First Competition Results - Bedford Blue & BBQ Festival

Pitfaced BBQ competed for the first time ever this weekend at the Bedford Blues & BBQ Festival. We had an awesome time going up against some outstanding teams with our humble little set-up. There were 76 teams in all. I know others from the brethren were there and will hopefully chime in as well.

Our goal for this competition was to meet a lot of other cooks, learn what it takes to compete, and hopefully beat at least 1 other team. We met a lot of great people, learned a TON, and we ended up beating 20 teams, finishing 56th out of 76 teams. I know it doesn't seem like much, but we are really proud of that result. We told a lot of people about this being our first competition and they would all raise their eyebrows and say "you sure picked a hell of a big competition to start with".

Here are all of the results and I'll talk more about the event in another post.

Chicken:
157.68 - 49th

8 8 8
8 7 7
9 7 8
9 7 8
8 8 7
8 9 8

Our chicken was admittedly spicy and I think it turned off some judges. We knew it was a risk, but rolled with it anyways because it was different. I thought our tenderness scores would have been better, but I can see us cooking them a bit shorter next time. Frankly, we shouldn't have been so dismissive of this category. The trimming was a miserable experience, we don't know chicken much because we don't care to eat it as BBQ, and we cooked just 12 of them, needing 9 to turn in. We didn't do great, but it wasn't our worst category and might actually have a chance to get in the top 25% if we get a little more agreeable flavor and cook them better.

Pork Ribs:
147.95 - 68th

9 7 7
8 8 7
8 8 7
8 7 7
7 7 7
8 7 7

We got absolutely slammed on tenderness. I think we tried to get too cute. I know what bite through tenderness is, but think we overestimated the difference between competition tenderness and tenderness for home cooking. We cooked 5 racks to different levels of "done" and settled on the 2nd shortest cook. I bet our 4th rack would have done much better. I am surprised on taste, though. More on that with the pork, though.

Pork:

157.70 - 52nd

8 8 8
8 7 7
8 7 7
8 8 9
8 6 7
8 9 9

I don't know what to make of the pork. We had 7s and 9s on tenderness and we had a 6 and a 9 on taste. The three highest scores were all well above the judges average, too, so they weren't just being soft, we really impressed them. The 5th judge had the lowest average of all judges on my sheet and hit a lot of teams really hard, though we were below even his average. I don't guess we're going to change much, if anything, on the pork. Especially with taste. The rub is one that my buddy makes and is really, REALLY popular among a number of friends, family, and other samplers of our pork. The bit of money muscle I tried was really good and I thought the pulled came out well, so I'm not sure what to take of the 6s and 7s from judges 2, 3, and 5.

Brisket:
159.97 - 29th

9 8 8
8 8 7
8 8 8
9 8 8
8 8 8
9 7 8

We were super excited about our brisket finish. A long ways from winning anything with it, but 29th in that field was incredible for us. My buddy came up with the injection and I provided the rub. We did two briskets and wrapped one earlier than the other. The temps climbed in it REALLY quick and, by temp alone, it seemed overdone (9.5 lb brisket probed over 210* in places after just 5 total hours). I made the decision to ride it out another hour or so and check tenderness again. It got to right where I wanted it on feel, so we pulled it and let it rest. Turned out to be a spot on decision. Full of flavor, nice bend, really moist. The unwrapped was good, but a little bit on the dry side. It could obviously be better to compete with the top teams, but we're going to run this out there a few more times before we change much.

Here are our boxes:

Chicken:


The "chicken balls" (as coined on this forum) actually did fairly well on presentation. We showed our practice box to a few teams and they all liked them, only suggesting that we fill the box, so we went with 9 pieces instead of 6.

Ribs:


Pork (that money muscle was...well...money):


Brisket:

Here are some other random things about the competition:

The team to our left was from Texas Select Seasonings out of Santa Fe, TX. They were sponsored by, among others, Myron Mixon Smokers. One of their pits was a Vulcan MMS-V33. That thing was sweeeeettt.

The team to our other left was Meat Church, who you may have seen on BBQ Pitmasters in April. They were cooking with the founder of 3 Woody's BBQ, who has some awards to his name as well.

Both of those teams were comprised of some really good dudes. They talked with us, gave us tips, let us try some of their rubs/recipes, offered to help with setup/teardown, and were just good company. Woody from 3 Woody's was talking with me about results after the comp and when I told him where we finished, he congratulated us on our first result. Then I told him we got 29th in brisket and he said "Hell yeah, my man!" then gave me a man-hug. They finished 19th overall, but 52nd in brisket. He said he might have made it in the top 10 overall if he let us cook his brisket . Lots of camaraderie out there that forges some great friendships really quickly

This really was a TON of work. Not just in cooking, but in setup, prep work, cleaning, tear-down, serving, and everything else. I got to the site at about 5 p.m. on Friday and from then, until I went to be last night at about 10:00 p.m., I slept maybe 7 total hours. 5 of those were in the hatch of my Mazdaspeed 3 on Friday night. Just not much time for sleep with two guys doing all of the work on the food. It was well worth it when those boxes got turned in, though, as that was a pretty satisfying accomplishment.

Here are some pictures from the event. We really didn't take many (see the post about how much work this all was) and we didn't have anyone taking pictures for us, either, though we did get some sent to us.

The knife:



The gunfight:





Me on the right and the other cook, Trent, on the left at the concert the night before:


This pic was on the city's Facebook page and was taken during People's Choice. We started sending people to try Meat Church's food, too (I kid, as I think they beat us):


Pork prep on one of the shoulders. This was carving around, but not separating (per KCBS rules) the money muscle:

Rubbing a second shoulder (we cooked 3):


Injecting a pork shoulder:


Trimming a brisket (we cooked 2):


Proud parents of our 9 pound baby:


Trimming and squaring ribs:




Ribs in a drum:


3 drums going at around 5 a.m. (the blue is from the LEDs on one of Meat Church's other trailer rigs):


Carefully turning the chicken thighs:


Topping for the ribs right as they got wrapped:

The bend on our brisket (and that was a thick slice!?!?!):


Cutting ribs from a rack that we decided not to use:


Another rack getting wrapped:


Another People's Choice shot:

Thanks, BV (my initials, too!).

I just need to practice, practice, practice on the pork butts. I'm a pulled pork fan and even the chunks were out of my comfort zone. I know we need to do more for competition, though. I'll work on just what you mentioned.

The butts were on the small side, but we went with them because we had that timing down (relative term, obviously). I'm willing to practice with larger ones, though. What should I expect to get out of larger butts than the smaller ones? Am I getting better meat towards the center or just bigger chunks/medallions?

For brisket, I didn't do any trimming to the shape of the thing prior to cooking, just the fat and that weird flap on the fat side. I'll see if I can get a better shape prior to going in the smoker next time I cook a brisket at home and start practicing that.

That last bit is a heck of a good idea. We pre-prepped a few of our rubs, but were making injections and sauces during the cook, which really took a lot out of us. Same goes for the trimming. I guess we didn't realize what all we were allowed to do to the meat prior to inspection. Removing the brisket, trimming it down, then wrapping it back up is okay? Same with the other meats? I guess it's okay, so long as you don't season or marinade them prior to inspection?

Still learning and really appreciate the suggestions.

tduffy said:

It doesn't surprise me not seeing nines on the chicken. the bottom right piece isn't uniform even cooking in muffin pans. Advice would be to ditch the muffin pans. Judges including myself score them down. It doesn't look like chicken therefore affects how appetizing it looks to me. The first thing that comes to my mind is how am I even supposed to eat this? Is there a bone? Where do i bite to not get a bite of the bone?

Click to expand...

I've heard mixed opinions on this and they are usually one extreme or the other. We showed pictures of both our practice box and our actual turn in box to fellow competitors (all with plenty of comps and trophies under their belts) and they had very positive things to say about them. That and we scored some nines despite the two very uneven pieces and only giving ourselves a dozen from which to choose nine. I'm willing to practice a more traditional look on the chicken, but until it really feels like the shape is holding us back, we'll probably stick with this.

Of course, we could have that revelation the next time we compete. We've only done this once.