Houston before he bacame famous. I really enjoyed talking to him and hearing about all the exciting things he has coming up. The parade goes from the contest site through the center of town and over to the Visitors center where there are busses waiting to take people up the hill to a reception party. To be honest the reception was a bit of a disappointment this year. They served chili which was very good but really not up to par with the fried chicken and sides that were served last year. But it was good meeting and chatting with people from all over the world. There was plenty of free Jack Daniels and Lynchburg lemonade to go around.

I left the reception around 9:00pm because it was time to light the pit and get ready to cook some meat. I loaded up my Backwoods smoker with Wicked Good Charcoal and BBQr's Delight Pecan Smoke Stix and waited for it to come up to temp. It was somewhere around this time that I found out about my Friend Scotties Father passing. I tried to offer what comfort I could but knew there was really nothing I could do for him except let him know I was there for him.

At 11:00 pm I loaded the Butts and briskets into the Backwoods. A couple of people from the Qhaven bbq team stopped by for a visit and to share a drink. The wind was kicking up pretty good at times but it didn’t seem to affect the smoker. We had several visitors during the night.

The weather was much improved in the morning. Charlie got up at 6:00 am to season the ribs and put them on the smoker. He also added more charcoal, wood and water to the smoker. I got up around 7:30 to get ready for the day. The Chicken went on the smoker around 11:00 am and the brisket and butts came off to get some rest time. The ribs needed a little more time. Everything was looking pretty good. We had some visitors at this time but regrettably I really couldn't spend much time with them, we had too much to do. Doug spent most of the morning prepping his dessert. Charlie cooked our chefs choice entry.

The one entry I didn't like was our Pork. Of course pork is what we did best in. We did spend extra time on it trying to improve it's taste and texture. I guess it paid off. Between turn-ins and awards I got a visit from drbbq and Lee Ann Whippen who have both been on the television show The Barbecue Championship series. I have known both of them for awhile. I attended a drbbq cooking class a few years ago and I consider us friends. I have competed against Lee Ann several times and we have become friends. They both wanted to sample my ribs and brisket and I thought that was a real compliment in itself. I didn't really ask them what they thought because I didn't want to put them on the spot. My good friend Garry Howard from the smokering.com also stopped by.

After that we started breaking down camp and getting ready for the awards ceremony.

Our vehicle problems continue

Charlie picked up his truck and our trailer in Indy and made it 400 miles to the Jack with no problems. He kept saying he loves it when a plan comes together and I had to agree. Our luck would not hold out though. On the way from Lynchburg to Nashville after the contest his truck started making a horrble grinding noise coming from the rear of the truck. Yup you guessed his rear end is messed up. The truck is in the shop today and hopefully he'll be back on the road and headed home this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed.

Jack Daniels World Championship Barbecue Contest

This is one of the most prestigious events in the world of competition Barbecue. Teams from all over the country dream of being able to compete in this event. To qualify for the contest you need to win a State Championship or a contest with 50 teams or more. If there is more than one qualifying contest in your state you then go into a draw with any other teams that qualified in that state.

We qualified for the Jack by winning the Massachusetts State Championship and the Vermont State championship. Both States only have one qualifying contest.

We flew out of Boston on Thursday morning at 9:40 am and arrived in Nashville at 11:30 am. The flight was uneventful and actually enjoyable thanks to the flight attendant who was friendly and proficient at her job. We rented a 12 passenger van which we picked up right at the airport terminal and drove to downtown Nashville to check into our hotel. Charlie, Carlotta and Carmen showed up at the hotel about an hour later and the staff of the Marriott was very helpful in finding us a place to park our trailer.

Bye the time we were all checked in it was time to get some dinner. It was pretty cold and rainy outside but we decided to walk to Demos Steak and Spaghetti house, a restaurant where we had eaten when we were in Nashville in 2002. The waitress was trying to teach us how to speak like a Southerner. She told us she knew we were from out of town because not one of us had said y’all while ordering our meals. It was pretty funny. The food was good and we were all set for a night out on the town.

We hit several bars on Broadway including Tootsies and Robert's and got to listen to some great music. By 1:30 am I was ready to hit the sack. A couple of our team members stayed out and headed over to Bourbon Street blues and Boogie Bar and said the house band was awesome. They strolled back to the Hotel around 3:00am. I'm told Joe ordered some food and proceeded to fall asleep. Doug heard a knock on the door around 4:00 and had some choice words for the delivery guy who woke him out of a sound sleep. Sorry delivery guy it wasn't your fault.

We got up around 7:00 am and had some breakfast then it was off to Lynchburg to set up camp in the rain. Upon arriving we were informed that we were the last team to get there. Mark Deleshaw the man ushering the teams to their sites told me were DAL (dead ass last) not something a competition team wants to hear. I told home that's ok that we planned to be the last to arrive and the last to make the trip to the stage. Some of the sites were mud bogs but we lucked out and got some high ground. The rain let up just as we were setting up but it was still pretty darn cold.

We got set up and I took my Parents to lunch at the famous Miss Mary Bobo's. The food was excellent and we made friends with the Hostess who visited with us the next day at the competition. If you’re in Lynchburg you should make reservations at Mary Bobo's. The wait staff is made up of Students working for a college scholarship. It's really a great thing.

More later