Offseason Preperation

Preparations for PSIP's 2010 are underway. We have started tearing all four categories apart including box presentation so we can evaluate every aspect to make a better product. We're not scraping anything but rather tweaking things to give us better opportunities for consistency, which is what we're all after right? As of right now we are dedicated to 10 contest with 4 more as additional ones we may or may not add. Next week is "The Jack" and we'll be there on Saturday morning to see all our friends, smell BBQ Heaven, and be a part of the ambience associated with Lynchburg. I'll have a full report hopefully by next Sunday but I'll be posting live on my Facebook page. I'd link it to this blog but at this time I can't fugure out how to load the icon on this page. On down the BBQ trail............

The Cat is Out of the Bag

For the Smokin On The Square contest next weekend (Oct. 3rd) Jeff and Shelia Fellers from Light My Fire BBQ will be teaming with the Pigsmokers for an all star collaboration. Here's a look at the combined team name and logo. See ya in a couple of weeks

BBQ Crawl Pt. 1

On my way to Sam's Club today, to do my part to stimulate our country's economic problems, I decided to do a small BBQ Crawl. Our friends at Ulika BBQ have a great blog at ulikabbqblog and I thought I would give it a spin and give my reviews of a couple of local estalbishments.
I decided to stop by Centerpoint BBQ located at 1212 W. Main in Hendersonville, TN. It is a place I remember passing by from my childhood when we would visit my grandmother and after graduating and moving from Gallatin to Hendersonville for 12 years had yet visited until today.
As I pulled over into the parking area I had to pull around back. It being luch time the place was full and I found the last space beside their Old Hickory Pit catering trailer. There is a small smoke house located to the side of the restaurant and the smell of hickory filled the air adding to my antsyness to get inside. When I walked in the door the ambience of the small area was pretty cool. A small elevated seating area with limited table and chairs was full as I expected due to all of the cars. The long work area to my left was bustling with workers and I noticed a large flat toaster which toasts the sandwiches just before they are served. Very nice touch. In front of me a small oriental women smiled and said "May I take your order?" I ordered the pulled pork sandwich rather than the chopped and had it within two minutes.
First, the sandwich was heaping with what I call "true pulled pork", chunky with bark and obvious seasonings. The pork was bland and dry and not cooked to the degree of doneness that I prefer. The sauce was a sweet vinegar sauce which tasted like a cross between Memphis and Kansas City sauce. It helped give flavor and was certainly the culprit in the seasonings I had observed. It was confusing because I know they do smoke their product but tasted very little of the oldest spice in the world in the sandwich . Now the price tag for this delicacy was $3.49 plus tax and it delivered on size with over 1/3 a pound of BBQ , but the lack of flavor and the desire to take a drink after the first bite took away from the total experience. I hope that this was just a fluke and I caught them on a bad day because Johnny and June Cash frequented this establishment while they lived in Hendersonville and I know the "Man in Black" knew his BBQ. I do plan on visiting again before giving a letter grade, but at this point I can't give anything more than an average or slightly below the initial verbal grade at this time.

BBQ 101 Class

On Saturday February 7th, Jeff Fellers from Light My Fire BBQ and myself held our second BBQ 101 class in Murfreesboro. I have to say, each time we do one of these we get better and better. I guess it's all the repetition. We had a good class this year who was full of question and thankfully we had an answer although it may not be the perfect one. We took the class outside and showed them different cooking options with a Lang 84 Deluxe, a Big Green Egg, and a Weber Smoky Mountain.

I handled the ribs this time and divulged most of our secrets. I have to leave a few things out right? I showed the class the proper way to trim a full rack of ribs down to a St. Louis cut and Jeff handled the baby back portion of the class. Overall, the ribs came out very tasty and went very quickly. So fast Jeff and Sheila didn't get to try any. I also grilled up some shrimp as an appetizer. Jeff moved onto the brisket and did an excellent job going through the steps in cooking as well as secret tips to help get the particularly hard cut of meat tender.
All in all the class went very smoothly and all who attended felt they walked away with a little better knowledge and I think they might have gotten a little fired up and are probably cooking something outside today. Our next class will probably be in March as we will tackle Chicken and Pork 101.

Big Green Egg Class

On Saturday May 17th my wife and I taught the 2008 Big Green Egg class for our sponsor Swim World. This years class was full and I could definitely tell there were some seasoned users in the audience. Last year I felt that I kinda went over everyone's head with theory about BBQ. It's hard to take the competition mindset out of the equation, even if you are trying to be as universal and basic so you can get through to everyone.
Marc was unable to make it and his presence was surely missed. I think the class will remember his name since I kept saying "I wish Marc was here." For two hours the class went and for two hours I worked on pulling off quality food while answering questions and manning two eggs I realized I should have put side by side , but for the sake of having it look good I dealt it.
On the menu there was first what I call Power Smoked Chicken, which i nothing more than chicken smoked at 400* with the place setter accessory. Next I lost track of the medium egg and let it get up to 550* before I knew it. I made the decision that due to time constraints I had to go ahead and grill it at that temp. I just laid a piece of aluminum foil down under to protect the bottom. It was seasoned with our Stardust seasoning along with sime Master Que seasoning and it came out great. I had my doubts at that temp, but it looks like I may do it at that temp from now on. Talk about juicy. They ran all over the table as I sliced it. Next we grilled some shrimp using some Tiger Sauce and they were a big hit. We next baked a pizza and tried to figure out why one of our attendees was burning his all the time. The pizza came of really good and for the first time I got a crispy crust all the way around. Lastly, we baked chocolate chip cookies on the egg. Not as easy as I thought but none the less they came off pretty tasty.
All in all I felt is was a pretty good class. At times I wondered if I was not going far enough into the "why's and how's" but every seemed to learn something that may help them as they go into their own world to produce good times and great food for their friends and family and after all isn't that what it's all about?

Sundrop BBQ Cookoff

The weather was great as we descended up on the town of Pulaski for the Sundrop BBQ Cookoff. Sundrop..........it's got tree sap in it. We dropped our trailer in a great spot behind our friends Ulika , High on the Hawg, Music City Pig Pals, and Ivy Place Saucers. Being placed under full shade of the trees was an added bonus. We decided not to participate in the Antyhing But competition on Friday so we walked around and visited teams we haven't seen since last year and checked out a pretty good band.
Saturday turned out to be a pretty decent. First off NO RAIN! This was the first contest this year that was clear. I felt pretty good about our product that came off of the Eddy's. For the most part we are getting a much more consistent product. I know the debate that it is the cook rather than the cooker. But I feel that if a cook truly has his recipes and techniques down, a consistent cooker will do nothing but help turn out time after time a product that will eventually lead to more top ten calls.
At the awards chicken and ribs were called and we didn't hear any calls. I began to worry that it was Winchester all over again. Well we did hear our name called for 7th place pork. That was the only call we received, but it was a defining call. We have received a top ten call for each of the four categories off of the FE 100's After working all winter it was a great feeling.
Our chicken ended up 15th, our ribs 21st, and our brisket 13th. This led to an overall finish of 12th. We are finishing more consistently at the top of the field since going to the dark side.
Well off to Nashvegas in a few weeks and hopefully our current results will continue.

Winchester High on the Hog Contest

Winchester High on the Hog was not kind to us again in 2008. This is one of the two contest we have never scored a top ten in any of the four categories and this year would be no different. For the most part, the weather was pretty good until around 9 p.m. on Friday night when the heavens poured down for about four hours. We had the Eddy's secured and they cooked great through the night.
Our friends from Pig Pak came over to our camp for an 11:00 shot of Gentleman Jack. They returned the favor at 2:30 for a shot of Maker's Mark. Anyway, we knew that we had pretty decent bbq but not enough to really be a contender this weekend and we were right again.
We finished in at 27th out of 52 teams this weekend. Our only real bright spot was our chicken and it finished at 14th. Our ribs came in at 33rd, our pork came in at23rd, and our brisket was 34th. Not our best effort, but so goes this love we call competition bbq. As always we just get back on that horse and try to ride again.