Well folks, I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and explain the beginnings of our lives in the competition BBQ world.  If you’ve paid attention to some of the other posts there’s some history there related to how we started out and whom we owe credit to for us getting started, but no info on the actual event itself.

1^st Annual Tri-Cities BBQ Contest – September 23, 2005

Here it is, the first BBQ contest.  Who would have guessed it would be the start of Hot Grill on Grill Action.  After digging up the pictures and looking at the date it’s hard to believe that what seemed like just yesterday was over 6 years ago.

My wife Tasha had helped me get set up that morning for what was a going to be a one day event.  She later returned for awards and to help clean up, but from raw meat to turn-ins it was all me.  The categories were ribs, chicken and Tri-Tip.  I felt pretty confident going into this event even though the Tri-Tip category was new to me.  I had spent several weeks getting my Tri-Tip right.  I had purchased several nice big Tri-Tip roasts from the local butcher and mixed up a few dry rub options and ate well for a few weekends in a row (I love Tri-Tip).  Getting the roasts done the way I wanted them was the real trick that I had to figure out.  There’s a fine line between just right and overdone and with such a small relatively lean piece of meat that window is pretty small.  I knew what I was going to use on my spare ribs and had my chicken process just where I wanted it.  Regardless, I practiced both a couple of times to make sure.

What I do remember is how stressed out I was to be going at this alone.  Why was this so stressful?  It’s supposed to be fun right?  Afterall, it was a georgeous 65 degree day and I was finally competing, something that I’d wanted to do for several years.  One can never be too prepared for a contest.

I had spent the whole night prior to the event loading up everything I thought I would need.  One of the things I find humorous about looking at these pictures is the lack of equipment and gear that I had.  It’s funny to think that this simple one day event had me stressed out so much.  I can recall pacing around in my garage and going through my totes numerous times making sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.  As most of us know, you’re going to forget something almost every time going into a contest.

After arrival on site it didn’t take long to figure out that this was clearly a first annual event.  Now don’t get me wrong, I was just as unprepared as the contest reps for this event but I had anticipated working with a group of reps that could provide a bit of guidance.  This certainly added to the stress levels especially since the only person present that knew what to do was the county health inspector which for whatever reason was brought in to assist.  Don’t get me wrong, food safety is surely important but this guy was a HUGE pain in the pork shoulder!

My set up was simple, two tables an 8’ x 8’ canopy an 18” WSM and a Weber Kettle.

I had prepared 12 boneless chicken thighs, 2 racks of ribs and 2 Tri-Tip Roasts.  The kettle and WSM both ran flawlessly.  I cooked the ribs on the WSM and had also started the Tri-Tip there to get a bit of smoke on it.  I had cooked the chicken on the kettle.  After the chicken was done I moved the Tri-Tip over to the kettle to get a sear on the outside.

Did I mention that the meat was provided?  Upon entering the contest I was excited to not have to pick up the meat from the store.  Unfortunately when I picked up my meat from the reps I was handed partially frozen chicken thighs, two racks of Baby Back ribs with one rack having broken bones in it and two really small Tri-Tip Roasts.  In an effort to thaw out my chicken I left it sitting out on the table in its package which sparked the interest of the health inspector.  This guy was comical.  I simply explained that they were being left out to thaw a bit before cooking them which he wasn’t having.  At this point I decided to request new chicken and figured I’d go for some new ribs as well hoping to get some that didn’t have any broken bones.  Having received neither I continued along my process of thawing the chicken which really chaffed the health inspector.  He began to pick on me by asking where my hot water was and threatened that if I didn’t have hot water in the next 30 minutes I was going to be asked to leave the contest.  I ignored this request after having taken a quick glance around to see if anyone else had hot water on site which only one team did.  Also, I had no way to heat water?  I surely wasn’t giving up my cooking space to heat water, I was there to compete.  When the inspector came back 30 minutes later to no hot water he was furious.  Just as I was going to point out the fact that I wasn’t the only one without hot water the neighboring team had overheard the previous conversations and had put a pot of water on his firebox for “us to share”.  Ahh, the camaraderie of BBQ cooks runs deep!  This had satisfied this point with the inspector but the chicken was still a problem.  I threw the chicken in the cooler to satisfy him until he left then took it back out and placed in my tote with my BBQ supplies.

After the Chicken and Rib categories were complete I thought I was going to “own” this little event.  Everything had gone as planned with these categories and were done to my liking.  Then came the Tri-Tip.  The roasts that they had provided were much smaller than those that I had practiced with.  I remember throwing one of them that was a bit bigger on 30 minutes earlier than the smaller of the two.  This attempt to get them done properly gained me nothing.  I should have put them both on at the same time in hopes that one would be done perfectly.  Both came out over cooked and I knew that this was not my day for Tri-Tip.  This just goes back to practice and in this case the lack thereof.  You can never practice too much for these things.

There were 11 teams consisting of competitors from the local casinos, the police, fire department and radio personalities.  Overall, I came in 7^th with the local DJ coming in first followed by one of the casino teams.  This was a great event and a memory that will last forever.  Most importantly to me, it was the birth of who we are and what we represent today.  Hot Grill on Grill Action!!

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef

Brisket is a tough meat to master for many competition and backyard cooks. You may or may not have noticed that brisket can have different grades from the USDA.  Below are the grades you may run into and a quick course in the differences.

Select Grade: This is the second lowest grade of brisket I have seen available. There are lower grades such as standard, cutter, etc.  These cuts contain the least amount of fat and will be firmer. Do not use these in competitions if you can avoid it. These are usually seen in grocery stores.

Choice Grade: This is the most common grade you will see and the most used grade in competition. Sam’s, Costco, and many butchers will carry these.  They will have more marbling than select and standard.  It is very important use the basic factors such as size, thickness, marbling and feel to find the correct choice brisket. They all may be labeled Choice, but some are clearly better.

Prime:  This is actually a choice brisket that has received the highest mark of the choice cuts. Typically they will have a little more marbling and will have a softer feel to them.  If you keep your eyes peeled, they are often mixed in with the Choice grades  at Sam’s and Costco. Look fat side of the packaging and you will see a USDA Prime stamp. You can talk to the butcher and the above resources and they can order prime for you.

Wagyu- Referred to as the American Kobe beef.  The USDA does not grade Wagyu.  It’s actually a different breed of cow originating from Japan and uses a different grading system. The Kobe breed of cattle used in these cuts produce a well-marbled brisket. The biggest deterrent is price. They can be up to 5x the price of the above briskets, and often you have to pay a hefty shipping cost as they need to ship refrigerated. We cooked a few of these and they produce a slightly different taste and seem to cook faster. If you can cook them correctly, they are just fine. However, reports of low scores using Wagyu are common, due to unfamiliarity of the judges and the difficulty to cook.

CAB Certified Briskets:  Beef branded as Certified Angus Beef® has a higher amount of marbling and an exceptionally tender, juicy flavor. Only some USDA Prime beef and top grades of USDA Choice beef are sold under this brand name.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef

Pulled chicken is one of the most delicious smoked meats you’re going to get your taste buds on. It’s also one of the healthiest. It is far superior to grilling chicken. It requires more patience as it takes on average 3-4 hours to do, not counting prep time. The end product is the most juicy, succulent, and tasty chicken you will ever eat. It is well worth the wait. Today, I am going to demonstrate just how easy it is to make pulled chicken from a whole chicken (using techniques bestowed upon me by the Chicken King of the Midwest, pitmaster Matt Frampton, a fellow author on this site.

The first thing you need to do is butterfly the chicken. For this, go to Matt’s Post entitled “how to butterfly a chicken.” You will be doing yourself a disservice not to start here:

http://www.bbqrevolution.com/how-to-butterfly-a-chicken/

 Rig: The Weber Silver One Touch Kettle Grill.

Ingredients:

-1 whole chicken

-1 cup apple juice

-4 tbsp salted butter

-Spray bottle

-Your favorite chicken rub

First, you’ll need to set the kettle grill to operate in smoke mode. To do this, use charcoal separates to hold charcoal one a small portion of 1 side of the grill. Add a small bed of coals ant then add a few chunks of your favorite wood on top (apple and/or hickory are good choices). Use a charcoal starter to get a few coals lit and place them un top off the unlit coals. Now we’re smoking!

use a charcoal separater, add only a few chuncks of smoke wood

Note: chicken can be smoked at a wide range of temperatures (225 to 350). For this cook, I will cook around 250-275.

Step 1: Butterfly the chicken.

Step 2. Melt the 4 tbsp of butter and combine with the 1 cup of apple juice. This will be our injection. Pump the bird full if this injection. Just get the needle under the skin, you will see the bird swell up as the skin holds in the inject.

Step 3: Add your rub to the chicken. Season both sides of chicken. For this cook, I am using garlic salt and McCormick’s Smoke house pepper seasoning. Cover the skin in the rub.

Kettle is set up, birds are seasoned, let's BBQ!

Step 4: Add your bird to the smoker. Do not place any part of the bird directly over the coals. If you do, you are not going to smoke your chicken, you’re going to be grilling it.

Step 5. Every hour into the cook spray the bird with apple juice. This will help retain moisture as well as add some sweetener to flavor.

spray with apple juice every hour for moisture and for a natural sweetener

Step 6. Once the bird is cooked to 175 (in the breast area), remove the bird and let it rest for 15 minutes. You can also take the temp in the drum/leg area, where the meat is also thick.

step 7. Carefully remove the skin. Use can use a knife and cut out the skin.  Try to keep the skin in as few pieces as possibe. This chunks of skin will become your “dirty rags” in step 9.

Step 8. Grab the legs and pull off the body. Repeat on the wings. Pull the meat off the chicken bones  into bite size chucks. You can separate the dark meat (leg area) and white meat (breast area) if desired. The picture in step 9 shows the dark meat on the left and white on the right.

step 9.  Time to use the dirty rag technique. Remember the skin that you seasoned at the beginning of the cook and subsequently removed in step 7?  That’s your “dirty rag.” Our chicken expert Matt coined this soon to be buzz word on the BBQ circuit. Take the skin you removed, mix it and the chicken together repeatedly . You will see that the chicken meat now looks freckled with the seasoning from the skin. Continue this until you have ragged all the meat. Make sure to remove the rags(skin) from the pulled chicken.

Mix the pulled chicken with the rags and you will be left with seasoned pulled chicken!

Step 10: Enjoy the feast!!! 

Ingredients:

- (1) 12 lb Brisket
- 1 12 oz can of Coca-Cola
- 1 cup of Apple Juice
- Your favorite  Brisket rub seasoning (lots available, to see the ones we win with go here http://www.bbqrevolution.com/ )

Get your Rig of Choice fired up: For this cook, I will utilize the Weber Smokey Mountain (bullet smoker).

The WSM is a fine choice. Grab some hickory chunks and let's get started!!

Step 1. Unwrap and trim brisket.

You can tap the fat areas and if it feels solid, it needs to be trimmed. you will notice 2 major areas of the brisket where you need to trim every time. The are located in the point. One is on top and the other is in the thickest side of the point. These are large fat “wedges” that need to be removed. Some folks trim off the fat cap, I am not a big fan of that. The cap will provide the brisket with moisture and taste as the fat renders and is absorbed into the meat. I also trim of meat on the sides that appears brown.

Inject sites are 1 inch apart. Note: Puddling can be seen in this pic

Step 3. Apply a thin coat of mustard over the brisket. This will act as a binding agent to hold the rub on the brisket throughout the cook.

Step 4. Apply a generous amount of rub on the brisket. It is of this Pitmasters opinion you cannot over-season a brisket. That said, don’t get in a contest to see how much seasoning you can get on your brisket. Use you common sense.

Logan’s note: Some of you pros will appreciate this one: It is not necessary to season the fat cap of the brisket yet… since you will cook the brisket Fat side up, you can season the fat cap after putting the brisket on your rig.

Step 5: Place the brisket on the smoker fat side up and season the fat cap if you have not yet. You will notice you can really get a good amount of seasoning on with this method. As the fat cap renders, this seasoning will absorb into the brisket with the rendered fat.

Pitmaster tip: Wait to season the fat cap until it's on smoker, if you can. You will hold more seasoning.

Step 6. Cook the brisket until internal temp reaches 160 degrees.

Step 7. Re-season and wrap the brisket in heavy duty foil. Many briskets, and pork butts for that matter, seem to hit a wall at this temperature and cook slowly, jeopardizing your turn in time. This will also seal all the juices inside the foil, making for a nice, juicy brisket nearly every time.

Re-season the Brisket

use heavy duty foil

Step 8. Cook brisket to 195 degrees.

Step 9. Keep in foil and let brisket sit for 1/2 hour to 3 hours. A brisket will stay tender for that long, maybe longer. Ideally, for a competition, try to keep this time as close to an hour as possible. The brisket absorbs a portion of the juices in foil. Take it out right away and you will have a dry brisket.

Step 10. Slice against the grain and enjoy!!!!!

Getting there early provides many advantages, some examples:

1. If gives you flexibility to work around the weather if it isn’t cooperating
2. You can get your meat checked in earlier so you can begin your marinade, brine or whatever you’d like to do to the meat before you cook it
3. You are less rushed getting your camp/kitchen setup which creates a far more organized area
4. It gives you a larger window to run out and pickup anything that may have been forgotten.
5. You can begin to scope the competition as it comes in!
6. You can start drinking beer earlier!
7. Socializing

There are many other advantages - but these are the main ones.

There will typically be a meat inspector running around whenever you get there so you’ll want to get this out of the way as soon as you can.  You cannot unpackage any of the meat you are cooking until it has been “checked in” by one of these inspectors – so don’t bring anything open or in a marinade or already seasoned, etc.  It will disqualify you before you even begin.

Sometime in the evening, usually between 5PM and 7PM, there will be a cooks meeting.  You or someone representing your team will need to be there during this meeting.  At the end of the meeting you’ll get your clam shells (the styrofoam thingers you typically get from a restaurant for left overs) and whatever “goodie bags” the contest is giving each team.  You will get at least 4 clam shells (or more depending on the contest).  Take care of these and don’t mark on them!  You can be disqualified for trying to “mark” your box in an attempt to tell a judge who’s food this is.  A very serious rule in these contests is that turns ins are to remain annonymous, unbiased and fair.  I have seen more than one team given a diqualifying score.

Turn ins will usually be on Saturday for the big 4 (chicken, ribs, pork, brisket) and will usually start at noon and then be every 30 minutes.  For KCBS the order of turn in is chicken, ribs, pork, brisket…so it would end at 1:30.  Juding is then typically between 3 – 4 PM depending on the size and number of teams.

I’m sure my counterparts are going to have lots of their own thoughts on this topic – but from my point of view, this post includes all the beginning basic “stuff” needed to know in order to succefully make it through a BBQ contest.

Cooking in a BBQ contest can be extremely fun, but if you have never done it, trust me – there are things that will be forgotten/not thought of that can take the fun meter down anywhere from just a bit to making your event completely miserable.  I intend to make it so this doesn’t happen to you! (at least the miserable part)

First – learn this list, memorize it, make sure you have all of it or can get it and have it ready for when you organize your gear for the contest. This PNWBA list (even though we typically compete in the KCBS it is ideal) will save you a TON of heart ache: Event Checklist

Once you have everything in your possession, you’ll want to start thinking about organizing it.  If you are lucky enough, all of these items will mostly be for contest use only, rather than moving back and forth between the kitchen and contests for instance.  What kind of vehicle will you be traveling in?  A truck?  A van?  It will make the loading and unloading process of all the equipement if you cater your organization around how it will travel.  Choose the right containers, bags, whatever that make the most sense for you. 

When you start packing your gear, put like items together for easy unloading and finding when you need it.  All of the food touching equipment (knives, forks, tongs, etc) should go together.  All the spices should go together.  All the BBQ and handyman tools should go together.  I recommend labeling the containers (we use stackable totes like this one here) and trying to keep the equipment in these containers when not in use so it’s always there.  We at least follow this rule during the season…this way we are really only going through the checklist at the start of the season and then inventory it at the end of the season.  YES - after many seasons we still use the same checklist above.