Competed this weekend in Vidor, Texas, in the IBCA sanctioned Texas BBQ Festival. The festival has been around for over 30 years, but moved this year to it's new home, Conn Park.
There were the usual IBCA categories, beans, chicken, ribs and brisket, but Friday night we also had a mystery ingredient challenge. For the mystery ingredient challenge, you pay your entry fee at the Friday evening cooks meeting, then you get the mystery ingredient, this time it was canned pineapple chunks. I'm not a big fan of pineapple, but had an idea as to what I could prepare and turn in. Some of the other cook teams had parked off the grounds and ran to the store to get some additional items to use with the pineapple, me, I was stuck inside the grounds and had to use what I brought with me. For every comp, I always bring some cheese, sausage and crackers to snack on Friday night into Saturday morning as I cook. So I decided to make some little stackers, topped with a glazed pineapple chunk. Here is what I ended up with:
Ritz cracker, topped with a slice of smoked sausage, topped with cheddar cheese, topped with a pineapple chunk which I tried to get a grill mark (a few got a minimal mark) on by throwing on my mini uds for a few minutes, then I heated up some brown sugar, pineapple juice and apple juice to make a glaze and drizzled that on top of the pineapple chunk. Turn ins were at 8:00 on Friday night, in the end, I got 5th place with my dish out of 12 or so cooks who entered. Not too bad for someone who doesn't like pineapple, plus it occupied some dead time on Friday night.
Now to the food that really matters, we turn in half chickens in IBCA comps, so after an all night brine, I threw the 4 halves on th smoker for their 3 hour tour. After 2 1/2 hours, I sauced the halves, then placed 2 on my mini uds to set the glaze and the other 2 got moved from the bottom rack of my pit to the top rack to set the glaze as well. After a 30 minute finish we pulled the halves out and decided on the best one to turn in with this one being the choice...
Nice golden brown finish, juicy and flavorful, howver the judges must not have liked it as I did not get a call in chicken. I think I'm going to work with a few injections over the next few weeks heading into my next comp.
Ribs were the next turn in and after practicing with 1 rack last weekend, changing my time frame a bit, I also cut back on the cayenne, to lessen the bite it had. Apparently this all worked as I took home first place ribs and a $500 check...
Nice color, light glaze and near perfect tenderness paid dividends. The only thing I felt they lacked was a bit of flavor. I had shared rib samples with the 2 other cooks who finished 2nd and 3rd, and we all agreed that they were all good, but mine lacked just a bit of flavor, thankfully the judges liked them.
Last turn in of the day was brisket, I have been working on my brisket quite a bit the past few months with solid results, including a 3rd in my last comp. I cooked 2 for this comp, a select and a choice with both coming out very similiar. I ended up turning in the choice slices since they looked better. Both had a good flavor and were great on tenderness, but just seemed to be lacking something. Still not sure what that something was, but after the judging was done, we finished 10th in brisket, not bad, but not where I wanted to be. Here is the turn in...
All in all it was a fun time as always and can't wait for the next 3 weeks to pass and head off to my next comp. 8th overall out of 19 teams, but the win in ribs made the whole weekend worth while. Here are a few more pics from the weekend...me, my daughter Lauren and son Evan...
There were the usual IBCA categories, beans, chicken, ribs and brisket, but Friday night we also had a mystery ingredient challenge. For the mystery ingredient challenge, you pay your entry fee at the Friday evening cooks meeting, then you get the mystery ingredient, this time it was canned pineapple chunks. I'm not a big fan of pineapple, but had an idea as to what I could prepare and turn in. Some of the other cook teams had parked off the grounds and ran to the store to get some additional items to use with the pineapple, me, I was stuck inside the grounds and had to use what I brought with me. For every comp, I always bring some cheese, sausage and crackers to snack on Friday night into Saturday morning as I cook. So I decided to make some little stackers, topped with a glazed pineapple chunk. Here is what I ended up with:
Ritz cracker, topped with a slice of smoked sausage, topped with cheddar cheese, topped with a pineapple chunk which I tried to get a grill mark (a few got a minimal mark) on by throwing on my mini uds for a few minutes, then I heated up some brown sugar, pineapple juice and apple juice to make a glaze and drizzled that on top of the pineapple chunk. Turn ins were at 8:00 on Friday night, in the end, I got 5th place with my dish out of 12 or so cooks who entered. Not too bad for someone who doesn't like pineapple, plus it occupied some dead time on Friday night.
Now to the food that really matters, we turn in half chickens in IBCA comps, so after an all night brine, I threw the 4 halves on th smoker for their 3 hour tour. After 2 1/2 hours, I sauced the halves, then placed 2 on my mini uds to set the glaze and the other 2 got moved from the bottom rack of my pit to the top rack to set the glaze as well. After a 30 minute finish we pulled the halves out and decided on the best one to turn in with this one being the choice...
Nice golden brown finish, juicy and flavorful, howver the judges must not have liked it as I did not get a call in chicken. I think I'm going to work with a few injections over the next few weeks heading into my next comp.
Ribs were the next turn in and after practicing with 1 rack last weekend, changing my time frame a bit, I also cut back on the cayenne, to lessen the bite it had. Apparently this all worked as I took home first place ribs and a $500 check...
Nice color, light glaze and near perfect tenderness paid dividends. The only thing I felt they lacked was a bit of flavor. I had shared rib samples with the 2 other cooks who finished 2nd and 3rd, and we all agreed that they were all good, but mine lacked just a bit of flavor, thankfully the judges liked them.
Last turn in of the day was brisket, I have been working on my brisket quite a bit the past few months with solid results, including a 3rd in my last comp. I cooked 2 for this comp, a select and a choice with both coming out very similiar. I ended up turning in the choice slices since they looked better. Both had a good flavor and were great on tenderness, but just seemed to be lacking something. Still not sure what that something was, but after the judging was done, we finished 10th in brisket, not bad, but not where I wanted to be. Here is the turn in...
All in all it was a fun time as always and can't wait for the next 3 weeks to pass and head off to my next comp. 8th overall out of 19 teams, but the win in ribs made the whole weekend worth while. Here are a few more pics from the weekend...me, my daughter Lauren and son Evan...
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