1st competition starts tonight!

[cajunsmoke13]

Good luck...

 

[pinkmeat]

I got there around 6pm. Found a good spot. Setup everything I had, smoker, tent, chair, stack of wood, etc. Then people started trickling in. I think people were feeling bad when I was there an hour alone, but then when my 28ft camper showed up I think they got a little jealous. That's just how we do ;)

Everyone showed up by 8pm. We cooked out and drank some beers. Relaxed, etc. Meat went on (10 butts ~78lbs) about 10:45pm. We foiled everything at 4:30pm and went to bed. I awoke to a wet face as I soon realized the morning dew was quite severe in the sticks of Sedalia. The temp had also dropped from the mid 60s to about 42 deg. All in all I slept two hours. Everything finished cooking about 10am and I coolered it and let it sit to rest until about 11:45am. I hit the biggest wall ever. I was running on below empty until the sampling got going.

The sampling started at 12noon so we got going slowly, then it got BUSY. People left and right. I had two guys out front bringing people in and working the crowd, one guy serving bbq beans, and me and the father in law serving PP samples. I'd have to go to the side and pull a fresh butt every 15-20 minutes or so.

The dumb thing about was that the turn-in wasn't until 3:45pm for judging. This meant everyone had to hold back some pork (1 butt for me), tell everyone you were out, then try to pick through it and turn it in, almost 6hours after it had finished cooking. The only good thing is that I think I convinced everyone to have the turn-in at 11:30am next year, then still sample til it's done, then announce the winners about 3pm or so.

Well, I didn't win, nor do I even know how I finished. I did NOT get the people's choice, and I did not place in the event. The KIDS that did win didn't even cook their pork on their own cooker because they couldn't keep their temps up all night. No one complained beforehand because they seemed so drunk/ignorant the night before that it would've been the biggest longshot EVER. Asking all kinds of ignoramus questions about bbq. It also turned out these two chickadee girls that were judges were these cats girlfriends, so what legitimacy that ever actaully existed was thrown right out the window.

I am fairly certain they will be disqualified for not cooking their own meat and everyone who placed will move up a rank. That was the talk after the show stopped Saturday evening.

The only positive was that I cooked a pile of food, had a blast with friends/family, got a pile of compliments, and should be able to easliy start catering if I choose to!!! That's really what it is all about IMO. Thanks for cheering me on folks. I'll know better what to do next time, not that I feel I really did anything wrong.

pics to follow...
I only wish I had business cards and an LLC going into this thing.

 

[pinkmeat]

Here's the official logo (yes it's copyrighted)



Here's the first turn of booths...we have the gray and blue easy ups in the back..




Part of the team, yes we had nicknames on our team shirts! You can see these, what you don't see is "Shake'n" "Bake" and "Special Sauce"




That's me "Bake" and "Shake'n" in the UVA hat working the crowd. I think I was looking for a brew. See the guy with the white hair inthe background, and his electric cooker to my left? That chit was cooking when I got there, had been apprently cooking since 3pm. Was the gayest thing I saw at the comp. My wife said it was the worst PP she'd ever tasted. He owns a couple restaurants and is basically there to promote himself, not good BBQ.






That's all I have. I left my camera with "Special Sauce" to get some pictures since I was too busy to do it. He didn't even get a food shot, oh well. I handed out 2 out of 4 racks of BB's that nobody ate for lunch. That got some people's choice votes, haha.