aawa
Babbling Farker
Well Saturday was the big practice cook for Sublime Smoke! We had it at my house and setup in my neighbors and mine driveway. We measured out 25x25 and it was more than enough to get everything to fit. One thing I did though was keep the pits on the flatter part of the drive way as opposed to cooking by the canopies because of the slant.
The cookers we are going to bring to the comp are my Sublime Smoke UDS, Jamaicamon (Matt) WSM, and one of my performers. The extra performer was there to cook breakfast, as well as an extra cooker because we cooked extra meat to serve everybody. We got the pits started at 5am, then setup camp.
Some beauty shots that my buddy Rob took with his DSLR. Some of them you can catch the thin blue coming out of the cookers. Yes I have a problem and require Marty Leach handles on all my cookers!
My UDS thermo showing 250, but center grate is at 305.
My lovely welders glove showing thier wear.
Fuel was KBB and Kroger Lump (Royal Oak Lump) and Pecan wood. I kicked the other wood I had in my garage and stuff Matt brought over. (Hickory, Cherry, and Grape) along with the ash can which will be important for the comp.
Rubs and other herbs/spices. Some of them are place holders, till I find other containers for the rubs other than a plastic bag.
Going over with Kyle and Matt, how I trim up spare ribs to St. Louis cut. All the other meats were trimmed the night before by Matt and I, to save time. I am going to be trimming all the meats prior to the comp so that we can ensure we are not rushed and make good clean cuts.
1st - knock it down to a KC Cut by taking off the breast bone.
2nd - Find the longest bone in the rack, and make the cut from that bone straight across.
3rd - Turn rack around and bring the cut down. Make sure the cut is straight and the rack is rectangular.
4th - Trim the tail to square it up. Then trim any excess fat.
5th - Peel the membrane off.
6th - Throw it in the pan until all the rest of the ribs are trimmed.
Shots of the 2 briskets, 2 out of 4 pork butts, and 2 out of 4 racks of ribs before before wrapping, and pans of chicken getting the squeeze butter treatment before the cooler (drum sticks were just for eating, will be doing just thighs in the comp)
The team gabbing during some down time. I'm on the left, Matt (Jamaicamon) in the middle and Kyle on the right.
Other shots of us pretending to do work. How can we consider this work, it was fun!
Chewing the fat with the neighbors. Even when the rain came down for 30mins!
Some gratuitous food porn shots.
And the practice turn in boxes we built. I know we need to work on presentation a little bit more, but this was the first time I ever did this, so I would place and then move and it ended up being a mess.
Chicken Box - I was pretty happy with the way the chicken appearance was.
Pork box - Chopped, pulled, and Money Muscle. I was pretty happy with this box.
Rib Box - I touched the one on the bottom left. They were a little too saucy I think and the rubs could of been organize better and placed better.
Brisket Box - i should of stopped with just the flat slices. But I wanted to see how the point cubes would fit in there. I also think we went too heavy with the sauce.
A very happy and drunk Matt
And a very happy doge.
Overall the neighbors, co-workers, and friends that came enjoyed everything. They top 2 sauces everybody loved were the 50/50 Blues Hog/Blues hog Reg and Plowboys Sweet 180.
I was very happy with the practice run. My timeline was spot on. I think we put out great bbq for the taste and tenderness criteria. This was probably the best brisket and ribs that I have ever cooked. We need to tighten up the appearance but we made sure we were able to get the boxes built within 20 minutes, so that gives us a 5-8min window of error. And we were able to list out stuff that we didn't think about what we needed to bring with us. It wasn't a perfect run, but it put us on the right path.
I am looking forward to August 22nd!
Thanks for looking at this ridiculously long thread.
The cookers we are going to bring to the comp are my Sublime Smoke UDS, Jamaicamon (Matt) WSM, and one of my performers. The extra performer was there to cook breakfast, as well as an extra cooker because we cooked extra meat to serve everybody. We got the pits started at 5am, then setup camp.
Some beauty shots that my buddy Rob took with his DSLR. Some of them you can catch the thin blue coming out of the cookers. Yes I have a problem and require Marty Leach handles on all my cookers!
My UDS thermo showing 250, but center grate is at 305.
My lovely welders glove showing thier wear.
Fuel was KBB and Kroger Lump (Royal Oak Lump) and Pecan wood. I kicked the other wood I had in my garage and stuff Matt brought over. (Hickory, Cherry, and Grape) along with the ash can which will be important for the comp.
Rubs and other herbs/spices. Some of them are place holders, till I find other containers for the rubs other than a plastic bag.
Going over with Kyle and Matt, how I trim up spare ribs to St. Louis cut. All the other meats were trimmed the night before by Matt and I, to save time. I am going to be trimming all the meats prior to the comp so that we can ensure we are not rushed and make good clean cuts.
1st - knock it down to a KC Cut by taking off the breast bone.
2nd - Find the longest bone in the rack, and make the cut from that bone straight across.
3rd - Turn rack around and bring the cut down. Make sure the cut is straight and the rack is rectangular.
4th - Trim the tail to square it up. Then trim any excess fat.
5th - Peel the membrane off.
6th - Throw it in the pan until all the rest of the ribs are trimmed.
Shots of the 2 briskets, 2 out of 4 pork butts, and 2 out of 4 racks of ribs before before wrapping, and pans of chicken getting the squeeze butter treatment before the cooler (drum sticks were just for eating, will be doing just thighs in the comp)
The team gabbing during some down time. I'm on the left, Matt (Jamaicamon) in the middle and Kyle on the right.
Other shots of us pretending to do work. How can we consider this work, it was fun!
Chewing the fat with the neighbors. Even when the rain came down for 30mins!
Some gratuitous food porn shots.
And the practice turn in boxes we built. I know we need to work on presentation a little bit more, but this was the first time I ever did this, so I would place and then move and it ended up being a mess.
Chicken Box - I was pretty happy with the way the chicken appearance was.
Pork box - Chopped, pulled, and Money Muscle. I was pretty happy with this box.
Rib Box - I touched the one on the bottom left. They were a little too saucy I think and the rubs could of been organize better and placed better.
Brisket Box - i should of stopped with just the flat slices. But I wanted to see how the point cubes would fit in there. I also think we went too heavy with the sauce.
A very happy and drunk Matt
And a very happy doge.
Overall the neighbors, co-workers, and friends that came enjoyed everything. They top 2 sauces everybody loved were the 50/50 Blues Hog/Blues hog Reg and Plowboys Sweet 180.
I was very happy with the practice run. My timeline was spot on. I think we put out great bbq for the taste and tenderness criteria. This was probably the best brisket and ribs that I have ever cooked. We need to tighten up the appearance but we made sure we were able to get the boxes built within 20 minutes, so that gives us a 5-8min window of error. And we were able to list out stuff that we didn't think about what we needed to bring with us. It wasn't a perfect run, but it put us on the right path.
I am looking forward to August 22nd!
Thanks for looking at this ridiculously long thread.
