I appologize for not keeping this up for the past couple of months. We had so much going on with our trip to the Royal, a trip to Libertyville, and our crazy life in general. Overall we had a great fall getting 13th in the Royal Invitational, a 9th place Brisket call in the Royal Open, and 3rd overall in Libertyville. I really hated to see the season end, however, it was nice to finish on a high note getting top ten calls in all four categories in our last run. It could be a long winter with over five months without a BBQ competition. Already looking forward to our trip to Little Rock for the "richest" BBQ contest ever ($100,000 prize fund) in March.
One of my projects for the winter was to create a real Website for our team. You can now find this blog and other things at www.tippycanoebbq.com. Other than the blog the main focus of the Website will be my BBQ Video Journey project in 2010. I purchased a new camcomder and I plan to chronical our BBQ adeventures in 2010 via video on the Website. I figured if Pitmasters on TLC wouldn't have me, I would make my own show :)
I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
It's a long drive to Tennesse anyway right?
Well, we didn't get drawn to go to the Jack Daniel's World Championship. A lot of very deserving teams did get selected and we will have more chances at it in the future. I think I will just try to get one of those automatics next year...this draw crap is hard on a guys heart :-) It was fun just to be involved in the process and to have a shot. Now, back to work to try to get in for 2010!
You can find the results of the draw here : http://kcbs.us/news.php?id=172
You can find the results of the draw here : http://kcbs.us/news.php?id=172
Big Island BBQ, Albert Lea Mn Recap
We had a great time in Albert Lea with some good weather, a good party, and good food. This contest is held at the Freeborn County fairgrounds. This was our fourth or fifth event held at a fairgrounds and I'm really starting to appreciate these venues. They almost all have excellent power, are on grass, and have water available...three things that make the events much more enjoyable for us.
Matt and I make the forty five minute trek Friday morning and got everything setup and the meats prepped. This contest had a peoples choice chicken wings contest that we participated in. It was important to get everything else done Friday afternoon as we knew we would be messing with the wings most of the evening. Brian, Jeff, and their families along with several of Kim's co-workers joined us Friday night for supper and a drink or two. Everyone had a great time Friday night and we even managed to kill most of a $50 bottle of Jack that belonged to our neighbor Tony. He was a good sport about it and probably had a shot or ten out of it as well.
The meats cooked without incident overnight and the ribs and chicken went on as scheduled Saturday morining. The turnins went very well, we really have this process down at this point in the year. The chicken was some of the best I had made in a while as far as tenderness went but we were a little concerned we had overdone the pepper a bit. We scrambled to attempt to sweeten them up. As you will see below it either worked or the judges like pepper :-). The ribs looked great with about an hour to go but by the time we got them off the smoker and into the turn in box the had overcooked considerably. This is something like the third time I have done that this year, and I am changing our timing up a bit for the rest of the year. The pork was pork like usual. When we sliced the brisket I knew it was money. I got to the "sweet spot" for slices and they were some of the prettiest and moistest slices I have ever seen. The flavor was spot on and the burnt ends melted like butter...it was going to be a good brisket day!
At the start of the awards ceremony they announced that there had been two perfect scores that day. A perfect score is all 9's in all three judged categories from all five counted judges resulting in a 180 point score. This is a somewhat rare feat (I have heard about twenty are given out a year with many coming from categories other than the main four meats). There were several "other" categories at the event and I assumed the 180's we in those events as that is the only place I had ever seen the perfect score. Sure enough they get to dessert and 1st place had a 180 perfect score. I was a bit suprised when they got to brisket without the other 180 (I think everyone was). They go throught spots 10-2 and no TippyCanoe BBQ Crew...I will be honest, I was starting to get upset, how could that not have been a top 10 entry? They really built up the 1st places and when they finally got to brisket they again mentioned that 1st place brisket had received a perfect score...I nearly fell over when we heard our name for that 180 point first place brisket! It will be one of the highlights of our rookie year and something I will never forget. After the awards I was told that this win will get us an invite into the Chest to Chest Invitational Brisket only contest to be held in Great Bend Kansas in July of 2010. Kansas in July may be a bit tough but I think we can handle it! After the event a representative from KCBS told me that this was only the second 180 given for Brisket in 2009 in the entire Country!
Big Island Barbeque - Aug 29, 2009
Albert Lea, MN
Out of 49 Teams
4th Place - OVERALL
3rd Place - CHICKEN
35th Place - RIBS
16th Place - PORK
1st Place - BRISKET
Our overcooked ribs really killed us but that is that way it goes and why it is so hard to win in this game. I guess it gives me something to work on in September! The guys and I are headed to Vermillion South Dakota next weekend and I can't wait to get back in and try again.
Joe
Matt and I make the forty five minute trek Friday morning and got everything setup and the meats prepped. This contest had a peoples choice chicken wings contest that we participated in. It was important to get everything else done Friday afternoon as we knew we would be messing with the wings most of the evening. Brian, Jeff, and their families along with several of Kim's co-workers joined us Friday night for supper and a drink or two. Everyone had a great time Friday night and we even managed to kill most of a $50 bottle of Jack that belonged to our neighbor Tony. He was a good sport about it and probably had a shot or ten out of it as well.
The meats cooked without incident overnight and the ribs and chicken went on as scheduled Saturday morining. The turnins went very well, we really have this process down at this point in the year. The chicken was some of the best I had made in a while as far as tenderness went but we were a little concerned we had overdone the pepper a bit. We scrambled to attempt to sweeten them up. As you will see below it either worked or the judges like pepper :-). The ribs looked great with about an hour to go but by the time we got them off the smoker and into the turn in box the had overcooked considerably. This is something like the third time I have done that this year, and I am changing our timing up a bit for the rest of the year. The pork was pork like usual. When we sliced the brisket I knew it was money. I got to the "sweet spot" for slices and they were some of the prettiest and moistest slices I have ever seen. The flavor was spot on and the burnt ends melted like butter...it was going to be a good brisket day!
At the start of the awards ceremony they announced that there had been two perfect scores that day. A perfect score is all 9's in all three judged categories from all five counted judges resulting in a 180 point score. This is a somewhat rare feat (I have heard about twenty are given out a year with many coming from categories other than the main four meats). There were several "other" categories at the event and I assumed the 180's we in those events as that is the only place I had ever seen the perfect score. Sure enough they get to dessert and 1st place had a 180 perfect score. I was a bit suprised when they got to brisket without the other 180 (I think everyone was). They go throught spots 10-2 and no TippyCanoe BBQ Crew...I will be honest, I was starting to get upset, how could that not have been a top 10 entry? They really built up the 1st places and when they finally got to brisket they again mentioned that 1st place brisket had received a perfect score...I nearly fell over when we heard our name for that 180 point first place brisket! It will be one of the highlights of our rookie year and something I will never forget. After the awards I was told that this win will get us an invite into the Chest to Chest Invitational Brisket only contest to be held in Great Bend Kansas in July of 2010. Kansas in July may be a bit tough but I think we can handle it! After the event a representative from KCBS told me that this was only the second 180 given for Brisket in 2009 in the entire Country!
Big Island Barbeque - Aug 29, 2009
Albert Lea, MN
Out of 49 Teams
4th Place - OVERALL
3rd Place - CHICKEN
35th Place - RIBS
16th Place - PORK
1st Place - BRISKET
Our overcooked ribs really killed us but that is that way it goes and why it is so hard to win in this game. I guess it gives me something to work on in September! The guys and I are headed to Vermillion South Dakota next weekend and I can't wait to get back in and try again.
Joe
Monday, August 24, 2009
Schedule Update
We have changed our schedule a bit to end our first full season so I thought I would post an update. We have 6 competitions remaining:
August 28-29 Big Island BBQ Albert Lea, MN
Sept 11-12 South Dakota State BBQ Championship Vermillion, SD
Sept 18-19 SMSU SmokeFest Marshall, MN
Oct 2-3 American Royal Invitational Kansas City, MO
Oct 3-4 American Royal Open Kansas City, MO
Oct 16-17 Barn Burner Bar-B-Q Libertyville, IL (unless we get into the Jack Daniels Invitational, in that case we will go to Lynchburg TN later in October and skip this one).
As you can see from the Power Rankings to the right of this post, we have slipped a bit in the rankings due to sitting out the last several weeks. The next month will move us back up that list with a little luck! My goal is to finish the year in the top 75 teams and to finish in the top 25 in Brisket. We will have to cook our butts off to get there, but you gotta have goals, right?
August 28-29 Big Island BBQ Albert Lea, MN
Sept 11-12 South Dakota State BBQ Championship Vermillion, SD
Sept 18-19 SMSU SmokeFest Marshall, MN
Oct 2-3 American Royal Invitational Kansas City, MO
Oct 3-4 American Royal Open Kansas City, MO
Oct 16-17 Barn Burner Bar-B-Q Libertyville, IL (unless we get into the Jack Daniels Invitational, in that case we will go to Lynchburg TN later in October and skip this one).
As you can see from the Power Rankings to the right of this post, we have slipped a bit in the rankings due to sitting out the last several weeks. The next month will move us back up that list with a little luck! My goal is to finish the year in the top 75 teams and to finish in the top 25 in Brisket. We will have to cook our butts off to get there, but you gotta have goals, right?
Back on the trail
After four weeks off TippyCanoe BBQ Crew will be back on the KCBS trail this weekend. We will be competing in the Big Island Barbeque contest held in Albert Lea Minnesota.
This is our last contest prior to the Jack Daniel's World Invitational Draw which will be held next Thursday September 3rd. We have our name in the hat in Minnesota from our win in Owatonna In May and would love to get a second bung in the draw. You can read more about the teams in the draw here http://pelletenvy.blogspot.com/2009/08/are-you-in-draw-do-you-want-to-be.html
Rod did a great job of putting a list together. The condensed story on the draw is that they will take all the winners from each state and draw out a representative for that state (they also draw for a winner "from" each state if not all are represented after the draw).
This is our last contest prior to the Jack Daniel's World Invitational Draw which will be held next Thursday September 3rd. We have our name in the hat in Minnesota from our win in Owatonna In May and would love to get a second bung in the draw. You can read more about the teams in the draw here http://pelletenvy.blogspot.com/2009/08/are-you-in-draw-do-you-want-to-be.html
Rod did a great job of putting a list together. The condensed story on the draw is that they will take all the winners from each state and draw out a representative for that state (they also draw for a winner "from" each state if not all are represented after the draw).
Monday, August 3, 2009
Up in Smoke BBQ Bash, Mason City Recap
We cooked the event in Mason City last week and had a great time. The Bash is held in East Park and it is a great setting for a BBQ contest. We had some issues with power early on Friday but we got those resolved and all went well from there. Being so close to home and work we had many visitors and it all went by very quickly. Our turn-ins were very consistent; nothing great in my mind, but nothing terrible either. The judges agreed and we were very happy to finish 7th overall and 3rd in Brisket in this extermely tough field. In fact, our total score in Mason City was only 1 point shy of our Grand Championship score in Owatonna in May.
Up in Smoke BBQ - Mason City, IA
Out of 65 Teams
7th Place - OVERALL
29th Place - CHICKEN
20th Place - RIBS
21th Place - PORK
3rd Place - BRISKET
On a side note, I keep bragging about the competition we've faced this year so I thought I better put some facts behind it. KCBS just released the updated Team of the Year standings for 2009. We have competed against 13 of the top 25 teams in the country to this point (and most of them several times).
Up in Smoke BBQ - Mason City, IA
Out of 65 Teams
7th Place - OVERALL
29th Place - CHICKEN
20th Place - RIBS
21th Place - PORK
3rd Place - BRISKET
On a side note, I keep bragging about the competition we've faced this year so I thought I better put some facts behind it. KCBS just released the updated Team of the Year standings for 2009. We have competed against 13 of the top 25 teams in the country to this point (and most of them several times).
Waterloo and Laporte City Recap
Well we surived the double contest weekend. We had a good experience at both competitions and it was good to get our feet wet with two in one weekend prior to the Royal in October. I will say I would not want to do two contests in one weekend on a regular basis. We were totally shot by the time it was all over Sunday afternoon. It probably didn't help matters that we didn't have a strong showing in either event. Below are the gory details, all in all two of our poorest performances of the year.
BBQ'Loo & Blues Too - Waterloo, IA
Out of 35 Teams
12th Place - OVERALL
7th Place - CHICKEN
21th Place - RIBS
9th Place - PORK
20th Place - BRISKET
BBQ in the Park - La Porte City, IA
Out of 25 Teams
14th Place - OVERALL
11th Place - CHICKEN
8th Place - RIBS
20th Place - PORK
14th Place - BRISKET
BBQ'Loo & Blues Too - Waterloo, IA
Out of 35 Teams
12th Place - OVERALL
7th Place - CHICKEN
21th Place - RIBS
9th Place - PORK
20th Place - BRISKET
BBQ in the Park - La Porte City, IA
Out of 25 Teams
14th Place - OVERALL
11th Place - CHICKEN
8th Place - RIBS
20th Place - PORK
14th Place - BRISKET
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