Mark BBQ Billy's first official barbecue competition in the books: Grillin' on the Bay, 2011. My grilling compatriot and brother-in-law, Bert Cooper, represented hardcore in an all-out, 15-hr endeavor featuring sub-freezing temps, 4 hrs of sleep, and a ridiculous amount of smoke, meat, beer, and bourbon. Everyone at the competition was incredibly welcoming and informative. When the NEBS (New England Barbecue Society) people heard it was our first event, they introduced us to a few pros, and rallied throughout the day to confirm we knew when turn-in times were, how to plate an entry, and otherwise make it through the day successfully.
We placed 13th overall, out of 20 entrants. Not bad considering it was our first time. But in the Chef's Choice category Bert's brainchaild Oyster Bombs placed 8th earning us recognition at the awards ceremony. I have since learned that many of our point deductions were simply because of our lack of food plating experience. People take the presentation wikid seriously! I witnessed a few women spending 2 and 3 hours cutting parsely and lettuce to create perfectly uniform beds of green for their team's meaty entries. Its strange, but not hard to replicate now that we know the drill. I figure we could have jumped a few spots in the standings with a little more time and consideration spent on presentation.
Here's a recap of how the whole day went:
We started the day with alarms buzzing loudly at 4:45am. By 5:20am we had downed 16 ounces of coffee each and had the pickup packed:
By 5:50am we were on-site in Sheedshead's Bay with the first chimney lit:
Shortly there after the sun came up, providing zero heat, but welcomed daylight. The smoker was already going by daylight, but we had another chimney lit for the kettle in this pic:
All set up, our table was amateur, in an endearing way. A few shots of our setup, including a 15-yr old coleman camping stove that heated up 3 gallons of chili on a 28-degree morning like a real champ:
A few shots of us in action, including the little fletcher boys who came out for a short visit in a rare windsafe haven:
As for the cooking: First up was our Beef Chuck Roast. Rubbed with BBQ Billy's "signature" rub, and smoked over hickory for roughly 5 hrs. Truthfully we didn't have enough time available to make this a serious contender... we needed 1-2 more hours of foil-wrapped cooking to tenderize it, but the rub turned out a great bark, and the sauce made with smoked beef drippings was insanely good. Here are a few pics of the process:
Next entry was chicken. We opted for a grill-smoked buffalo wing with the same "signature" rub (that shit is good on everything!), followed with a traditional buffalo wing sauce with "Frank's Hot Sauce" as the base. It got real hectic with multiple turn-ins around this time, so I think we likely over cooked the wings. Great flavor, just not juicy enough. A few pics of the process:
The 3rd entry was ribs. We went with babybacks with the same rub (OMG!), followed with a sweet dry-shake. The racks we picked up were from all the way in Denmark (what the local butcher had on-hand) and were very, very small. We smoked them over red oak and apple wood for about 2.5 hours. The center ribs were good, though the outer ribs were too dry. I personally love this dry-shake, but I don't think many others are big fans of it. For most a rib should have a sauce on it... so next year that'll be the plan i think. A few shots of rib-making:
The last entry was Chef's Choice and could be anything that didn't qualify for the other three categories. Bert had been messing around with oysters on the grill recently, and devised the Oyster Bomb: an osyter wrapped in salmon, wrapped in bacon. We had a tough time sourcing super quality seafood, but these badboys placed 8th in the category and we receieved some mad props from a taster after the event. While we were making them we brainstormed about a dozen ways to make them better, so these may be a keeper for the next chef's choice category we find ourselves entering. A few shots:
The organizer of the event Robert Fernandez had everyone sign the poster for his own souvenir... we're at the top left of the pig.
All told it was a crazy day but totally fun. I've entered several chili competitions in the last few years, but this BBQ event was so much more fun. There's a great sense of comraderie throughout the day, and its just plain fun to be stoking fires, sipping on a few brews, and slicing meat all day. We also met Josh Bousel from the meatwave and James Boo from The Eaten Path at the event. I've been a fan of both for a couple years now and it was so awesome to meet them in person. James wrote an article on the event for serious eats, and it even includes a few shots of our food prep.
I'm offically hooked on the barbecue competition. I'm sure this was one of the more mild ones, but i'm chomping at the bit to get into the next one. Go Barbecue!
[All good photographs are courtesy of LL Editions, all the bad photographs are courtesy of me.]
