A barbecue adventure, the saga unfolds.

Albany Tom said:
Pretty cool! That scoring system, however, is more complicated than a scoring system I'm aware of to hire people into 6 figure IT jobs. Although 6 figures isn't what it used to be, and that bbq looks pretty good.
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It’s not as complicated as it sounds: score it on a classroom scale where a A is 9 points, B is 8, down to F is 5. When it’s entered in the spreadsheets the scores are calculated.

I don’t know why the weighting system goes out to so many digits other than it helps avoid ties unless multiple teams get identical score combinations. At some contests the difference between 1st and 10th could be less than a point.

All this talk of bbq is making me hungry. Next week I’m going to do a couple pork butts, a couple slabs of ribs, a pork loin, maybe a top round roast, some brats for lunch, and whatever else I can think of.
 
It's interesting that some of characteristics of prize winning BBQ is counter to my personal taste. I generally don't care for sauces on my bbq, especially sweet ones. It's not an absolute rule, but sweet glazes are out for me. A little sauce on a brisket sandwich would hit the spot of course. In my case lettuce wrap, but I suspect if I walked around the judgment grounds carrying a lettuce wrapped brisket sandwich, I'd be nailed to a cross.
 
Sac Arrow said:
It's interesting that some of characteristics of prize winning BBQ is counter to my personal taste. I generally don't care for sauces on my bbq, especially sweet ones. It's not an absolute rule, but sweet glazes are out for me. A little sauce on a brisket sandwich would hit the spot of course. In my case lettuce wrap, but I suspect if I walked around the judgment grounds carrying a lettuce wrapped brisket sandwich, I'd be nailed to a cross.
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Nope, a lettuce wrapped brisket sandwich is easier to handle than a brisket sandwich without a bun at all. You’ve never seen me destroy a brisket with my bare hands.

The sweet glaze is pretty standard for KC style ribs. The thing about KC bbq and ribs is it’s such a melting pot of other regional styles that you’ll be able to find some joint that does them differently.

For contests, though, it’s different. Teams have one chance, one bite, to make it pop for the judges. So it’s always over seasoned and over sweetened.
 
Here are two more rib pix.

The first is from one of the Australian teams. I think I would mark this down on appearance because they don’t look as rich/dark as I would like. But I think I would ding them less than a full point and since we only deal in whole points and round up, my appearance score would probably be a 9.

The other pic is the team from Costa Rica. This is showing what the ribs look like right off the smoker, before the glaze/sauce is added. The Billy Bob teeth where the rib bones are sticking out is a good sign. This is a good example of a St. Louis cut slab of spare ribs that’s been trimmed down in length. (Edit: this is likely what you’d see in a restaurant, without the heavy glaze.)

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How do you prepare the round roast, and how long?
 
Sac Arrow said:
How do you prepare the round roast, and how long?
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Top round: I season with a steak rub, mostly just an SPG (salt, pepper, garlic). Toss it on the smoker until 125 or so. I can’t remember how long, maybe an hour-ish. I just take it off when the temp alarms and it takes as long as it takes. Deli roast beef seems to run about $12-$14/lb around here. That one is about $6.50/lb.

The pork loin only takes about 90 min to reach 137. That will end up as sandwich slices and thick cut smoked boneless loin chops. I’ll rub it with mustard and then rib rub.
 
Well today's foray will be some tri tip and chicken thighs marinated in wooster sauce. I'm sure the beef will come out great, but the chicken will be interesting.
 
Spent the day cooking. Between my buddy and I, we did 2 pork butts, 2 slabs back ribs, 2 slabs spare ribs, 1 top round beef roast, 1 brisket, one chicken, and one pork belly worth of pork belly burned ends.

And lots of cheddar jalapeno brats, chorizo, and Italian sausage.

Pix: beef roast, pork loin, back ribs (right off the smoker, no sauce), pork belly burned ends, and a nice Kansas sunset.

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I was packing up the leftover Q from the other day into dinner sized vacuum pack portions. We got a cat from the orphanarium last weekend and have been working on training him to stay off the counter, with some success.

Today he was content to sit still on the floor and watch me work…until I dropped a small piece of pork butt on the floor. It was an accident but it unleashed heck. Now the cat knew what was on the counter and that it was very, very good. We had a great time fighting each other to keep him off the counter, and I had to fight him with one hand while holding a big helping of bbq in the other.

Eventually we called a temporary halt to hostilities and took a short break before resuming the skirmish.

Good times.

Oof, I can hardly wait for the Thanksgiving rematch.

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Sac Arrow said:
That looks like one happy kitty
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Haven’t quite been able to figure his history. He’s around 10 months old. He was in the shelter for a couple months, I think brought in as a stray. But he apparently was already neutered when brought in. His left ear has been tipped, you might be able to see that in the photo. That’s something normally done in a trap-neuter-release program to mark cats that have already been caught. I’m not sure how it works but has something to do with cat social order. They have some kind of “critical mass” and returning a member back to the community after sterilization prevents the community from accepting an unsterilized cat in its place and helps keep the population from growing so quickly. But he doesn’t show any sign of being feral, so he’s acclimated to people. What he does show, based on how he plays with some of his toys, is that he learned to be a stone cold killer. Cats learn to hunt from their mothers, so he was in his family for a while and learned from her. He’s actually a really good pet, so far.
 
I've been playing around with the Grill Mates marinades. I'm on Tomato Basil Garlic right now. This venue will be tri tip and chicken thighs. The last one was pretty good.
 
These bad johnnies got seasoned last night and rested in the meat cooler/beer drawer for near on 24 hours now.
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Dried SPOG with fresh rosemary and thyme added along with a splash of olive oil.

They just got put on the smoker until the get to 120*, then finished with a sear.
 
TCABM said:
These bad johnnies got seasoned last night and rested in the meat cooler/beer drawer for near on 24 hours now.
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Dried SPOG with fresh rosemary and thyme added along with a splash of olive oil.

They just got put on the smoker until the get to 120*, then finished with a sear.
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Looks good!
 
I would not have thought to use baby corn outside of an asian thing. Stealing that idea...

FWIW, everybody probably knows, name brand frozen partial ears of corn are pretty good, too. Often fresher than I can get in season here from local farm stands.
 
Albany Tom said:
I would not have thought to use baby corn outside of an asian thing. Stealing that idea..
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If I had a flat top, I would’ve done them there instead of quick steaming and light seasoning w/olive oil.

They’re fairly bland and take flavor easily.
 
This isn't really BBQ, since I used the grill instead of firing up the smoker, but tonight's dinner was blackberry-glazed pork tenderloins, with baked potatoes and bok choi stir fried with garlic, ginger, chopped shallots, soy sauce and sesame oil.

I'll be making tenderloins like this again...dry brine for an hour, than an overnight marinade in cranberry juice cocktail. An hour before smoking, coated liberally with Killer Hog rub, then onto the grill. Once the internal temp hit 100, I applied multiple coats of a glaze made from blackberry jam cut with a bit of apple cider vinegar and some red pepper flakes. I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

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