Rockin' Ribs Recap

Finally! Our season kicked off in the center of Springfield, MO's universe. On the sprawling grounds of The Bass Pro Shop, 58 teams faced off in what turned out to be some of the worst cooking weather we had ever faced.

Now we all know Missouri is no Eden. It is more like the sweaty knee pit of some fat lady on the Tilt-A-Whirl at Silver Dollar City. Hot and sticky or cold, clammy and wet. Well, we ended up on the cold and wet part from the start. Throw in non-stop windy conditions and it was miserable. I was layered up more than that kid from "A Christmas Story" and still could not keep warm! It was a test of fire and temperature management for us.

The wind created problems with our set-up. Normally, we like to put our 2 Easy-Ups together and use our sides to give us a nice block from the wind. Luckily, we were supplied with a 10x10 tent from the event organizer that was anchored in the asphalt. We anchored our Easy-Up to that tent. The gusting wind made it almost impossible to put it up but with some persistence we were able to make it work. The sides were another story. The wind blew so hard that the velcro straps would not hold. We had to find a way to block the wind and rain or we were in big trouble. Plan B kicked in. I bought 2 tarps at the Pro Shop and we zip tied them to the anchored tent creating a much needed wind/rain block. The downside was that we had every piece of equipment crammed under the tent which severely hampered our work space. Yet another challenge to work around.

The cook itself went better than I had thought it would. The brisket and pork finished on time. The ribs followed the always predictable timeline we have. The chicken was stubborn. For some reason, about half of the pieces were not done. I am still not sure why? We followed our same exact recipe and cooking timeline and have never had this issue before.

In the end, the chicken proved to be a disappointment. We were only able to select from a limited amount of pieces and it handcuffed us when it came time to put the box together. The chicken looked good but it did not taste very well (too tough in my opinion). The ribs also disappointed me. They had a great flavor but did not look good in the box. We tried a different brand of rib that was supposed to be of better quality but it did not deliver for us. On the bright side, I thought our pork and brisket tasted great (this usually signals doom at judging time).

Overall, we were "caned" by Quau as they took the Grand. We finished 8th out of 58 teams. In chicken, we finished in 16th place and 19th place in ribs. Pork was our first call in 8th place and brisket finished in 10th place. Considering the crappy conditions, I was pleased with our finish.

Now we have a few weeks of downtime as my personal schedule and competition schedule are not seeing eye to eye. We are looking at the Raytown, MO contest for our next event. I hope that my schedule will allow for another in between but it is not too promising right now.

See ya' down the trail and beware of the "Missourah" fat lady!

Kookers Kare Banquet 2011

Well it's been awhile. Sorry it has been so long. We are still in winter's grip and not much has been happening. A new job for me has created less time to concentrate on barbecue. As we have had two days here in the last week that have hit 70 degrees, I know it is just Mother Nature thumbing her nose at me and more cold weather is right around the corner!

My wife and I attended the Kookers Kare banquet on February 19th. It was a sold out event with 300 people in attendance. This is my first time attending and was anxious to see what it was all about.

I never realized the amount of food that Kookers Kare donates to local food pantries in the Kansas City area. The amount was staggering. For example, they provided over 460 turkeys this past Thanksgiving. It really shows what a great service they provide!

There was a lot of great food for all. If you went hungry, then there was something wrong with you. The amount of door prizes and contest entries that were donated to be raffled off was a terrific draw for them. I purchased $50 worth of tickets in hopes of winning a contest entry. I came up short and did not win anything but that did not matter. I never have luck at raffles and my streak continued. Regardless of the outcome, I still had a very nice time.

Kudos to all the folks at Kookers Kare for putting on such a great event! I encourage all cook teams to support them as best they can.

More to come............

Springfield, MO Redux - Man v. Heat

It's already mid-August and the summer of 2010 is almost over. It always go by so fast. The posts have been sparse this summer as our activity has slowed down as the heat picked up. However, we have not been totally idle this summer. We have had a few things going on to keep our hands in the smoke.

In July, we were invited to cook at the home of Larry and Donna Reed in Grand Lake, OK. They had a large party for their family and friends in their backyard which offers a spectacular view of the lake. We cooked chicken, spare ribs, boston butt and brisket. It was a very relaxing cook as we set up our smokers with the lake in the backdrop. Watching the smoke rise out of them with the water in the background made for a relaxing day. We all had a great time!

This past weekend we participated in the Cattleman's Ozark BBQ Challenge in Springfield, MO. The event was held at the Ramada Inn Oasis Convention Center on the northeast side of town. Thirty-two teams showed up to do battle. The weather was sweltering with the temperature gauge on our clock reading a cool 111 degrees in the shade! I have never perspired so much. The organizers did a terrific job insuring we had plenty of ice, water and power. We also had access to the air conditioned convention center which was a polar paradise!

The cook itself went well. The rain moved in around 1am and lasted until 430am helping to cool things off for a few hours. The WSM does not like getting wet. I was worried we might run into some trouble trying to maintain our temps but we were able to keep the cookers underneath the ez-up and out of harms way. We did have trouble trying to get our brisket to finish. I can not remember having to struggle so much with one piece of meat. It refused to cooperate and took much longer than normal to finish. Everything else was very cooperative. Once turn-in time arrived, everything went into the boxes very well. I felt all of our presentations were top notch. We did change our pork box presentation. Both of us really liked the new look and hoped that the judges did too.

As the award ceremony started, we both felt that everything came out well but we were a little worried about the troublesome brisket. We were hoping for at least one call on something. The chicken category started off with a bang as we took 1st overall! Wow, what a shot in the arm that was! We heard our names again for ribs in the 6th position followed up with a 7th place call in pork. Well, we are sitting on the edge of our seats now. I was afraid to say anything as to jinx us in brisket. I knew we had a shot at winning but it would take a call in brisket to get it. So we sat as the brisket top 10 was announced and we were not called. It was a little deflating. I thought we still might have an outside shot at winning but ended hearing our names called for 5th place overall. We were still very pleased with the results as we are just that much closer to winning our first contest!

Right now we have one more contest scheduled and that is the American Royal Open. Hopefully with our lessons learned this summer, we can make a good run at it there.

Weighing In On BBQ Pitmasters Season 2

Recently there was a press release regarding the second season of BBQ Pitmasters on the TLC network that left the BBQ world scratching our collective heads. A change in format from season one has everyone wondering what will happen to "our" show? The release talked about celebrity judges and a format that is reminiscent of the cook-off show that appeared a few years back (the one Mike Davis won) on the Versus network.

I have to admit at first I was a little disappointed at the news. After hearing John Markus on Greg Rempe's BBQ Central Radio Show, I have a better understanding why the change was made. Bottom line - it is a business. The ratings for season one were decent but not great. Football and the break out success of "Jersey Shore" made it an uphill climb. According to John, the network could not understand why the teams were not winning every week (Hey, welcome to the world of bbq!) and that the show was not good enough to support another season like the first. A compromise was made resulting in the change of the format.

Filming for season 2 started in Los Angeles yesterday. Four different teams will compete in 5 episodes with the winners competing against each other in the final episode. The celebrity judges are Myron Mixon, Southern Chef Art Smith and ex-NFL star Warren Sapp. The show's host will be Kevin Roberts (the French's mustard shooter) who has been described as a high enery ring-master. The teams that were selected will represent the the entire picture of competition barbecue. They were chosen for their TV appeal, energy and bbq competency (apparently our audition tape missed the mark or we wore out our welcome on season one, either way we needed some shtick and didn't have it.) John said we will see familiar faces and some that should have been on previous barbecue shows but were not.

Season 2 is scheduled to debut this August. Myron Mixon will be one of the remaining straws we can hold on to from the previous season. I am sure he will not disappoint us with his candid opinions, southern colloquialisms and colorful language. Unless someone turns in something completely awful, he should be a strong defender of the cooks to the other judges. That interaction will be fun to watch.

Regardless of what you think of the new format, the impact of season one has been very apparent as it has brought more new teams to the competition circuit this year than ever before. Though we may never see a series dedicated to competition barbecue like season one was, anything on television about barbecue is always good thing!

Good luck to all of the teams competing on season 2!

Belton v. Raytown

Roe v. Wade, Cain v. Abel or Lakers v. Celtics - we all have our battles. For us, it was Belton v. Raytown. Two contests where we followed the same road but ended up at different destinations.

At Belton, fresh off of our Springfield success, we thought we were cruising down the barbecue road in a Cadillac. The barbecue world is a cruel mistress and our Cadillac ended up being a broken down Pinto as we limped to our destination. Upon arrival, we were rear ended and our Pinto, along with our dreams of a top 10 finish, went up in a ball of flames! Thirty four teams did battle and we finish in the middle at 17th. No top ten calls for us that weekend. We tuck our tail between our legs, take our smokers and go home. Gone too is the swagger of Springfield and what we are left with is the second guessing of our skills, processes and presentations. It was a weekend to forget.

Enter the dragon that is Raytown. We backed off competing for over a month before deciding to do Raytown. Humbled by our last experience , we needed to take a more serious approach to what we were doing. The weather was hot with a chance of showers. We hope we can get the cook in without any rain. At 10:15am on Saturday morning, a torrential downpour rolls in. Wind, rain and lightning roll through the contest area. The timing couldn't have been worse. Our chicken goes on at 10:30am and all I can think about is trying to keep the cooker at the temperature we need while a river of water rolls through our prep area. Brant and I our holding on to the ez-ups with thoughts of disaster racing through my head. This is the first time we have ever faced such a ferocious storm while competing. When it's all over, sixty-five teams go into the water and 10 come out on top. The barbecue sharks get the rest. We finish 7th out of the 65 teams overall with a 2nd place rib call and a 4th place brisket call. We did exactly what we set out to do. Finish in the top 10 overall and have at least one call. Mission accomplished! We have the Cadillac back but now we need to remember to respect the road.

Now we reach our down time. We have an event to cook for in July down in Grand Lake, OK and probably won't compete again until mid August in Springfield, MO. Then another break and finish the season at the American Royal in early October. Hopefully, we can continue our winning ways. It would be nice to cook more events to help us be more consistent but the current financial status just won't allow it. So I'll sit back, wait and watch from afar.