Novice Competition Newby

[BMR56425]

A little background of how I got to where I am. A couple years ago I got my first smoker (MES 40)...loved it, but the little tray for wood felt restrictive to the amount of smoke I was able to get out of it. Next purchase was a WSB...loved that too, but no matter what I do to it, the temperature will never stay consistent and will always increase in temp until they are running away. The next purchase in the past 6 months was a OK Joe Highland. This smoker is hands down better than the rest (in my opinion) due to ease of use which I know sounds weird for a stick burner, taste, etc. Each smoker has their purpose.

I recently went to a local BBQ Competition in a small town near me to see what competition was all about. I enjoyed being there, but found myself wanting to possibly get into doing local competitions. In talking with a couple of the "backyard bbq specialists" that were attending the event, the meat was provided and you could do 15 racks of ribs and pulled pork. I would want to use my offset OK Joe, but there is no way I could smoke that much.

My question is do people upgrade to larger smokers in order to cook the amount of foods required in competition or what? I don't want to use the WSM and the offset, because they both give off different tastes and I like the meat out of the offset more than the WSM. I don't want to invest a ton of money, but feel my OK Joe will limit my ability to compete.

 

[bbqbrett]

A lot will depend on the competition itself. A co-worker and myself have done a couple of KCBS competitions and had not problem on a cheap Brinkmann offset smoker. We had to do ribs, chicken PP and brisket but provide our own meat. We only cooked 1 PP 1 brisket 3 racks and about 2 dozen chicken thighs.

It is possible if they want you to do 15 racks of ribs they may be doing the judging with some type of peoples choice awards in which they expect you to make food for a lot of people. (Just a guess) I think you might check with contest organizers are first and see exactly what the expectations are for the contest.

Do you know if there are other contests in your area?

 

[fivetricks]

Guess you just have to be more confident in the meat you can fit on the okj :-) just because you CAN cook 15, likely doesn't mean you HAVE to cook 15. Just enough to fill your turn in boxes would be enough if it's a smaller competition

 

[BMR56425]

A lot will depend on the competition itself. A co-worker and myself have done a couple of KCBS competitions and had not problem on a cheap Brinkmann offset smoker. We had to do ribs, chicken PP and brisket but provide our own meat. We only cooked 1 PP 1 brisket 3 racks and about 2 dozen chicken thighs.

It is possible if they want you to do 15 racks of ribs they may be doing the judging with some type of peoples choice awards in which they expect you to make food for a lot of people. (Just a guess) I think you might check with contest organizers are first and see exactly what the expectations are for the contest.

Do you know if there are other contests in your area?

It was a people choice for ribs because I was able to vote for the ribs I liked most for both pro and novice. I will have to reach out to the organizers to see what the requirements are.

 

[bbqbrett]

It was a people choice for ribs because I was able to vote for the ribs I liked most for both pro and novice. I will have to reach out to the organizers to see what the requirements are.

That's what I thought. If they do require you to do that many you could always look into getting some rib racks to maximize your space.

 

[BMR56425]

That's what I thought. If they do require you to do that many you could always look into getting some rib racks to maximize your space.

True. I didn’t think about rob racks as I’ve never used them before.

 

[fivetricks]

They're pretty great. May take a rotation or two with the stick burner but in my experience they cook just the same with 5 or 6 loaded racks as one laying on the grates would