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.
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.