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.