Rockinar
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2013
- Location
- Houston, TX
Up to this point I have only cooked in my driveway backyard style. I saw an ad on Facebook 2 weeks ago for a friendly neighborhood competition for the neighborhood next to me and I thought I would just use it as an excuse to drag out the trailer to go cook somewhere besides the driveway. There was only about 15 "teams". On Saturday there some family events, a little petting zoo for kids, face painting, breweries giving out samples, cornhole tournament. etc and the public showed up.
Long story short this was a "fun family neighborhood contest" not a sanctioned one. I don't think (unsure) the 5 judges were trained. So I don't know what I'm supposed to be cooking Backyard salt and pepper? Competition candy ribs? I have no idea, so I tried to do a sort of hybrid. Only one trained head judge that I'm aware of. Meats were brisket and ribs. I had fun and learned a lot, but not sure what to think. Turn is was 9 slices of brisket and 9 ribs (strange number, even KCBS does not do that many I dont think?. I don't know how you can fit 9 ribs in a box and have good presentation. I did my best.
Lessons:
1) Staying awake for 28 hours and cooking is tough. I don't see how anyone can do KCBS going solo. Even doing smaller 3 meat events might be tough. Turn in time for brisket was 4 PM. I was hallucinating by that time. During turn in I'm cutting brisket and making my box. I hear someone yell "two minutes". I panic and turn in a sloppy box. Turns out it was actually "ten minutes". If you're solo, you need a clock you can watch.
2) Drunks like to talk too much. My back and ankles are sore today from standing for hours talking to drunks. If I do a sanctioned event, I'm putting walls on my tent.
3) Pre trimming a brisket in the comfort of your kitchen and AC without drunks wanting to talk would be so much easier and will for sure do that if I do an official event.
4) No matter how much stuff you bring, you will forget something. I forgot cutting boards..lol...so luckily I had brought a box of heavy duty construction clean up garbage bags and duct tape (why?). So I McGyver'd my table and taped down a fresh construction bag each time and used the table. It actually worked out pretty well. I also forgot mustard so my seasoning did not stick as nice as I would have liked. Is what it is.
5) You can never have too many paper towels.
Conclusion: Lots of conflicting results and information. I thought my ribs were decent, looked OK, I was proud of the bite through. I though I nailed that pretty good. After turn in I stood at my tent and offered leftover samples. Nobody really into them at all. OK, whatever I may have candied them a bit much for the public's taste. Result was 6th. OK I will take that out of 15. But I only placed two spots ahead of the guy next to me who's were were terrible looking, mushy, severe fall off the bone, with a heavy coating of something that burned your mouth. Who's judging this? Applebees customers?
Brisket. I cooked backyard brisket like I would in my driveway. Thats all I know so that's what I cooked. After I turned in my brisket box I made a small plateful of sample up into cubes, put toothpicks in them and stood at my tent and offered samples like I did with ribs. I wanted to get some feedback from people that's not family or friends (they will all lie). I quickly got overwhelmed with requests for samples. It was not 2 or 3 minutes before word seemed to spread and there was a line of people wanting samples. I went from standing there begging to take a sample, to cutting samples to people lining up faster than I could cut them. People were going crazy and wanting more and more, bringing more people over, multiple people said "OMG this is the best one hands down!" they would leave and come back with more people, Some were asking me to tell them how I cooked it, two or three different people told me the same thing "You and the guy at the end down by the dumpster have the most tender and best by far!". One lady took 3 samples, then came back with her own plate wanting 8 more.
Feedback was all the same..."the best", and a couple people said occasional "You and the guy down by the dumpster hands down have the best".
So I'm thinking "Holy crap, my brisket must be really good and all that driveway cooking is going to pay off!" Result...8th. WHAT??? I just had a LINE of people in a frenzy for my brisket SAYING "NOM..NOM..NOM...OMG THIS IS HANDS DOWN....NOM NOM... BY FAR THE BEST ONE HERE!" What's this 8th crap??
Well that was a kick the nuts. I have a line of people tell me it's by far the best there, and I get 8th out of 15? I dunno. I guess the judges and not looking for backyard brisket, but they were not looking for competition-ish type candy ribs either, so? I dont know.
Anyways, I had fun. I may do some sanctioned BBQ cookoffs in the future but just do for fun and an excuse to get out and cook some place other than the driveway, and not care about the competition aspect of it. I don't think going down the rabbit hole of serious competition BBQ is for me.
Long story short this was a "fun family neighborhood contest" not a sanctioned one. I don't think (unsure) the 5 judges were trained. So I don't know what I'm supposed to be cooking Backyard salt and pepper? Competition candy ribs? I have no idea, so I tried to do a sort of hybrid. Only one trained head judge that I'm aware of. Meats were brisket and ribs. I had fun and learned a lot, but not sure what to think. Turn is was 9 slices of brisket and 9 ribs (strange number, even KCBS does not do that many I dont think?. I don't know how you can fit 9 ribs in a box and have good presentation. I did my best.
Lessons:
1) Staying awake for 28 hours and cooking is tough. I don't see how anyone can do KCBS going solo. Even doing smaller 3 meat events might be tough. Turn in time for brisket was 4 PM. I was hallucinating by that time. During turn in I'm cutting brisket and making my box. I hear someone yell "two minutes". I panic and turn in a sloppy box. Turns out it was actually "ten minutes". If you're solo, you need a clock you can watch.
2) Drunks like to talk too much. My back and ankles are sore today from standing for hours talking to drunks. If I do a sanctioned event, I'm putting walls on my tent.
3) Pre trimming a brisket in the comfort of your kitchen and AC without drunks wanting to talk would be so much easier and will for sure do that if I do an official event.
4) No matter how much stuff you bring, you will forget something. I forgot cutting boards..lol...so luckily I had brought a box of heavy duty construction clean up garbage bags and duct tape (why?). So I McGyver'd my table and taped down a fresh construction bag each time and used the table. It actually worked out pretty well. I also forgot mustard so my seasoning did not stick as nice as I would have liked. Is what it is.
5) You can never have too many paper towels.
Conclusion: Lots of conflicting results and information. I thought my ribs were decent, looked OK, I was proud of the bite through. I though I nailed that pretty good. After turn in I stood at my tent and offered leftover samples. Nobody really into them at all. OK, whatever I may have candied them a bit much for the public's taste. Result was 6th. OK I will take that out of 15. But I only placed two spots ahead of the guy next to me who's were were terrible looking, mushy, severe fall off the bone, with a heavy coating of something that burned your mouth. Who's judging this? Applebees customers?
Brisket. I cooked backyard brisket like I would in my driveway. Thats all I know so that's what I cooked. After I turned in my brisket box I made a small plateful of sample up into cubes, put toothpicks in them and stood at my tent and offered samples like I did with ribs. I wanted to get some feedback from people that's not family or friends (they will all lie). I quickly got overwhelmed with requests for samples. It was not 2 or 3 minutes before word seemed to spread and there was a line of people wanting samples. I went from standing there begging to take a sample, to cutting samples to people lining up faster than I could cut them. People were going crazy and wanting more and more, bringing more people over, multiple people said "OMG this is the best one hands down!" they would leave and come back with more people, Some were asking me to tell them how I cooked it, two or three different people told me the same thing "You and the guy at the end down by the dumpster have the most tender and best by far!". One lady took 3 samples, then came back with her own plate wanting 8 more.
Feedback was all the same..."the best", and a couple people said occasional "You and the guy down by the dumpster hands down have the best".
So I'm thinking "Holy crap, my brisket must be really good and all that driveway cooking is going to pay off!" Result...8th. WHAT??? I just had a LINE of people in a frenzy for my brisket SAYING "NOM..NOM..NOM...OMG THIS IS HANDS DOWN....NOM NOM... BY FAR THE BEST ONE HERE!" What's this 8th crap??
Well that was a kick the nuts. I have a line of people tell me it's by far the best there, and I get 8th out of 15? I dunno. I guess the judges and not looking for backyard brisket, but they were not looking for competition-ish type candy ribs either, so? I dont know.
Anyways, I had fun. I may do some sanctioned BBQ cookoffs in the future but just do for fun and an excuse to get out and cook some place other than the driveway, and not care about the competition aspect of it. I don't think going down the rabbit hole of serious competition BBQ is for me.
