This past weekend I decided to try my hand at my first BBQ competition. I opted for the Backyard division mostly because I only had to turn in Ribs and Pork instead of all 4 KCBS meats, I figured 2 turn ins was enough for my first attempt. I was kind of shocked when I got there though, I heard two numbers, but there were either 52 or 55 backyard teams competing! I took my Meadow Creek PR42 and my 22" Weber kettle with my SnS. I started my butts out in the middle of the night on the Weber kettle and after about 5.5 hours I wrapped them and moved them to the Meadow creek that I had just fired up since it has a lot more cooking space. I started the ribs on the Meadow Creek shortly after I wrapped the butts. The ribs smoked for about 3 hours at 240* at which point I wrapped them as well for another 1.5ish hours. When I could start to move rib bones fairly easily I pulled the ribs, sauced them and put them back on the smoker for a few minutes to caramelize. I sliced all 3 racks and did my best to pick out the best 6 ribs. I apologize, trying to focus on the competition and with strict time deadlines, I got very few pictures unfortunately. The ribs that I tried close to the ones I turned in I thought tasted great and had a good bite, tender but not falling apart, but maybe 20 minutes later I got some time to eat a few of the ribs, and they had dried out significantly. I know once you slice meat it will dry out, but I had never had ribs dry out that much that quickly, not sure what the cause was, but I'll need to figure it out before I try this again, I'm sure they had dried out by the time the judges tried them.
As for the pork, when the butts hit about 203* I unwrapped them and put them back on the meadow creek to firm up the bark for about 20 minutes. I did try (for the first time ever) to remove and slice the "money muscle". I figured since I hadn't done it before I would try it, and if it didn't look/taste good then I would only put pulled pork in the turn in box. It was a little smaller than I had hoped, but the slices had good color, a nice smoke ring, and from the pieces I got to try tasted good, so I turned in 6 slices of that along with 6 "scoops" of pulled pork.
My opinion of my cook was that the ribs were my best bet to do well, I wasn't completely happy with the taste of the pulled pork, so I ended up saucing it more heavily than I planned to for the turn in. Apparently I was wrong, I haven't seen the results posted with my scores, but I did not place inside the top 10 in ribs, but did get a call for 4th place pork! In retrospect I also found it amusing that most of the cooking of my butts was done on a Weber Kettle that I got for $99, plus the SnS, where as most of the other cookers I saw around me were worth well north of $1,000. All in all it was a fun experience, and now I may be hooked into trying a competition at least one more time.
As for the pork, when the butts hit about 203* I unwrapped them and put them back on the meadow creek to firm up the bark for about 20 minutes. I did try (for the first time ever) to remove and slice the "money muscle". I figured since I hadn't done it before I would try it, and if it didn't look/taste good then I would only put pulled pork in the turn in box. It was a little smaller than I had hoped, but the slices had good color, a nice smoke ring, and from the pieces I got to try tasted good, so I turned in 6 slices of that along with 6 "scoops" of pulled pork.
My opinion of my cook was that the ribs were my best bet to do well, I wasn't completely happy with the taste of the pulled pork, so I ended up saucing it more heavily than I planned to for the turn in. Apparently I was wrong, I haven't seen the results posted with my scores, but I did not place inside the top 10 in ribs, but did get a call for 4th place pork! In retrospect I also found it amusing that most of the cooking of my butts was done on a Weber Kettle that I got for $99, plus the SnS, where as most of the other cookers I saw around me were worth well north of $1,000. All in all it was a fun experience, and now I may be hooked into trying a competition at least one more time.
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