Contest Recap: USA Barbecue Championship

Last Thursday the Mrs. and I loaded up the trailer and headed west to North Little Rock for the USA Barbecue Championship. This was the first time that Team Ulika had ventured outside of Tennessee for a bbq competition, and of course we could not leave town without incident; I had to go to the trailer shop twice before we left town just to get the lights working. Once we were riding legal, the 5.5 hour trip seemed to take forever. It doesn't help that the drive is exceedingly boring from Nashville to Memphis, and once you cross over into Arkansas, the roads just turn to a bumpy mess. But we finally rolled into town on Thursday afternoon and got a nice spot underneath an old railroad bridge. A majority of the teams were already setup when we arrived, but we made it into our spot without a problem. We felt really lucky having an end spot after seeing how some of the teams were cramped in together.



After getting the trailer unloaded and the new banners hung, we ventured across the river to downtown Little Rock for a deep dish pie at Gusano’s Pizzeria. The pizza was just okay and it made me realize that I should not keep trying to order a deep dish pizza outside of the Chicago city limits. Since it was not much to speak of, don't expect a Friday Night Slice review.

After dinner, I headed back to the trailer to trim up the chicken. This process takes way longer than I would like to admit, but I am happy with the final product after it is over.

Friday rolled around and the meat was inspected, butts and briskets injected, and other meaningless task were fulfilled. BP and Peter arrived at about 2pm as did our neighbors, TNT Smokers. We cooked up a few sausages and dogs on the egg and then called it a night.







On Saturday morning I ended up boiling some water with my charcoal starter so I could get my aeropress going. Once I had my coffee I could start my day. Everything started smoothly and the only that really went wrong with my cook was that I ended up a little ahead of schedule. Being a little anxious, I started the ribs and chicken a bit early and it may have ended up costing us a few spots since I had to hold them until turn in time. Everything went smoothly with the turn-ins thanks to our official team walker, BP and the spotter, Peter. As always, the Mrs. made some pretty boxes and the presentation scores were all perfect 9s with a few 8s.









Luckily the rain held off until we were packed up and ready for the awards. We sat there hoping to hear our name called in a tough crowd of competitors, but it was just not our day.

With 227 teams competing this is how we finished:

Chicken 92nd
Ribs 139th
Pork 65th
Brisket 98th
Overall 90th

Even though we finished 90th, we actually had our highest overall point total. So we have some positives to take away from the weekend. All in all I had a great time in North Little Rock and I look forward to cooking there again sometime. Ron Cates has already announced that the prize pool will be bigger next year.

Congrats to Rod & Sheri Gray of Pellet Envy for taking home the oversized check for Grand Champion and two more trophies to add to their collection. Tuffy Stone of Cool Smoke finished as the Reserve Grand Champion with a 1st place in ribs.

Middle Tennessee was well represented with The Long Dawgs taking 13th overall (that new Jambo is working out nicely!) and High on the Hawg placing 16th overall.

I thought the best way to wrap this up would be to write just some general observations:

1. The banks of the Arkansas River is a nice place for a contest.
2. Japanese guys love $100 bills.
3. On the top floor of a hotel, you sacrifice water pressure for a view.
4. Little Rock is home to JoJo's BBQ (Peter bought me the t-shirt to prove it).
5. Rod and Tuffy can cook some pretty good bbq.
6. Little Rock has some jacked up road intersections.
7. People like BBQ Pitmasters
8. There are several new Jambo pits on the circuit as well as some knock offs.
9. Three 180s in Pork is crazy impressive.
10. Peter should have bet that team that we could beat them. Then we would have at least gone home with a little cash. Instead he bought a Vols win.



We will be competing again in about a month when we head to Winchester to participate at High on the Hog. <-- make sure you have the sound cranked up!

Memphis in May: The Experience

Being from Middle Tennessee, when I tell people that I do competition bbq, they immediately associate the sport, errrrr...hobby, with a single competition: Memphis in May. The first question is inevitably, "Oh! Do you cook at Memphis in May?" Then I must begin the well-rehearsed answer of "No, what we do is a little different. Memphis in May is its own style and blah, blah, blah....." and I begin to lose them. But now, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to answer that question a little differently.

When BP and I were given an opportunity to participate in the event this year, we jumped all over it - especially since it was Rod Gray from Pellet Envy who invited us to help him in Memphis this year.

In a KCBS event, it is not uncommon for someone to cook by themselves. With the onsite judging that takes place at MIM, however, it would be nearly impossible to do everything with 1 or 2 people (most teams consist of 20 plus team members). BP and I were honored to be members of Pellet Envy for the weekend and happy to help.

The number of team members is not the only difference between MIM and KCBS. A majority of the teams that compete at MIM only compete in this one contest. That means that they really shell out for this one event. Teams arrive a week early just to get things set up and some teams are more focused on their parties than the bbq. In fact, when BP and I first arrived, our neighbors were overheard commenting on how Pellet Envy was “just here to cook”, meaning that no big elaborate parties were going to be taking place at our site. That was all fine with us. We conversely wished that they weren’t there “just to party”. Their music was so loud that you could not even have a conversation and it was some of the worst music that I have ever heard. Luckily, we were able to take shelter in Rod’s trailer, but the occasional bass drop had us holding onto our seats as the entire trailer shook.

Another obvious difference between MIM and KCBS is the onsite judging. This was my first time to experience anything like this, and for a cook, it is really just a dog and pony show. Rod did a great job with it and explained why he cooks with pellets and gave all the judges a much needed break inside his air conditioned trailer. All of the judges seemed to enjoy the product and we ended up finishing 14th overall out of 106 rib teams. We were very happy with the results for competing in Memphis for the first time.

Overall it was a great experience. Rod and his wife, Sheri, were great hosts and we had the opportunity to see our friends with Peg Leg Porkers (thanks for the party on Thursday night). We also got a chance to meet Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson’s and his new chef Ken Hess (thanks for the dinner on Friday night). Marc and Natalie from Grease Lightning also hung out for a while and enjoyed some of Rod's brisket (you didn't think a KCBS guy could go without cooking a brisket at a contest did you?).

I want to thank Rod and Sheri for having us assist them during the weekend. I had a chance to see why Sheri has picked up the nickname of “The Closer”, and let me tell you, she really puts the Envy in Pellet Envy. I also want to thank Karen Walker for the use of her pictures in this post.

Nothing says Memphis like ribs and blues.

Howlin' Wolf - Spoonful


P.S. - Sorry it took so long to get this recap up. I am sure ya'll have been on pins and needles.

Contest Review: Clarksville, TN Porkin' in the Park 2009

Last Friday, Team Ulika headed one hour north to Clarksville, Tennessee for the second annual Porkin' In The Park. This year the contest was being held in downtown Clarksville due to a tornado that wiped out the pavilion where the contest was held last year. Just like last year, Clarksville was our first event of the season and we were trying out some new equipment. Last year it was our new Stumps and this year we were debuting our new trailer. This off season we purchased a CM 16' v-nose trailer to haul all of our gear. It is very nice to have our own trailer because we can get loaded up throughout the week instead of getting everything together on Thursday night. We had enough time to get the sink mounted in the trailer, but there are still several "upgrades" that are going to be made as time and $$$ permit.



Holding a contest in a downtown area can sometime present some challenges. Particularly the parking situation. There was one main parking lot that several teams were setup in and other teams were scattered amongst the city streets. We arrived around 9 am and quickly backed into our spot. As we were setting up we couldn't help but notice a brand new Geer pit parked across from us, and we were quickly greeted by Walt and Teressa of Smokin' Scotsmen. They are from Michigan and had traveled to Hammond, LA the previous week to compete then decided to catch another competition before they headed home.



BP arrived shortly after the mrs. and I got parked and we unloaded the now infamous couch. That's right, we take a couch to the contest. We figure if we are going to be sitting around for a couple of days, why not be comfortable. I mean you can only sit in those camping chairs for so long. Once everything was in place I prepped the meats while BP and the mrs. walked around downtown Clarksville. The KCBS Great America BBQ Tour was in town, and Mike Peters was giving demonstrations throughout the weekend promoting the KCBS and its sponsors.





After a quick cooks meeting, we hung around waiting on the Low Country boil. Wayne from Bubba's Tennessee Smokers provided everything for the boil and it was a glorious feast. Shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes lined the tables for everyone to partake. Since the mrs. needed to catch up on the Friday night slice, we also took the opportunity to try a new pizza joint in Clarksville (check back Friday for more details on that).





Friday evening some friends Matt and Joel came up to take in the festivities. The previous week they cooked in their first KCBS backyard event in Auburn Alabama finishing 6th in ribs and 10th overall. As you can imagine, they caught the bug. They were a big help all weekend filling in for their cousins the Colvert brothers.



Friday night always gives us some down time to visit with friends and meeting new ones. We sampled some Apple Pie over at the DoRag camp, and we talked with Castaway Cookers (who were cooking in their first competition). I always try to talk with some of the teams that are doing their first competition, because if it weren't for other people helping me along I would have probably given up the competition bbq thing a long time ago. After roaming the grounds for a while I headed to the trailer to get some sleep. The air mattress and the space heater inside the trailer worked out great. I got up on Saturday morning and started to get everything in place to start the day. Luckily Teresa from the Smokin' Scotsman spotted me and realized I could use a nice hot cup of coffee. Then a few hours later The Scotsmen served up a nice breakfast which included biscuits and sausage gravy. These are some of the things that make it worth while traveling around to different contest.



Saturday morning started smoothly. The butts and briskets came off on schedule and Team Ulika didn't seem to miss at beat. We felt pretty good about everything we turned in and we did ok for the first contest of the year. Last year we received a first place call in the chicken category, but this year chicken ended up really hurting our overall score. After the fact, I realized there were some things I could have done better on my chicken. We did keep our steak alive in the brisket category getting our 6th consecutive call, placing 7th. Overall we finished 14th in a good crowd of cooks. Congrats to Smoky Mountain Smokers for their first place finish and to the Smokin' Scotsmen for their reserve championship. Also a big congrats goes out to DoRag for finishing in the Top 5. I have a feeling those guys are going to have a good year. Our next competition is quickly approaching as we head to our favorite spot, Winchester, TN. We have done well there the past couple of years and we hope to continue that this year. Congrats again to everyone who walked in Clarksville. Especially Swiggin Pig for the 1st place ribs and BigBriq for the first place brisket. We will see you all in Winchester.