Well thought I would share my local ACE hardware did its first all cooker BBQ contest. This means you had people grilling and BBQ'ing since up north people think grilling is BBQ. I have to say this was my first time I have ever done a competition and in this event I knew of at least 4 guys that do competitions on a regularly. At least I had some good competition to learn from. The fun part setup was at 7:30 and poultry the first was do at 1, beef at 1:30, and pork ribs at 2.
I did chicken halfs so I had enough time, a end trimmed brisket about 3.5lbs, and 2 slabs of ribs. The fun part is that it was about 50 deg out with 30MPH wind gusts. I had to cut the meat inside the truck just so it did not cool off when cutting To my shock my brisket was done by 11 for some reason it cooked up very quick and I just rapped it towels and it rested for 2 hours in the back seat of the truck. It dropped from 193 to 160 in that time. Everything else cooked up right in time and was very nice and tenter and moist.
This was my setup.
This was all of us in the parking lot all 13 teams
Because of the cold I did not take pictures of the food on the smoker because of having to keep the door open but I did take pictures of my turn ins after I cut them on my cutting boards inside the truck on the center councel.
This was my chicken. I did not get high marks for it was 2nd to last. :( I think part of the problem was that I put brown suger on the outside skin but I forgot to do it under the skin. So I had comments that the skin tasted great but the chicken was bland. For me I normaly do whole chickens beer can style but for time I cut the chicken in half and this was my first time doing halfs. I have to figure out a way to get more taste into doing halfs.
This was my brisket and this took me a 2nd place in beef and I went up agaist all top end steaks. I was the only one that did a brisket. Even that guys that do competitions did not think they had enough time so they did steaks to. I was so very happy with this.
These are my ribs. These I took a 3rd place on. Again I was very happy with it.
Over all out of the 13 teams and I was team 13 I took a 4th in the grand champion. Just to take that I was just over joyed. The one thing that just stood out to me is that we had a guy from Big Green Egg come out after judging since he was a judge and asked me if I was team 13 and I was and wanted to know how I got my brisket to tender. He wanted to know as much as I would tell him. I have an idea that being able to rest if for 2 hours did help out a lot. I cut into it and my cutting board was just filled with juice.
I am just so happy after this weekend and I have to say the fun part was watching customers and compeditors turn their heads and just look at my smoker. I was the only one that used one unit to cook everything and the only one to use all wood. Everyone else had at least 2 grills or standup smokers going.
I do have to say the awards were cool to get. We did not get money because this was a charity event for the Childrens Miracle Network and that is where our $15 fee per entry went. In a raffel I won a webber rib rack.
If you see anything that you think might help me out for future events please let me know.
I did chicken halfs so I had enough time, a end trimmed brisket about 3.5lbs, and 2 slabs of ribs. The fun part is that it was about 50 deg out with 30MPH wind gusts. I had to cut the meat inside the truck just so it did not cool off when cutting To my shock my brisket was done by 11 for some reason it cooked up very quick and I just rapped it towels and it rested for 2 hours in the back seat of the truck. It dropped from 193 to 160 in that time. Everything else cooked up right in time and was very nice and tenter and moist.
This was my setup.
This was all of us in the parking lot all 13 teams
Because of the cold I did not take pictures of the food on the smoker because of having to keep the door open but I did take pictures of my turn ins after I cut them on my cutting boards inside the truck on the center councel.
This was my chicken. I did not get high marks for it was 2nd to last. :( I think part of the problem was that I put brown suger on the outside skin but I forgot to do it under the skin. So I had comments that the skin tasted great but the chicken was bland. For me I normaly do whole chickens beer can style but for time I cut the chicken in half and this was my first time doing halfs. I have to figure out a way to get more taste into doing halfs.
This was my brisket and this took me a 2nd place in beef and I went up agaist all top end steaks. I was the only one that did a brisket. Even that guys that do competitions did not think they had enough time so they did steaks to. I was so very happy with this.
These are my ribs. These I took a 3rd place on. Again I was very happy with it.
Over all out of the 13 teams and I was team 13 I took a 4th in the grand champion. Just to take that I was just over joyed. The one thing that just stood out to me is that we had a guy from Big Green Egg come out after judging since he was a judge and asked me if I was team 13 and I was and wanted to know how I got my brisket to tender. He wanted to know as much as I would tell him. I have an idea that being able to rest if for 2 hours did help out a lot. I cut into it and my cutting board was just filled with juice.
I am just so happy after this weekend and I have to say the fun part was watching customers and compeditors turn their heads and just look at my smoker. I was the only one that used one unit to cook everything and the only one to use all wood. Everyone else had at least 2 grills or standup smokers going.
I do have to say the awards were cool to get. We did not get money because this was a charity event for the Childrens Miracle Network and that is where our $15 fee per entry went. In a raffel I won a webber rib rack.
If you see anything that you think might help me out for future events please let me know.
