2 Comps in 2 weeks, plus a little catering!

Well the week after Westmont flew by, and before we knew it, it was time for Willowbrook, IL. Another Saturday/Sunday event.. Hadn't really had a chance to look over the trailer since the weekend before, so we knew we'd be going in with no proper power, but figured it'd be ok.  What made it a bit more interesting was the fact that we had some freinds who asked us to provide some eats for thier anniversary party, which was also Saturday. 75-80 people, Pulled pork, brisket, beans, cole slaw, cucumber salad, tomato/mozzerella salad, and triple chocolate cherry brownies for dessert!

Plan was we'd drop the food off at about 2 PM, come home, hitch up the trailer and go. But nature loves to screw up a good plan! Shortly after I left to drop off the food, the sky opened up and the lightning that accompanied the rain was impressive, to say the least! I was on the phone with Diane most of the drive to the drop walking through closing the trailer as much as possible to avoid any flooding. She did a great job, and I came home to find the pop up raised, but she had dropped the pull outs and pulled in the canvas so we weren't in bad shape. But getting things ready took longer than we'd planned, and we ended up rolling in to the comp site about 6:30 in the evening.

Di went to the cooks meeting with our freind from Mooses BBQ Beth, while Beth's husband Nick and a group of other helpful folks helped me get our trailer into position and unhitched. A bit of help was needed as the ground was quite spongy from all the recent rain. So next was time to set about opening the trailer, and setting up our site...time for fate to strike again!

As I was cranking up the tent, I heard, and felt, a loud pop. Wasn't sure what it was at first, until I noticed that the back drivers side corner of the tent was not going up. Well...guess this happens with 20 year old campers! One of the support cables that connects to the winch that raises the unit had snapped. Fortunately, Nick and Beth once again came to our rescue with a length of PVC pipe the right size to hold up the roof. We duct taped it into place and viola! Temporary solution!

So now it's like 8:30, and I wanted to have my pork butts on at like 6...so I'm panicking a bit...but I was able to quickly set up the pork cooker and get it going, then set about organizing the rest of the site. By about 10:30 or so, we'd finished setup, and it was time for the "shot-fairy"rounds. We met a lot of the usual folks, and quite a few new ones this time. There were quite a few first time teams, which would sadly result in some DQ's for things like no meat inspection, pre-seasoned meats, etc...but I'm sure those who made those mistakes won't make them twice! Anyway, back to the rounds...normally, we share a small shot of an apple pie flavored beverage we make, the past two comps we've changed it up a bit, so it's about 50% the apple pie, and 50% bacon infused vodka...I'll tell you what...it's some tasty stuff! Anyway, I digress...

Of the 32 teams at the comp, I'd venture to say we talked with over 20, and by about 2 AM, we were ready to take a 4 hour or so nap before crunch time.

Sunday, I woke up somewhat alarmed that my watch said 7AM!. Yikes...forgot to set the alarm! Ah well, nothing too serious, just put me a little behind on getting brisket and ribs in. Pork butts were still cruising along nicely. Brisket had been injected the night before, so I put a little refresher coat of rub on, and into the cooker it went. Ribs right after that. Tossed the chicken in the brine, and started the timer...so now there was a bit of time to get a cup of coffee and a donut, kindly provided by the venue. Also enjoyed a wonderful bloody mary from our neighboring team "You Bacon Me Crazy" - Delicious! I assembled our turn in boxes, and except for one breif little rainshower, the weather proved to be much improved from the previous week in Westmont! So now it was about 9AM, and I had a few minutes before the (usually 9:22) 9:11 shot, provided this time by the fine folks of 4 Smokin' Butts, from Milstadt, IL...almost in MO. Very nice folks, who'd just taken Reserve Grand Champion at the Sams Club, Evergreen Pk. IL event the day before! Talk about a busy weekend!

So now it's getting towards crunch time. Double check all 5 boxes (4 categories + sausage) all good. Chicken out of brine, rinsed, and resting/drying. Pork and ribs seem to be going ok, brisket coming along nicely, ready for foiling. All things considered, including all the trailer issues, we're doing ok it seems. At about 10:30, the chicken went in, so now all 4 meats are looking good. By 11, when I checked the pork, it was just a little more done than I'd hoped, but quickly took it out of the cooker, let it cool/rest about 10-15 minutes, wrapped in foil,  and popped it into the Carlisle cooler till turn in time.  Time gets fuzzy between 9:30 and noon, when chicken is turned in, so I may be off a bit in the retelling.

Sausage was an alternate entry, and I got ours into the cooker too late to make the 11:30 turn in. Ah well, it was great in pasta sauce last week!

 Chicken was ready in time, looked good, but in retrospect the box could have looked better. Perfect bite through skin, done perfectly, but lacking just a bit in flavor. Dang...ah well...move on to ribs...

I'd done something a bit different, as we did fairly well 2 years ago with ribs, but since haven't seemed to be hitting. Well...this was another bad result...and I guess I'll have to do more practice cooks to get it down.
Texture was perfect, they looked nice, but there was a hammyness about them that I didn't care for, and as it turned out, neither did the judges!

After a short rest, it was time for pork. Well, this time it wasn't a total loss. I was correct in thinking it had gone just a tad longer than it should have...the money muscles were past being able to slice. But the overall flavor wasn't too bad, and we turned in a not so bad box.

Finally, we're down to brisket. This bad boy, which had started at 20 pounds, was about as spot on perfect as I could have hoped for! Beautiful bark, gorgeous smoke ring, even if judges aren't supposed to take that into account, and passed the "pull test" with flying colors. Only issue was some of the point wasn't rendered quite enough, so had to be a bit picky about picking burnt ends for the box.

So, big sigh....all the cooking was done. Time now to start cleaning up and getting ready for awards. We take a lot of flack from some folks about being over-prepared, taking too long to pack, etc. But we're there to have fun, and rushing around like a not is not fun in my book. What a lot of our fellow cookers also fail to realize is we are, on average, a bit longer in the tooth than most of them, and we like our creature comforts. So it was no surprise that, when it came time for awards, we weren't done packing up. But we'd made a good bit of progress!

In the end, we placed 21 of 32 overall. The chicken was, while not DAL, 24 of 30 (2 teams dq's)
Ribs, 23 of 32
Pork, 14th of 31 (another Dq or no turn in)
And Brisket....THIRD!!! So no going home empty handed from this one!!!

Given the lack of proper power, struggle with the pop-up tent, etc. We were pretty happy!

Congrats to all who walked! And we're looking forward to the next event, heading back up to the north woods to Iron Mountain MI in July! Hopefully, I can get a few of the issues with the trailer fixed before then!
Hopefully, our next post will include some photos!!!

One final note...it took a while to get this post up. A few days ago, I learned that one of our fellow competitors, Joe McManus, of Joey Mac's Smoke Stack, was taken ill with meningitis. The good news is that he was discharged Monday from the hospital, after over a week. Joe, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, and we look forward to seeing you back on the bbq trail.

After the deluge

Wow! What a season opener! I've seen more rain and wind (Elk Grove IL, 2009), but this was quite an experience!

This was to be a Saturday/Sunday contest, but the organizers were willing to allow setup on Friday afternoon/evening, and we always like to do that when we can so that the first of the two days of competition is a bit less stressful.

We rolled in to Ty Warner Park in Westmont about 7PM Friday evening. I'd forgotten my jacket, so rather than run back home I just picked up a sweatshirt at the Jewel/Osco store a block from the comp, along with a few last minute groceries. Oddly enough, we ran into the folks that sold us our pop-up camper, while loading the groceries into the truck. They asked us how it was working out, and we answered that it had been great! A huge improvement from the tent we had been using. Later, I would wonder if that didn't prove to be some kind of jinx.....

We were directed to our site, and quickly began settling in. We had arranged to be set up next to our friends Nick and Beth of Moose’s BBQ, and saw that they'd dropped off their trailer before we got there. But they weren't, and we assumed they were spending the night at Beths' dads place, which was nearby. Got the pop-up in place, anchored and leveled, and inside cleared out and made livable. Raised the outside canopy, set up the tables, and lighting, and were all set up.

Then....poof, no lights. ???
After about a half hour of trying to figure out what the issue was, we finally determined that the power distribution box in the camper had failed. I'm hoping it will turn out to be just a transformer, but I had no meter with me to check it out, so will have to wait a while to figure it out. We were able to MacGyver a fix, by running a 4 gang ext. cord out through the canvas of the bed we don't use to the generator. Then we ran another inside so we had power at both ends, and one more to the outside to run the hot water heater and lighting. Not ideal, but functional. Problem solved right? Then the rain started.....
We'd been visiting with our friend Joe from Bearcat Smokers, who was working with us trying to figure out our power issue. Having solved that, we were sitting outside when the rain began, and he figured he'd better skedaddle back to his site. Diane took Ember into the camper, while I tried to move our big boat cooler out of the truck and inside the canopy. I took a misstep and slipped a bit, causing me to catch my left knuckles on the very edge of the tailgate. Ouch...but all ok I think. Got it inside the canopy and was topping it off with ice when I noticed the blood. On the table, the top of the cooler, me....Crap! I'm bleeding!

Grabbed a paper towel to wrap around it and headed inside to wash it off and assess the damage.

Once I got the blood cleaned off, I could see that the damage was cuts to 3 of the 4 fingers on my left hand. The pinkie was superficial, the middle two a bit deeper. The "one-finger salute" finger was the worst, having been sliced into enough that it probably could have used 3 or 4 stitches. But no time for that. I just bandaged it up well, and moved on. At this point, the site was pretty much set up so, given that the rain was now coming down pretty hard, so we went inside to settle in for the night. Since the AC control didn't work, we had lights, but no heater. And the outside temp was dropping. But we did have an electric blanket.

While we were awake, we used a burner on the stove to warm up the inside a bit, but turned it off before turning in, as we didn't want to wake up to a fire.

Saturday morning dawned wet and chilly, but at least for a while, the rain had stopped. I set about hanging our canopy walls, our banners, and the other trappings, got all our meats inspected, and began trimming and prepping them. I try to get all the trimming done in advance, but for a number of reasons wasn't able to this time, so had to break down 2 pork butts, a brisket, 3 slabs of ribs, and our chicken entry. Once finished, all of it went back in the Coolers for later finish prep (injections, rubs, etc.). Once the initial prep is out of the way, we had some relaxation time to go visit with our neighbors, many of whom we haven't seen since last year.

As Saturday evening arrived, so did the rain again, on and off for what would prove to be the rest of that and the following day. They still pulled off the peoples choice chili comp, but the rain scared away most of the public, so not a big turnout. I feel bad for the village as they do a great job holding a nice festival with a carnival, live bands, and great vendors. The weather just ruined it for them.

I have to say a quick thanks to Mike from Mike Rib, for lending us a portable heater to keep warm Saturday night. Thanks Mike!

After getting all the meats fully prepped, and getting the pork butts in the cooker and started, we headed out for the "shot fairy" rounds and visited with all the other teams, returning to our site about 1:30 AM Sunday. Unfortunately, a team across from us, who had a large corporate sponsor (we won't mention names, but let’s just say they make food products and cigarettes) decided that quiet time (supposed to be quiet between 11 PM and 6 AM) were only a suggestion, rather than a rule. Yahoos partied all night long, which pretty much made sure that nobody nearby would be getting any sleep that night. Jerks!

Sunday dawned with more of the same, on and off drizzle, and the ground was getting progressively spongier.

Got the ribs and brisket in the cookers, checked on the pork, and brined the chicken, everything was going pretty much according to schedule, until just before chicken turn in. And then it all changed...

The organizers were spreading out to let everyone (61 teams in all) know that there was a warning of a severe storm, scheduled to hit us within 10 minutes. Chicken turn in was to be delayed indefinitely, with the initial estimate being 15 minutes or so. Everyone was instructed to batten down the hatches, and get into some sort of safe shelter. Fortunately, nobody used the T word, just strong winds and rain, but nonetheless, visions of Tuscaloosa and Joplin still came to mind. We lowered our canopy as far as we could and made sure it was weighed down as best as we were able, put our chicken in the Carlisle cooler, shut down the vents in the cookers, and hunkered down to see what would happen. It was eerie, to say the least, to see a flag atop one of the carnival rides was sticking straight out in one direction, but the high clouds were moving rapidly in the opposite direction. As it turned out, the storm actually was moving in something of a circular pattern. The wind blew, and the rain poured, but when it was all over, no one was hurt, and only a few folks lost their canopies. So now everyone was frantically trying to salvage their meats, which had been intended to be cooked to their best two hours before. Now it was likely that much would be overdone, and little would be of the texture desired. But all things considered, it seemed most folks did a decint job salvaging thier entries.

Turned out that the area inside the judges tent was half under water, but at 2:15, chicken turn in began, and from there, everything else followed on an every 30 minutes schedule, without further interruptions, just a little over 2 hours later than anticipated.

Our chicken was ok, a little on the overdone side. Ribs were also ok, just not where we’d have liked them. Pork, well, I think because of the rain mostly, we had some areas that were cooked beautifully, and others that were still underdone and chewy. And brisket was a little underdone as well. We needed that extra hour of cooking time, and I’d let the temps drop too low to complete the cook. We even got a card from one of the judges pointing out it was underdone.
So it was over, nothing to do now but pack up the camper and get ready for awards. Originally scheduled for 5 PM, they informed us they were now shooting for 6 instead. So we got everything we could packed up and ready to go, save for what we estimated to be about 30-45 minutes more to jam the last few things in and lower the camper. Unfortunately, they didn’t really start until almost an hour later, an hour we’d really regret wasting sitting and waiting for awards to begin.

In the end, there would be no calls for us. But many friends did well, and we did manage to get all nines on our pork from at least one judge. and it was good enough to place 15th of 61 entries. Congrats to Cancer Sucks Chicago for thier first Grand Champion at this, his hometown event, and also to Mike and Beth from Quau for their Reserve Grand. BIG congrats to Bearcat Joe for winning the Ranchers Reserve beef contest (We’d planned to turn in top sirloin Wellington, but I just didn’t have time to Rolland bake the puff pastry. I think we could have won that one) . Congrats also to Duce’s Wild, and all others who managed to pull through the mess and come out with calls! All in all, we were happy to have just completed all 4 entries.

Our teardown after the awards was further delayed by a well meaning, but rather annoying mentally challenged man who just would not leave us alone. But we finally made it home, unpacking only what was absolutely necessary, and in time for a couple cold ones before bed.

Next morning, I had to meet my VFW post to march as leaders of our villages Memorial Day parade. Let me tell you, a brisk mile walk carrying a vintage M1 Garand rifle at shoulder arms position isn’t an easy task after the weekend we had! But it was a beautiful (hot) sunny day, and that had to count for something.

So now the weekend is over, time to get back to work, and begin planning next weekends’ event in Willowbrook!

I’ll try to update this with photos soon, but camera is still in the camper.
Thanks for reading

Finally, the BBQ season starts in a few more weeks

Finally, the snow has all melted away, and it's feeling more like spring all the time!
We have 3 weeks (roughly) to get ready for the first two comps of the year (for us)

First is Westmont, the Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and then the following weekend, there are 2 local comps, one as Sams Club in Evergreen Park on Fri-Sat, the second at Araibian Nights Stables, in Willowbrook. We didn't register in time to do the Evergreen Pk. But I'm glad we didn't, as now we have a party to cater that Saturday. Fortunately, it's a dropoff (as opposed to staying on site to serve) so we should still be able to make the comp without issue.

So now it's time to sharpen all the knives, open up, air out, and restock the 20 year old pop-up (shooting to get a newer toy hauler in the not-to distant future if we can swing it) Got to weigh out and vac-pack the injection mixes, restock any seasonings we're low on, and pack it up for the road. Since both the 2 comps in May/June are local, I won't do the wheel bearings until after them, but before the trek to Iron Mountain MI.

We had to break down and buy a portable air conditioner. The built in one in the pop-up died, and since it's so old, we'd need to get a new one which is just too cost prohibitive. Was cheaper to get a portable 13000 BTU unit that we should be able to set up right under where the existing one is. I don't do so good in excessive heat. Have gotten pretty ill at a few comps when the mercury is up there, so need to keep cool! (it so sucks getting old!)

We're looking forward to seeing old freinds, and making some new ones as the summer season gets wound up! I'll try to get lots of photos to add to our next entry.

That's about all for now, except to say thanks to the two folks kind enough to sign up as followers! Nice to know somebody out there is listening, even if only once in a while!

2011 - A new season begins

Unfortunately, without photos.

We opened the 2011 BBQ season last weekend at the unsanctioned, but still great fun Rand River Road Bowl Annual Winter Burnoff.

This is a fun event put together by Keith and Rebecca Engstrom to raise funds for Noah (National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation) They do a great job every year organizing this event, and, as always, everyone has a lot of fun. To make things better, this year they raised 2700.00 for thier charity.
Keith hands over controls to his freind Doug as of 06:00 the morning of the competition, so that he can compete without any question of conflict of interest. And this year, he won the Grand Champion! Congrats Keith, well deserved!

In past years, we've attended, as judges some years, and as cooks in others. We've seen weather as bad as 5 above with -30 wind chills, snowstorms, etc. But I think this year was a first. Although the weather guessers were predicting snow, and, as we drove to the location at 5:45 AM. the salt trucks were out in force, what we got instead was a day of on and off rain (more on than off) that left everyone thouroghly saturated.

Fortunately, when we arrived at about 6:30, it wasn't raining yet, and we were able to mostly set up without rain. We went with a very spartan setup, even for us, with only an EZ-up a table, and a few essentials, including our Mr. Heater and a dual halogen lamp setup to provide both heat and light. We opted to bring the generator also as power is first come, first serve at this event. That proved to be a good choice, as there were numerous issues with the power due to the rain. We had no problem :-)

Biggest challenge was the weather. The rain just kept coming, and kept keeping temperature a bit of a chore, but in the end, we stayed pretty even, just went through a lot more charcoal than usual.

In between downpours, we did get to visit with some of our BBQ buds. Joe and June from Bear Cat Smokers, Tim, of Windy City Smokers, Alex and Kate (Dr. Porkenstein), Joe McManus (Joey Mac), Pete and Linda (Ma & Pa's Kettle), Mike of Mike Rib, and Kow's Q. My apologies if I missed anyone. And, as always, we met some great new folks as well, including our next door neighbors, Dig the Pig BBQ.

Besides not having KCBS sanctioning, the main difference between this competition and the rest, aside from when it occurs, is that the meats are different. KCBS is chicken, pork ribs, pork butt, and brisket. Due to the potential challenges of trying to cook some of those items as a 1 day event, the burnoff meats are sausage, chicken, pork ribs, and pork loin or tenderloin.

We didn't end up in the money, as cash only went to the top 3 teams in each category, but we did manage to be top 10 in every category. Something we have yet to acheive until now!


Overall

1. KRE Smokers
2. Dr. Porkenstein
3. Kow's BBQ
4. Windy City Smokers
5. Mike Rib BBQ
6. 2 Skinny Cooks
7. Hawgs and Hotties
8. Dig The Pig
9. Joey Mac
10 Ma & Pa Kettle
Sausage

1. KRE Smokers
2. Dig The Pig
3. Smoke Chester
4. Dr. Porkenstein
5. Hawgs & Hotties ( Note: Dr P and Hogs & Hotties tied wit 157.1428 each)
6. Joey Mac
7. Kow's BBQ
8. 2 Skinny Cooks
9. Mike Rib BBQ
10. Bear Cat Smokers

Chicken

1. Smokin' Tasty
2. Kow's BBQ
3. Joey Mac
4. Windy City Smokers
5. Dig the Pig
6. KRE Smokers
7. Dr. Porkenstein
8. Hawgs & Hotties
9. 2 Skinny Cooks
10. Rub 1 Off

Ribs

1. Dr, Porkenstein (over 10 points above nearest competitor)
2. Windy City Smokers
3. Kow's BBQ
4. Bear Cat Smokers
5. Smokin tasty
6. Hawgs & Hotties
7. Mike Rib BBQ
8 Joey Mac
9. 2 Skinny Cooks
10. Ma & Pa Kettle

Pork Loin/tenderloin

1. KRE smokers (8 points above 2nd)
2. Mike Rib BBQ
3. Ma & Pa Kettle
4. Windy City Smokers
5. 2 Skinny Cooks - Woo hoo! we got a ribbon at least! And top 5 in pork again!
6. Dig The Pig
7. Kow's BBQ
8. Rub 1 Off
9. Smokin' Tasty
10. Dr. Porkenstein

Another first...we were NOT anywhere close to the last ones packed up. Truck was ready to roll well before the awards ceremony started! Sadly, some of those who poke fun at us for taking so long were not there, as they'd attended a wedding of a mutual BBQ buddy the evening before.

For anyone who might read this that lives remotely in the area, it's definitely an event worth coming out for. The bowling alley donates a number of lanes for folks to bowl and raise funds, Miller Brewing was kind enough to donate a couple of kegs of beer, all proceeds went straight to the charity, an open chil contest, and silent auction were also conducted. It's a very good time, for a very good cause!

So the 2011 season has officially begun. Next up will be Westmont, Memorial Day weekend. We're still filling in our schedule beyond that, but looking forward to another summer and fall of fun!

Until then, hope everybody stays warm and dry!

2010 Season comes to a close at Lambs Farm in Libertyville, IL

Well, the season is over, and, all things considered, I think we had a good run. In three years we've competed in a total of 16 contests, many teams we compete against do more than that in a single season.
This year we did 6, and got a total of 7 calls
Westmont,IL 5/2010 - 2nd place pork, 5th brisket
Lowell, MI - 5th place pork
Kingsford, MI - 1st place pork, 6th brisket
Milwaukee 6th place pork
Arthur, IL - uh,,,nothing
Libertyville, IL 1st place dessert (photo above)

This was our second year competing in Libertyville, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend to do it on. Temps on friday were in the low 60's, and the weather was just beautiful. Claudia, the contest organizer, and her whole crew did a fantastic job, and overall the venue was better than ever. We decided early to take our time, and not try and rush to get out of there on Saturday, and of course, we were the last team out saturday evening (about 6PM). By late afternoon most all the teams had arrived, one of the surprises to me was seeing Johnny Trigg (of TLC's Pitmasters series). I normally only see him this far north for the Shannon, IL contest. Not sure what brought him up this time, but I noticed he was not cooking on his normal Jambo cooker, but had a sweet looking Jambo that I think he had on loan from someone.

But the time between getting there and leaving is what it's all about! We were there just after noon on Friday, got our site set up, and our meat inspected by one or so. I had done 90% of all the trimming in advance this time, which made the whole process much more relaxing. All I needed to do was mix up my injections/marinades, do the fine trimming, and prep the smokers. Pork went in about 5:30 PM, and everything else was set in time for the 6PM cooks meeting.

After the cooks meeting, Jeff and crew, of Stockcar BBQ hosted a beautiful ham feast in honor of his teammate Angelos' birthday. He cooked up 2 gargantuan hams in his Lang cooker, along with a big batch of some kind of SPAM dish. We brought over a big pot of chili, and some of our Hog Jam, a sweet and savory conserve we hope to be marketing soon. Everyone seemed to like the chili, it all got eaten up, and the ham was delicious! (especially if you put some Hog Jam on it!) There were also a couple of cakes, and Jeff's team brought out the last of their Raki supply. (Raki being an unusual greek beverage, somewhat akin to Italian grappa) when knocking it back like a shot, as many folks did, I don't think you really get a chance to taste the subtleties that you do if you sip it. After chow, we headed back to the pop-up to grab our last bottle of apple pie shots (made onsite after arrival) and do the last "Shot-Fairy" run of the year.

We were running a bit late, since we stayed at the dinner a while, so some folks had already turned in by the time we got done making the rounds, so our apologies to anyone we missed.

We turned in about 1:30 or 2AM, and I was back up about 6:30, giving the chicken a quick brine, rubbing down the ribs, and putting the last of the rub on the brisket. Seems that, if I'm late to get chicken into the cooker, everything else runs hectic, but this time, brisket, chicken, ribs, and pork were all on schedule, and everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.

At about 9:15, we wandered over to Stockcar's site for the traditional 9:22 shot of Gentleman Jack. It's kind of a time honored tradition at BBQ contests, where we all get together to toast one anothers good fortune! The past couple of years, it was hosted by Walt of the Smokin' Scotsmen, but they were unable to make it over from Michigan this year, so Jeff filled in for the toast.

 I was really happy with just about everything, except the brisket. There is a fine line between done to perfection, and overdone. Although the internal temp of my brisket was about 195, and a probe stuck in it felt like it was sliding into a stick of room temp butter, it turned out to be just slightly underdone, and although it tasted good, I thought the texture was off.

After the brisket turn in, Diane worked feverishly on finishing her dessert (pictured above). Pam, from Sly Fox BBQ gave her a hand, and I tried to help as best I could. So, that out of the way, we started the long teardown process. Dessert turn in was at 2, and awards were to be at 3:30, so I had an hour and a half to wash up all the dishes, tear down the tables and EZ-Up, etc. while Diane was putting things away in the camper. It takes her a while, because Ember seems to whine a lot when it's close to time to go. She loves her "camping trips" because it's the only time we allow her to sleep with us. At home, she has her crate, but at comps, she makes herself at home in our bed.

By 3:20, we had the canopy down, tables almost cleared, and were ready to head to the awards ceremony.

Normally, they do sides, if any, first, and usually announce the top 3 or 5, from the bottom up. This one was different. We'd barely sat down when they announced the winner of the dessert category was 2 Skinny Cooks! Di was ecstatic as she walked up and collected her trophy, and 100 bucks cash!

Well, as it turned out, that would be the last call we were to hear.

Overall, we finished 29 of 46 teams. To be fair, about 5 of those teams only cooked ribs, so really we were more like 29 of 40.

Chicken was 29 of 40, no idea why, we scored 13th the week before in Arthur with the same box practically. Ribs were worse, at 43rd of 45.

Our pork, which had been doing well for us at 4 of our previous 5 comps went MIA in the last two of the year, placing 31 of 53 in Arthur, and 20 of 40 at Libertyville. (at least it went up?!?)

Brisket went 23 of 41. So, except for ribs, pretty solidly in the middle.

All in all, I would call our season a success. For us anyway.

Westmont IL --       2nd place pork, 5th place brisket

Lowell, MI --         5th place pork

Iron Mountain, MI  1st place pork, 5th place brisket

Milwaukee, WI -    6th place pork

Arthur, IL                5th place dessert, 6th place side dish, 8th place sausage

Libertyville             1st place dessert, with a 179.4286 score. Almost a perfect 180!

So, now it's time to winterize the camper, pull all the freezable stuff out and back into the house, and dream and plan for next season.

In the mean time, we'll work on getting our "Hog Jam" to market, tweak some recipes, and look forward to seeing our bbq pals at an occaisional off season get-together!

Yours in the sweet blue
Dann and Di

Arthur, IL - Central Illinois Bragging Rights - Well, no calls - But still a great time!

Well, our fifth comp of the year has come and gone, with mixed results. But regardless of the results, we had a great time!

We hit the road to Arthur at around 1PM on Thursday. It's normally around a three hour drive for us if we go straight through, but we stopped for a late lunch so arrived around 5:30 or so in Arthur. I really like, when I'm able, to arrive the evening before the actual first day of the contest. This allows us to set up at a much less frantic pace, and to relax and enjoy ourselves a bit more. Thursday afternoon I set up the pop-up, and Di set about taking care of the inside while I set up our outdoor setup. (cookers, tables, canopy, etc. Our nearest nighbor Thursday were the good folks from team Yankee Gator. It was an unseasonably warm evening for October, and didn't get much below 45 or so all night!

We slept pretty well, despite the regular freight trains that roll through Arthur on a somewhat regular basis all night long, and I got up around 7:30 and begen to get the smokers prepped for later in the day.

By this time, most of the rest of the teams were rolling in and setting up, ultimately there would be 53 teams in attendance, I believe the most ever for Arthur so far!

In retrospect, I feel like we spent a lot more time on the side categories, sauce, dessert, sausage, and side dish, than we should have, and I think it may have taken my eye off the ball somewhat when it came to the main 4 categories. Lesson learned? Stick to the main BBQ and forget about all the ancillary stuff!

When all was said and done, this was our worst showing this year, in that we had 0 calls, none, nada, zip, for the first time all year.

The upsides, the few there were, were that, in chicken, where we have always struggled, we were 13th of 53, so not a bad effort!  The other 3 categories were largely forgettable, and I'll be doing my best to do that, and just dust ourselves off and have at it another day! Pork, where we've been top ten 4 of 4 times before, was 31st. And, having just tasted a bit the Tuesday after, I have to say I can't say why!

But there were high points just the same! Our freind Dan, from the Barbecue Brethren site took the Grand Champion of the backyard category in his first contest effort! We were very happy for him!
And, at the end of the day, it was a beautiful weekend, with great weather, great freinds, and great barbecue! Can't ask for much better!

So new there is one more comp left on our schedule, at Lamb's Farm in Libertyville this weekend. This is one of our favorite comps, in that it supports a really great cause. They help a large number of children and adults with a variety of developmental disabilities to become productive members of society in just so many ways, and they're very successful at it! You can learn much more at their site http://www.lambsfarm.org/

The truck and trailer are still mostly packed from last weekend, so this should be an easy one to prep for. We're going to try and go out on an up note!

More next week!

Milwaukee, WI - Ouch!

Well, the judges didn't like us much in Beer Town! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For some reason, although I usually prep all our meats on site, this time I decided to do it ahead of time at home. To clarify, I'm talking about trimming meat, not seasoning, bringing, etc. That has to wait until after the meat is inspected. But many folks, the smarter ones, it could be argued, do all thier trimming at home. I may join that camp after this one! For whatever reason, as I said, I decided to get it out of the way ahead of time this time, and it was a fortunate decision! The 22 lb. package of "bone in" pork butts I'd purchased turned out to be bone-less! And looked as though it'd been boned with a cherry bomb! To those who bought boneless pork with the intent of making sausage, or something similar, that wouldn't be an issue, but for barbecue, it presents a huge problem, because it's difficult, if not impossible, to get the meat to cook evenly when it's cut that way. So, another quick trip to the store for a real pair of bone-in butts.

Got everything else but chicken trimmed up, decided to do those on-site, finished packing up, and relaxed a bit for the busy day to follow.

We rolled in about 2 or 3PM Friday after a relatively uneventful ride up to Wisconsin. Temps were not bad here in IL when we left, but when we got to Milwaukee we were met with temps in the low 50's, winds steady around 20 MPH, cloudy skies spitting rain here and there....and it was cold! 

We were told we were to be next to our freinds Nick and Beth, of team Moose BBQ, where we requested to be, so we quickly set about moving the trailer into place and setting up. Once set up, Diane stayed with Ember in the trailer, and I went to grab us some dinner at the pot luck organized by some of the teams. It was also a surprise anniversary party for Andy and Kim of Smoke On Wheels BBQ, who were celebrating thier 12th last weekend. The event organizer, Marjorie, was thoughtful enough to purchase a cake for them as well! The cooks meeting followed, and it was at that point that I'd forgotted to pack our lettuce and parsley for our garnishes!

I didn't allow myself to panic, but knew we might be in big trouble. Fortunately, June, from Bearcat smokers was kind enough to give me a ride to a grocery store (my truck was boxed in at this point) and our greens fiasco was resolved. I trimmed up our chicken, and at that point we went on a little visiting trip, to just go say hello to our fellow competitors, have a few libations, and try and enjoy the cool Fall-like evening.

The only down side to the whole day was the wind. Many chose to put up thier canopies in spite of it, but we opted to keep ours down until the wind died down. Well, there was another down side. The number of teams this year was just over half of the number of teams last year. I felt really bad for the organizer Marjorie, who works so hard to put on this event. I really hope she has a better turnout next year!
With only 16 teams competing, that meant there wouldn't even be three full tables of judges.

Saturday morning, got up, checked on the pork, and began the usual Saturday routine. Boxes done, meats on schedule, everything looking good! Turn in went pretty smoothly, and I was happy with all our meats, with the possible exception of the ribs, which, although tasty, were just about 10-15 minutes shy of being done perfectly. I'd have left them in longer, but there just wasn't time, so we went with what we had.  With turn in's done at 1:30, we set about packing up as much as possible before the award ceremony at 3. A member of the Barbecue Brethren forum, Jamie, had stopped by earlier to say hello, and offered to help tear down, and we gratefully accepted his help. We managed to complete all but about an hours worth of packing up prior to awards, and went off to see how we did.

Well, coming into this contest, we've been having what we feel is a good year. We'd done 3 comps and recieved 5 top ten calls, with 4 of those being "money" or top 5 calls that came with a check. As I'd mentioned, I was pretty happy with all of our entries, and with such a small field, expected to do reasonably well.

Well, for chicken, we were DAL - Dead A-- Last, as the expression goes. We hadn't had that dubious honor since our second contest ever, coincidentally enough, in chicken! However, our freinds from Moose got thier first call ever at 7th, and our neighbors on the other side, Taming of the Q, for whom this was thier first ever comp, got first place! We were very happy and excited for them, and that took some of the sting of not hearing our name away.

Next was ribs, again, we weren't called at all, and later found we'd once again taken DAL.

Pork remained good for us, although not good enough for a check, we came in at 6th, and Moose cam in 2nd, their day was shaping up nicely! At least we've been top 10 pork every time out

Finally was brisket, and once again, no call.But, no DAL either, so I guess that's something! In the end, we were 15th of 16 overall. But we saw our freinds Walt and Theresa, Smokin' Scotsmen take Reserve Grand Champion, and our other freinds Moose get 3 calls, thier first ever, and it was great to see them walking on air!

As for us, our scores, compared to my feelings about our meats just didn't add up, so I'll credit it to a fluke and we'll move on. I certainly wouldn't change much that we're doing as I don't believe we need to. At the end of the day, we still had a great time, and now just need to dust ourselves off and hit it harder next time.

Two more comps to go before we call it a season.....