I'm going to do a series of posts about my first BBQ competition, starting with a little bit of a retrospective. Next will be equipment. I'll detail what I had, what would have been better and in a perfect world what I would have had. And then recipes. This one will read like a FAQ. Lots of people had questions about it, so let's go.
How did you do?
I placed 3rd in chicken, 2nd in ribs and 2nd overall for the Grand Champion. I was 1 point behind the grand champion, so overall I was proud of my performance. The worst category for me, surprisingly, was pork shoulder. I think I may have phoned it in a bit on that one since I cook so many.
Are you going to do it again?
Definitely. It was exhausting, but also a lot of fun.
I tried several of the other briskets there. Yours was the best. How did you not win?
I have no idea. I just cooked the best food I could.
What time did you get there?
Check-in started Friday at noon. I was there by about 1:30 and my meat was inspected shortly after I got set up. Prep work (rubs, marinades, trimming, etc.) was done after inspection. The prep work took quite a bit of time, probably about 4 hours. Then dinner, then the cook's meeting at 8:00 pm. The charcoal chimney for the pork shoulder was started just after 10:00 pm and the pork shoulders were on by 10:30. Brisket on around midnight, sleep from about 1 to 3:30. Get up and check temp on the smokers. Back to bed until 5:30. Get up and get the ribs ready. Ribs on by 6. At that point, it didn't make sense to go back to bed, so I was up for the day from that point on. The chicken went on about 9:00 AM.
Wow. That sounds like a lot of work!
It was, but the real work didn't start until about 11:00 am. Turn-in times for the meats were ribs at 12:00, chicken at 12:30, pork at 1:00 and brisket at 1:30. From 11:00 to 1:30 it was non-stop prep the boxes, get the meat off, box the meat, then start all over again. I had two people helping prep the boxes and packaging them up and my son, who acted as a gopher for getting things, removing trash, etc. I was able to do the finishing touches on the meat, review the boxes to make sure they looked good (honestly they looked a ton better than anything I could have done) and watch the clock. Everybody was hustling the whole time.
Those people over there have some really cool looking smokers. What are you cooking on?
I cooked on two upright drum smokers, one I built and one I borrowed from a friend. Hence the team name Mike & The Magic Trashcan. The name is an ode to some comments my lovely and talented wife made about my smoker before and after the first pork shoulder came out of it.
That covers the most asked questions I've received. Following are a few thoughts about the competition in general. These reflect my opinion.
You are NOT doing this for the money.
Only first place in each category got paid, along with the grand champion. The payout for the grand champion was $600 dollars. Each category paid $350. I likely cooked the least amount of food of any of the competitors and I spent roughly $200 overall on the meat I cooked, plus the $200 entry fee. I would have made money had I won the grand championship, but not a lot. The people next to me had 10 pork shoulders, 5 briskets and roughly 30 racks of ribs on their smokers. If they won everything they entered I'm not sure they are making any money off the ordeal. Factor in the amount of hard work, equipment, time off from work and lack of sleep and it is easy to see this is not something anybody was doing for the money.
So why do this?
Because you can is the simplest answer. I've wanted to do this for a while. I've heard from friends and family how good my barbecue is. I was curious to see what a group of impartial judges would think. Also, quite simply, I like to cook. I get to play with knives and fire and food makes people happy, so just about everybody wins. Also, you get to meet some interesting people along the way that share the same passion you do.
Have some help
I was gong solo Friday night cooking for a variety of reasons. On the plus side, I know I got more sleep than the rest of the competition did. On the minus side, it is lonely at 3:30 am. But the cook time company I would say is a nice to have. Most of the other competitors used it as a time to hang out, have some drinks and talk. When it comes time to box up the meat, help is a MUST. I cannot imagine being able to prep the boxes, get the meat in and dressed, keep track of the clock, get the finishing touches on the next round's entry and keep something resembling an organized work area going without any help. I think one head cook with three helpers is about perfect. I had two people boxing and one person who was basically an errand boy. I think this worked out about as well as it could have. Less people would have worked, but it would have been a giant struggle. More and I feel people would have been tripping over each other.
Talk to the competition
Most of the people competing are there to have a good time. Walk around from site to site and get to know the competition a little bit. I didn't do nearly enough of that and that may be my one regret from the competition. Part of that was because I was flying solo and had to tend to my meat and fire and part of it was nerves since it was my first time competing in one of these. Everybody there was very friendly.
How many inappropriate meat jokes were there?
LOTS.
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