BBQ Stories

Nov 11, 2019, 12:47 PM

So we did the Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ Competition at Smoky Oak Taproom in James Island this weekend. cutiger85 posted the flyer a coupla months ago, and I tossed it over to Dad and forgot about it. He signed us up.

I don't feel like typing a serious longcat post (nevermind, ended up being longcat), so just some highlights. Get out there on Friday afternoon to set up; wings (if you wanted to compete in wings) had to be turned in at 7pm. Pork butt, pork ribs, and brisket turned in at 10am, 11am, and noon on Saturday, and combined scores in those 3 determined overall winner (wings were just a side gig that you didn't have to compete in for the overall score). Dad on pork butts, mah fran Dan (the newly minted Clemson student) on ribs, and me on brisket. Got my brisket on around 6pm. Wings on a little before that, but couldn't get temp on the kamado to cooperate, so they probably ended up about 20 minutes short on needed smoke and temp. Also, I have no fuggin' idea what a BBQ judge is looking for in wings, so I just made what we all decided was the best combo a couple months ago after experimenting with rubs and sauces and whatnot.

Jamaican jerk rub, pecan smoke, light toss in Frank's hot sauce/butter, 60-70 second flash-fry to crisp up, and a lil Alabama white sauce; sounds weird and busy, but all of that stuff works really well together--you'd have to try it:

They ended up 6th out of 11 teams that turned in wings. Dead center. I don't know what that means. Don't really care. It's a good wing.

Lowe's stopped carrying the Stubb's briquettes, so we had several bags of Royal Oak charcoal that they replaced the Stubb's with. Charcoal is charcoal, right? Rookie mistake. Royal Oak sucks dick. Too hot and inconsistent, so we spent hours fighting it and over- and under-compensating; didn't discover until 9:30 in the morning when Dad was pulling his pork that the "bark" on the underside was actually burnt af. So all of that goodness you typically have shredded and mixed in your pulled pork, had to be taken out, because it was bitter, blackened, and awful. Still, pretty good, but that category is likely to have the stiffest competition in the Carolinas. Got reports about how good the pulled pork was at most of the other 14 teams, so not surprisingly, Dad finished at 13 out of 15 (with what was still very good pulled pork, but he's certainly made better).

I was kinda curious if Lightnin' Dan was going to halfass his ribs, or go all in. I've watched him make ribs a few times, usually not much rhyme or reason, and a couple times they've turned out great, and a few times a bit meh. He put in the effort this weekend. There was a point where he was painting sheets of foil like a Picasso with honey from a squeeze bottle, and perfect pinches of brown sugar. Applaudable effort, and they ended up being DAMN fine ribs, easily the best he's done.

He ended up in 4th out of 15, and only a half point off of 3rd. Perfect 10s from (I think) 2 of the judges. Bummer he didn't place.

Brisket went reasonably smoothly, but I really had no idea how this stuff should go in a box. 8 judges...do they each need their own slice? A center cut slice of brisket is half a pound, if not more. And with an 18 lb. brisket, that's not even going to fit in a box. I guess I coulda spent a little more time figuring out what judges want to see.

Didn't get a great smoke ring on this one, but it's there. Couldn't have put 8 slices in the box if I wanted to, and even 6 was too stuffed--that was actually one of the comments. One judge said it was too fatty. What? I guess I could have sliced from the lean end and given them dry brisket, but that's a weird comment, because I'm pretty sure in Texas, every single judge is going to want the center-cut with the fat line running through the middle. And another paradoxical set of comments: sliced too thick, and fall apart too easily. I tried to get close to a 1/4" slice, but they're probably closer to 1/2". Any thinner, and it'd pretty much disintegrate. So which is it? I get that these judges all have to be certified by Southern Barbecue Network, but they're all still pretty local/regional, so how much do they actually KNOW about brisket? Anyway, finished 6th out of 15, and I find that to be pretty disappointing based on feedback from people walking around and trying all the brisket out there.

Put all of those together, and we finished 8th out of 15 teams. Dead center. The top 5 were all teams that have done over 50 of these events each, and travel around 4 or 5 states covered by SBN. They put a ton of time into figuring out exactly what the judges want to see, and tweaking and tuning to get bump their scores. That seems a wee bit disingenuous to me, which is why I'll probably never be fully on board with the idea of BBQ "competitions". Shit, man. Make what tastes good. I wish I'd had the chance to walk around and try everybody else's.

Here's the winning team name (think they finished 2nd overall to Tailgater Hater):

Got an hour of sleep from maybe 4:30-5:30am in a chair. Woke up to a buddy waving DD coffee under my nose, took an hour to thaw out completely. Was grouchy af (and quite drunk) when wife was driving me and the kids home, and she was remarkably patient with my poor attitude. Almost immediately fell asleep on the couch at 6pm on Saturday night, missed end of LSU/Bama, saw maybe 60 seconds of Clemson, and put in a good 11-12 hours to catch up.

Birthday party oyster roast for 72 year old pops yesterday, fantastic batch of oysters. Killed 3 bushels.