I’m a big believer in pushing myself (kicking and screaming usually) outside my comfort zone, so after spending my summer taking the first baby steps toward building a barbecue catering business, I decided we should enter the Finger Lakes Fire and Smoke competition. It’s brand new this year, and less than an hour from home so it seemed like the perfect place to start.
I knew from my research (translation: spending quality time with “the Google” and watching every available episode of “BBQ Pit Wars” and “BBQ Pitmasters”) that competition ‘cue doesn’t bear a whole lot of resemblance to restaurant/catering/backyard ‘cue. Judging is one-bite, which means that the sauce, smoke, and rubs have to pretty much blow the palate on that bite. Not my typical cooking style; I prefer flavors that build over the course of the dish so I knew that I was in for a challenge. I had two goals going into this thing–getting all of my boxes turned in on time, and, in barbecue speak, not coming in DAL (dead-ass last). We accomplished both of those.
Here’s what the weekend looked like (sort of. In retrospect, I wish I’d taken a lot more pictures. I blame a combination of tunnel-vision and dead batteries).
Before
Step one: Joining KCBS is required if you’re signing up for a sanctioned event. You have to take this solemn and binding oath: “I promise to faithfully uphold the tenets for a Barbeque fanatic. I will cook and/or eat as much barbeque as the law allows, while having as much fun as possible.”
You also have to come up with a unique team name to register with KCBS.
Getting the timing down is hugely important. We completely blew our trial run.
And there’s equipment. The Rebel Smoker is a cheap, readily available smoker-grill that I did some mods on to improve our cooking quality. It doesn’t even begin to compare to the professional equipment, but I like it anyway.
Lots of sassy red food-grade, high-heat silicone sealant, a new fire box and some gasket seals and she was read.
We picked this uber-cheap barrel smoker up off Craigslist.
Gave it a new paint job.
And renamed it R2BQ. (R2 still needs some clean-up.)
We also gave our 40-year-old Weber a facelift.
Friday Afternoon
I really regret not taking a shot of the loaded-down truck. We looked like the Joads, rambling onto the site with all of our belongings shoved into disorganized boxes and bins.
We eventually managed to get it all set up. (And learned later that bringing Keurig-style coffee-makers is just not done.)
Circuit pros have trailers, commercial-grade equipment, and a whole lot of knowledge. See the tent? Yeah, that’s ours.
2 AM Comes Early.
Eventually, the boy crashed in the tent and his dad decided he’d rather just sleep in the truck. I tried to sleep, I really did, but knowing that the fire needed to be lit crazy early made it impossible. I gave up about 1 and spent the time reading instead. At 1:45 am, it was very, very quiet. 15 minutes later, it felt like a house party. 2:00 is the witching hour when everyone gets up, gets out, and gets the fires lit.
We have ignition.
When the blue flames and wild sparks (not pictured) started shooting out the top of my chimney, I grabbed the smoke extinguisher and hovered over it until I was sure I wouldn’t burn down the whole damn competition.
The venue was gorgeous. I took this just after sunrise on Seneca Lake.
Bad coffee: Nectar of the Gods.
Turn-In
Chicken thighs. I wasn’t sure until about 9 am if we’d even have an entry.
Ribs. Also 23rd. Of our entries, I thought this one had the best chance of being “not awful.” I was wrong (it wasn’t awful, it just didn’t place quite as high as I’d hoped).
18th-place Brisket. We placed above a couple of teams who won in the pork categories so I was pretty giddy about that.
Pork. Pulled on the left, and the “money muscle” on the right. I had a lot of fun explaining to our butcher (who’s a great guy but not familiar with competition meat) that I needed that loin piece left on. We placed at #20 for pork
Afterword
We met some amazing people over the weekend. When they talk about “barbecue family” it’s not just lip-service. Barbecue people are friendly, generous, and kind. Being complete noobs, we expected disdain at best and contempt as more likely. Instead, we had helping hands, received some good advice, tasted some samples of winning entries, heard great storytelling and had a whole lot of goofy fun. The cherry on the sundae is that when awards time rolls around, all the cheering and clapping for the winners is genuine. Because it’s family.
Addendum
We found a partial of the loaded-up truck.
Eating America 