Stump announces a new series of smokers

On Monday, Stump's released the information on his new series of gravity feed smokers. There are 4 models of the gravity feed cookers, and they feature several new upgrades. Each of the new models features a new grease drain system w/ grease catch, adjustable rack runners (I am most interested in seeing this modification), a drip edge over the front door, and an option for casters or a dolly system. Here is a list of the new models:

The GF112 or Baby Stumps (pictured) is the new scaled down cooker designed for backyard use, or for someone looking for a more portable cooker. This cooker comes with three 18x18 racks, and features 5 rack runners. I figure that this cooker will be the perfect cooker for my son to start out with when he gets a little older.

The GF233CM or Competition Model is replacing the GF222 model. This will probably be the featured model in the gravity feed series and the most popular. This unit comes with 4 23x32 racks, a nipple for pit probes, and bigger tires. You can expect to see more and more of these cookers at competitions to come.

The GF223 or Classic has been overhauled and will feature 5 23x32 racks.

The GF234 is the biggest one of the bunch and is closest to my Elite 8. This unit comes with 8 23x32 racks, and will hold a couple hundred pounds of meat.

I am really looking forward to seeing these new cookers in person. I have now been a Stump owner for almost a year and I have been loving ever minute of it. We finished 3rd overall in our first competition with our Stumps, and it has allowed me to take my bbq to another level. As they say "Stump don't build no junk". For more information on the new Stump's smokers, or to find out about other Stump's products, visit the website at www.stumpssmokers.com.

If you are looking for a great used Stump's, my friend Billy with DoRagQ has an Elite 6 for sale. I would buy it myself if I could afford another smoker, but I am busy buying diapers these days.

Well, all this talk about smokers has got me excited about the upcoming bbq season. Pretty soon we will be establishing our 2009 schedule, and we will let you know where the crew is headed.

Weekend Cook

This Labor Day Weekend, we fired up the Stumps and cooked over 100 lbs of bbq. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Thanks Sarah for capturing some of the action.


The Stumps loaded up - 8 butts and 4 briskets. I was very pleased that everything cooked evenly from top to bottom.


We tried some new things with our ribs this weekend, and the results were fabulous. I just hope that I can replicate those ribs next week in Cookeville.


Peter again whipped up some peppers.


Even though I cook bbq frequently, I rarely sit down and make myself a nice bbq sandwich. Patrick made some slaw that was very complementary to my pork and some Blues Hog.

Winchester 2008 Report

The 21st Annual High On The Hog Tennessee State BBQ Championship
Winchester City Park, Franklin County, Tennessee
April 18-19, 2008

This was the third year for Ulika to head into Winchester, the home of the team's competitive debut in 2006. Always a favorite and nostalgic event for the team, High on the Hog regularly brings out some the country's best competitors. With the loss of Fred Gould (the much loved and highly respected original Winchester contest rep), there was certainly sadness around the event, but there was also great excitement as the field was stacked with 52 teams ready to compete in the traditional four meat categories along with the "Creative Sausage" (sponsored by Wampler's), "Anything But" and Dessert ancillaries.

High on the Hog is a larger scale event as it includes a Kids-Q competition (watch for future Jr. Ulika domination), a live band on Friday night (watch for a full report from BP), a field of local vendors and a full scale carnival complete with midway games, rides and the all important carnival food. This year, the weather was much better than it had been in years past as a few brief hours of rain on Friday night were nothing compared to the biblical downpour that took place for three days straight in 2006. It was mostly sunny and warm with a little wind, and all in all a nice weekend.

Ulika was thrilled to receive its highest number of stage calls this year, taking 5th Place in Chicken, 9th Place in Ribs, 7th Place in Brisket and 7th Place Overall.

Congratulations to Grand Champion Bareknuckles BBQ and Reserve Grand Champion Team Bobby-Q! Visit the KCBS High on the Hog Event Page to view the full results.


Winchester 2008: Ron Harwell visits the Ulika tent to check out the Stumps.


finishing the chicken


sampling pork pieces


pulled pork


the "Sea Ray" pirate ship ride


the spinner


the ferris wheel


Despite the ever-attentive ride operators and that comforting accreditation by the West Virginia board of amusement and thrill rides, team Ulika members chose not to ride any of the attractions.


Congrats to Team Bobby-Q on Reserve Grand!


Congratulations to Wade and the Scenic City Smokers on that first place finish in pork! What a way to debut!


We're pleased to own our first HOTH cutting board - a few particular Ulika team members have coveted these for three years now.

Ulika Weekend Action

This past weekend was a trial run for a contest that we have in two weeks. It has been six months since our last competition and we needed to knock the rust off. I also needed to get the timing down with the Stumps and the Egg.

Surprisingly, I had no problems with my timing, but I was really off on my chicken and I will probably need to practice some more chicken before Clarksville rolls around. Focusing on the other meats this off-season has caused my chicken to slip a little. However, I should be able to hone in my chicken technique with two weeks left. I was pleased with how the pork turned out and the ribs and brisket were on par. I will need to kick it up a notch or two in Clarksville to get a call in any of the categories. We are really looking forward to getting back on the competition trail and seeing some familiar faces.









Kind of as an "anything butt" on Friday night, friends Patrick, Sarah and baby Jack stopped by to stir up some stir fry on the Egg. Patrick is an Iron Chef of sorts, and stir fry is one of his specialties. He brought over the wok and we fired up the Egg for a molten hot cooking surface. Our stir fry dish consisted of bok choy, mung bean sprouts, cabbage, shallots, broccoli, carrots, ginger, garlic and scallion for garnish. For our protein, we went with chicken and pork medallions that were tossed in some secret Asian sauces (which he left in my refrigerator...not so secret anymore!). Our starch choices were white rice, fried rice, and lo mein noodles. Check out the Gilliam blog for their side of the story.

Iron Chef Patrick Gilliam cooks up some stir fry as Deezy eagerly awaits

My wife also took the opportunity to practice some dessert entries. On Friday night we were treated to a Bananas Foster. This dish was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and while it was more than excellent, we decided that it wouldn't work with the time delays in a contest setting as the dish would be a puddle of cream by the time it reached the judges. On Saturday, the traditional dessert turn-in time was met with some Banana Pudding. In the south, you will often find this pudding as a primary dessert at bbq restaurants. Its smooth texture with the crunch of the Nilla Wafers makes for a perfect complement to the bbq meats. Sarah snapped a few pictures of the Bananas Foster prep, but by the time we reached for the camera on Saturday, the only pudding image that would have been left was that of Deezy licking the bowl.

When Sunday rolled around, I combined the best of both worlds and made brisket fried rice. It was absolutely fabulous. I have determined that brisket is the most versatile of the four competition meats (considering chicken is limited to the thighs). Brisket works great with eggs, in a taco, with fried rice, on pizza, in beans, with cheese and peppers on a hoagie, and in many more applications.

Breaking in the Stumps

This weekend we cooked a few more items on the new Stumps.

First off, we cooked a 2 lb country sausage (sorry no after pic):


Cooked a little brisket flat (unfortunately I still can't get a whole brisket):


Saturday ribs were served:

First Cook on the Stumps

Ulika Outdoor Kitchen

This weekend was the inaugural cook on the new Stumps cooker. I started out easy and cooked four pork butts.

I started the smoker on Friday evening at about 6:30 and had the butts on around 8:30. When I filled the charcoal chute, I mixed in some wood chunks and I added some to the fire box as well every hour for the first two hours. Then - here's the best part - I went to bed at 10:30 and slept until 5:30. In the past, with my stick burner smoker, the terms sleeping and cooking were never used in the same sentence.

I prepared the butts the same way that I would for a competition, doing some testing with the difference between foiling and not foiling. I foiled three of the butts and let one stay on the smoker unfoiled. The butt that was not foiled had a great bark and was very flavorful, but I was surprisingly pleased with the bark on the foiled butts as well. Sometimes in foiling, the moist environment can cause the bark to not set properly, but the bark on the foiled butts was really good. I was pretty happy with the butts overall. The flavor profile that I was going for worked out and I believe that the more cooking and seasoning that the Stumps gets is only going to give me more flavor.

Next week, I will be working on cooking briskets. Thanks to Pat Martin (visit his blog and his bbq joint), I have a new brisket supplier. Pat put me in touch with Dalton Garner of PFG and he is going to be getting me Certified Black Angus briskets from CreekStone Farms. Hopefully I will have a sample brisket for next weekend and I will deliver a full report.

Here are a few pictures:

The Stumps has Arrived

Today my new Stumps cooker was delivered. It took four of us to get the 1100 lb cooker onto the back "stoop".

I am in the process of seasoning it right now. I will post more pictures and additional information later.....

Getting Ready for the 2008 Competition Season

Today I received the entry form for High on the Hog in Winchester, TN. This is the sign that the competition season is truly upon us.

In the coming weeks team Ulika will be having a full on practice. This year will be completely different for us with our new cookers. As it stands right now, I plan on cooking my ribs, butts, and brisket on the Stumps (which by the way should be here any day now). For my competition chicken I am planning on using the Big Green Egg.

I will be posting pictures from the practice once it is complete. Just don't expect to get any competition secrets out of me.

Here are some pictures of all the competition items:

Chicken

Ribs

Pork

Brisket

Ulika Kitchen Update

First of all, the Egg is back. The kind folks at Embers in Cool Springs were very helpful in getting me the piece that I needed to make my Egg whole again.

With the Egg back intact, I was able to use my newest toy - the BBQ Guru.

I have been cooking bbq now for a few years and I've known about the guru for sometime, but I was always a little hesitant about the whole idea of a fan controlled cooker. Well let me tell you, this has to be the greatest bbq accessory ever. The guru allows you to set the temperature of the pit and a fan control keeps the temp constant. Last night, I put two pork butts on the egg at 4:00am and went to bed. I woke up and wrapped the butts when they hit 165-degrees and then pulled them off at 195. I never once had to adjust the dampers or even worry about my temperature. The guru did all the work. Two 10-pound pork butts cooked in just 11 hours. After the butts came off, I ramped up the temp to 275 and put on 2 racks of baby backs.

I am really going to enjoy this new device. It will allow me to completely keep my focus on the food without having to worry about the temperature maintenace at all. If you have a cooker and the guru works with it, I highly recommend the purchase.


With my time off during the holidays, I decided to undertake a much needed project. With the egg disaster and my recent purchase of the Stumps Smoker, I was really in need of a level cooking area. With my old stick burner, I used jacks to level out the trailer and I had been using some plywood to level off my egg.


With the assistance of my father-in-law (thanks John),the nail gun (thanks Ben), and the hammer drill (thanks Matt), I built a mini deck right off the Ulika Kitchen. We placed extra reinforcements where the Stumps is going to "live" because the thing weighs 1100 pounds. The Egg will have a new home on the deck as well as I received an Egg Table for my birthday.


Since I now have a guru for the egg and the Stumps uses a guru, I needed some electricity outside. We added a plug outside as well as some flood lights pointed directly at the 2 cookers.

Future Home of the Stumps Elite 7

Now I am just waiting for the Stumps (January 23rd) and the Egg Table (any day now). Pictures to follow...

New Smoker - Stumps Elite 7

On Monday I will be placing my order for a Stumps Elite 7. This cooker is the answer the the pellet shooters that are very prominent on the KCBS circuit. Utilizing the BBQ Guru, the Stumps cooker allows you to set the temperature and let the cooker do the rest. This is a major upgrade from my stick burner that needed constant attention. Now I will actually be able to get some sleep at a bbq competition. I still won't have my new cooker until sometime in January, but you can be assured I will post pictures of the cooker and the first cook.