Competition Equipment

This is part 2 of my competition follow up. If you would like, you can read Part 1.

There is a wide variety of equipment you need to compete in a barbecue competition. If you do a little digging online you can see many people have compiled lists of what they think is necessary for competition equipment. I'll go over what I had and comment on what would have been better and what I'll do next time. This will only cover hardware and tools. Rubs, sauces, brines, etc. I will talk about when I get to the cooking portion of these blog entries.

Smoker/Pit

Obviously you need something to cook in. If you have seen any competitions on TV you will note that a wide variety of cooking vessels have been used. If you price out some of the pits you can buy you can see that it is easy to spend thousands of dollars on a barbecue pit. In my first competition I competed against some of these rigs. All I had were two upright drum smokers. I was a bit worried, but it would appear my worries were unfounded as I placed second overall and placed in the top 3 in 2 of the four categories. I had heard and read that people had cooked award winning barbecue in upright drums. After doing this I can believe them. I have no reason to believe I'll be cooking on anything else anytime soon. I wouldn't rule it out, as I have a friend that is interested in perhaps building a more complex smoker, and I would like something with more cooking space, but the drums can do the job. Of all the equipment I've got, this is the least of my worries. I know my drums and how to cook on them. You can cook on almost anything as long as you can keep the temperature reasonably consistent.

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One thing that would have been good to have to move the smokers would have been a hand truck.

Knives

I ended up using two knives regularly, my large chef's knife for cutting meat and a boning kinfe I got from Costco for trimming the meat. Please, please, please make sure you have good quality knives and make sure they are sharp. Some people recommend bringing a knife sharpener. I just made sure to sharpen mine the night before the competition started.

One thing I will for sure bring next time is a knife box.of some sort. I had the knives wrapped well and tied up for transport, but this was a pain to deal with while cooking. I will either build or buy a block or box.

Tongs 

I brought three sets of tongs with me. I think I ended up using all 3 at some point. It is hard to have too many of these. Both short and long handled tongs are handy. I had 2 long and one short set. At the very least I would have one of each.

Cutting Boards

I had three cutting boards. I wish I had more. Next time I will end up bringing six. Make sure all of them are large. In some cases just putting the cutting board away after using it will be easier to deal with than trying to constantly clean the cutting board. This was especially true when separating the brisket point from the flat to make burnt ends. It was such a mess that cleaning it with the supplied I had would have been impossible. That cutting board got the big stuff scraped off and then was put in a bag to be taken home to be cleaned where hot water and soap were plentiful.

Mixing Bowls and Whisks

I had one mixing bowl and whisk to mix up batches of sauce in case I didn't make enough at home. I didn't make enough at home. I was glad I had them.

Spray Bottle

You will need a spray bottle. Mine was full of apple juice to put a little sheet and a touch of extra flavor on all of the meat after it was boxed. The one exception to this was the brisket. The brisket just got another thin layer of sauce.

Aluminum Foil

I brought two full large rolls of heavy duty Reynold's Wrap. I would strongly suggest NOT skimping on the foil. Get the good stuff and bring lots of it. Two full rolls was about right. I only went through most of one roll, but having the second roll there meant I didn't need to think twice about using the foil where needed.

Foil Pans

I had 6 x 8, 9 x 10 and 12 x 20 pans. I think I had about 8 of each. This was a good amount. As with the foil, I went home with most of what I brought, but they don't take up much room and they are extremely handy to have for holding meat for marinades, or during prep for boxing, or putting one out to keep your knives and utensils in so they aren't sitting out on the table.

The ribs were too large for any of the plastic bags I had, so they got seasoned, wrapped, put in 12 x 20 pan then wrapped again then put in the cooler when they were getting prepped for cooking.

Bring lots of pans.

Plastic Bags

I had sandwich, quart, gallon and 2.5 gallon bags. I also brought some oven and slow cooker bags as well. The oven roasting and slow cooker bags turned out to be handy for holding the brisket while it was marinading. The brisket was too large for a 2.5 gallon zip bag. As with the foil and pans, plan on bringing a lot of these.

In addition to the bags for holding food I had quite a few grocery store plastic bags for carrying things and for dealing with trash. 

Latex Gloves

 We had two boxes of these, for medium and large hands. We got the powder free gloves. The boxes we got had 100 each. We didn't go through too many of them. I imagine the boxes we got will last quite a while.

Tables

I had 2 tables and 3rd brought in later. Next time I will shoot for four tables. All large and all with adjustable height. I had the tables as close to counter height as I could get. You will be hunched over a lot cutting, saucing and boxing food for a couple of hours. Doing this at a normal table height would end up killing my back after 3 hours.

Charcoal

I brought 2 bags, needed to run home and get a third. The third was only necessary to start a chimney of charcoal in the middle of the day Saturday for finishing off the burnt ends. I will definitely bring 3 big bags of charcoal next time.

Place to Sleep

I was fortunate to be able to borrow a camper. My original plan was to just sleep in the car, which I could have done, but the camper was so much nicer. Had I not had the camper I would have opted for the car over a tent given how cold it got that night. That being said, if you own a camper or have access to one, go with the camper.

Cleaning Supplies

I brought a jug of water, some dish soap, two rolls of paper towel, some cloth towels and two containers of disinfecting wipes. You will be doing a LOT of cleaning as you go. For the knives, as I was going, they got rinsed, wiped off, hit with a disinfecting wipe, then rinsed again. Soap and water was very necessary for washing hands. We did not have access to hot water while cooking and I did not have a camp stove with me to heat up water for washing, so everything got washed and then hit with a disinfecting wipe then rinsed. No access to hot water is also why I treated my cutting boards as one use items. Without hot water you are not going to be able to do a good job cleaning up all that sauce and fat. It is simply not possible.

Next time I think I will bring my camp stove so I can boil some water for cleaning.

Water

I had a 2.5 gallon water jug plus bottled water to drink. In addition to cleaning and drinking, having water handy to put out the charcoal after the competition was done was handy. I just ended up emptying some coolers on the still smoldering coals after I emptied the smokers.

Alarm Clock

I used my cell phone. You will need an alarm clock for getting up to check temps and getting food prepared and cooked. Unless you just want to stay up all night. Since I entered all four categories I was up and down a lot. The pork shoulder went on at about 11, then the brisket just after midnight. I then slept until about 3:30 to get up and check temperature on the smokers. All was good so I got back to sleep by 3:35. Then I was up at 5:30 to get the ribs ready and on the smoker. By the time the ribs were on it was a bit after six and it didn't make sense to go back to bed as I had planned to be up by 7 to get the chicken prepared. This obviously would not have been possible without an alarm clock. Had I really, really trusted my smokers I could have just slept from about 12:30 to 5:30. Personally I will always get up and check the temperatures.