My second KCBS barbecue competition is in the books after competing in the Harvard Fall Festival BBQ State Championship. 60 teams showed up for this one (note to self: stop entering "State Championships!"), and the competition was serious. Some of these teams are 10 people deep, with decades of experience among them. At most I have a decade of backyard grilling under my belt, so these comps are as much about learning as they are about competing. Read on for a little tour of the weekend.
I do a good amount of prep the week beforehand making rubs, sauces, etc... but there's no getting around doing substantial meat trimmings and seasoning on-site. Triming brisket can feel endless, but there's an odd satisfaction it brings:
Prepping parsely boxes for the final turn-ins is not quite as satisfying... so. much. parsley:
My friend Steven made the long trek up north from Long Island to lend a hand... and it turns out he's a pro at making a parsley turn-in box. He also made some solid burgers on Saturday night to fuel our bbq prepping madness:
Once all the meats were trimmed and rubbed, there's a good amount of kneeling, crouching, and monitoring of the smokers before we get the right airflow established and temperatures remain stable:
Around 10pm the brisket went on the 18incher. And by 11pm two pork shoulders went on the same cooker. It was a cold night, I think it dipped down to about 40. So it was a bit tricky to get the coals generating the right amount of heat. But Steve's Colorado-tested camping gear came in handy. This lantern could double as a runway beacon:
At around 1am on Saturday one of the teams started yelling "The Damn Dip is ready!" Shortly thereafter we wandered around to see what was up, and there before us lies an enormous paella pan filled with a refried bean and salsa layered dip. And man, after sucking in smoke, spice, untold ounces of beer, and meat fats for the previous 5 hours in the ever-cooling temperatures, this hot plate of dip was a god-send:
We got shut-eye around 2am... Our sleeping quarters situated right behind a power generator:
And I was up again by 6am on Sunday to get the ribs going. I was able to get anouther hour or so of sleep once the ribs were on, and then took a stroll with a cup of coffee through the team sites to see how everyone was doing after the cold night. My favorite shot is of this Bruins fan's smoker and matching gold beach chair.
By 11:30am on Sunday it was time to start making our turn-in boxes. Time seemed to moved a little slower for me this time around, and I ended up with finished turn-in boxes 5-10 minutes before they could be turned in. That likely resulted in some colder-than-ideal entries, but I'm happy in any competition where I'm not disqualified for overlooking some rule! Here are a few shots of our entries:
Compared to my last competition I improved in both ribs and chicken which was great to hear. My pork shoulder entry remained stable in points from the last competition. And finally the brisket was improvement from the last competition turning in the best score of the day for me.
All told it was a fun weekend... I think some of the novelty of the competition scene wore off a bit for this one, but it's just an awesome experience to be surrounded by hundreds of people who love, love, love cooking barbecue. Truthfully I'm glad the summer season is over and I can take a break for a few months... you end up doing things differently for a competition than you would for yourself, and I'm excited to cook to my tastes for a while instead of the judges. I plan to find a few smaller-scale comps of 20-40 teams for next summer, and hopefully I can stay a bit closer to homebase. But I'm really glad I got the chance to compete in a second KCBS comp in 2011... no better way to learn competition barebcue than at a competition!
