Capital City Cookoff Recap

We had a great time in Jefferson City, Mo last weekend. Brian, Matt, and I got on the road with the new trailer about 5:30pm on Thursday night. The trip was pretty uneventful (thank god) and we managed to find a Wal-Mart parking lot around midnight in Mexico, Mo and caught a few hours of sleep. We got back on the road Friday morning and arrived in Jefferson City by 10:00am. We got everything setup and to my surprise I actually remembered to pack everything :). We kind of ended up in the middle of nowhere with the trailer and we felt a little out there...another lesson learned, don't setup in the middle away from turn in, you may end up by yourself!

The big meats went on around midnight Friday night and the big cooker and Guru did not want to cooperate. The temps were all over the board and it took almost three hours for it to settle in around 230 degrees. I have never seen the Fatboy act that way and I'm still not sure what was happening there...the air just seemed a little funny(wet and heavy), maybe that had something to do with it. As usual, morning came way too fast and before we knew it it was 11:00am Saturday. The good news is once the Fatboy settled down everything went very smoothly.

Turn in time: The chicken came off the Party and looked great, it was pretty easy to pick out the six best/most uniform pieces. We all had a piece of chicken and agreed it was some of our best to date with one exception...it had a little too much kick to it. I must have gotten a little heavy handed with the rub. It was juicy, tender, and tasted great but I was worried about the heat. Here is a picture of the box

Ribs- The ribs came off and again we thought they were very good, they had good flavor and were tender but still left a very distinct "bite" mark when eaten. We were pleased and off they went. We somehow forgot the picture of the ribs, so you will have to trust me they looked good:)

Pork- The pork came out of the warmed cooler and we were happy with it as well. We only cooked two butts this time and one was much more tender than the other so we only ended up turning in out of that piece. Again, it came together nicely and off it went with the delivery bitch(Matt).

Brisket- I got the brisket out of the cooler and knew we were in trouble...it was a bit undercooked, tough, and dry. We sliced it up and doctored up the best six slices we could find with sauce and more rub. The flavor ended up OK, but I was afraid to see the tenderness scores already...I had made up some burnt ends, but even they were just kind of OK, I figured they couldn't hurt the score of the slices any and in the box they went.

Well, three out of four isn't bad right? We were satisfied for the most part and starting packing everything up. We had everything put away and were ready to hit the road by the time the awards started. As we walked into the building where the awards ceremony was to be held I told the guys if we were going to get a call it would be in either chicken or ribs, I really felt like they were our two best of the day. After not hearing our name for either chicken or ribs I really felt like we were not gong to get a call. But sure enough in the 9th place pork position we hear our name called. It made it all worth it! As they came to the brisket category I had no hope for a call, I told Matt that I would fall over if we had placed in the top 10 in brisket. And then right on cue, 8th place brisket goes to TippyCanoe BBQ Crew. I'm still stunned at that, but was soon to be even more stunned when I got the scores sheet and saw just how poorly we did in chicken and ribs. Oh well, I guess that's the way it goes....perhaps it shows how little I know about what good BBQ should taste like:)

Results(out of 55 teams):

Overall 19th place 633

Chicken 34th place 154.3

Ribs 42nd place 148.6

Pork 9th place 165.7

Brisket 8th place 165.1

With 55 teams and some of the best on the country in attendance I was very pleased with our finish. Gonna have to figure out what to do with the ribs as the scores keep going the wrong way, I really think the extra heat in the chicken killed us there so that is easily fixed...overall I will take it. I'm already looking forward to Mn in May in Austin on May 15th...then the real season starts!!

Ready to go...

Well I think we are ready for the season to begin. The trailer is done! We finished installing the 3 bay sink this week and everything works great. It will be nice to have a place for everything.

I've done several chicken practice cooks over the past couple of weeks and feel really good about the new recipe. I also cooked 6 pork butts for a friends party over the weekend so that was a good way to get back in the swing for pork. It was a crazy winter and I haven't cooked a brisket or ribs since December. To add to the fun I decided to mix up the rib recipe a bit...probably a sketchy idea, but after our rib finish in Libertyville its time to change something.

Matt, Brian and I are leaving for Jefferson City Thursday evening. We hope to get most of the way there and find a parking lot park to sleep for the night. I originally started this blog to track and share our stories from competitions so I'm looking forward to posting the Jefferson City story when we get home.

Joe

2009 Competition Schedule

Below is our tentative 2009 competition schedule. We may switch a couple out as we go...

April 17 & 18
Capital City Cookoff
Jefferson City, MO

May 15 & 16
Minnesota in May
Austin, MN

May 29 & 30
Smokin' in Steele
Owatonna, MN

June 5 & 6
The Great Pork BarbeQlossal
Des Moines, IA

June 26 & 27
Iowa State BBQ Championship
Marshalltown, IA

July 17 & 18
BBQloo and Blues Too
Waterloo, IA

July 24 & 25
Up in Smoke BBQ Bash
Mason City, IA

July 31/Aug 1
Lynch Livestock Pig Stampede
Waucoma, IA

August 28 & 29
Big Island BBQ
Albert Lea, MN

September 5 & 6
Throwdown on the River
Dubuque, IA

September 25 & 26
River City RoundUp
Omaha, NE

October 16 & 17
Barn Burner Bar-B-Q
Libertyville, IL

TIPPYQ

Here are a few pictures of TIPPYQ, our new cooking trailer. We do a lot of camping as a family and had a nice travel trailer. It took two comps of loading the smokers and gear in and out of the pickup and camper last fall to realize I didn't want to do that 10 times a year. So the search began for a toy hauler that would fit the family for camping and would accomodate my BBQ stuff...I found this a couple of hours away at a dealer in Wisconsin. Its a monster @ 37' long, but its got everything we need (I think I can get into most comps in this area with it, just gonna cost a bit more).

The garage area is a 10' long.We've got a lot of work to do to get her ready to head to Jefferson City Mo in April. I have a small Fridge and a row of cabinets ready for the right side and a stainless table for the left. I'm still looking for a 60" or smaller 3 bay sink to go in front of the stainless table. There are no outlets in the garage so I plan to run conduit for outlets and additional lights. I am also planning to convert the fuel station that is mounted in the frame under where the sink will go to a grey water tank for the sink drain.

I will post a couple more pics when we get it done!

2008 Recap

Following our success in Carpenter we decided to try our hand at the real deal. We began looking for a KCBS sanctioned competition in the area. After comparing schedules we decided to enter the Ben Biken BBQ Bash in Sparta Wisconsin. We had a great time in Sparta and were amazed at our finish...out of 25 teams we placed:

16th in Chicken with a 148.57
5th in Ribs with a 158.85
2nd in Pork with a 164.57
2nd in Brisket with a 163.57
2nd place overall with a 635.43

Needless to say we were very pleased(with the exception of the dried-out chicken)!

With winter fast approaching I decided to try to get one more competition in before the snow flew. This time I would take my family to the Barn Burner BBQ in Libertyville Illinios. Before heading to Libertyville I decided that I "needed" another smoker! So a couple of weeks before the trip I purchased a Backwoods Fatboy to go along with my Party. The Fatboy is very similar to the Party, its slighty bigger, better insulated, holds more coal, and more meat. The weather was a bit cold overnight and it was a long trip but we still managed to have a great time. We came back down to earth a bit results wise...out of 32 teams:

11th in Chicken with a 155.42
21st in Ribs with a 144
9th in Pork with a 153.71
3rd in Brisket with a 157.14
11th overall with a 610.28

I was happy with the results, I thought the scores were about right with the exception of the ribs. They were by far the best ribs I have ever made, but thats the way it goes I guess!

The Begining

Before 2009 starts I thought I would get you up to speed on how I got to this point! In 2007 I bought a cheap offset Chargriller smoker and started experimenting. We do a lot a camping and the smoker started making trips with us to the campground. I started reading about BBQ on the Internet (my wife would say at a disturbing rate) and I was hooked.

I bought a Backwoods Party Smoker in the early spring of 2008, if I was going to compete I had to have a real smoker :). I practiced all summer in preparation for a non-sanctioned event that was to be held in Carpenter Iowa in August. I recruited my brother-in-law Brian and my Cousin Jeff as the crew (they would like to be known as the All Natural Smokin' Crew, named for their favorite cheap swill, Natural Light). The plan going into Carpenter was that if we didn't embarrass ourselves we would hit a KCBS sanctioned competition in the fall. We ended up as Grand Champions and a monster was officially born....we were hooked.

Welcome to TippyCanoe BBQ

With the 2009 competition season quickly approaching I thought I would start this blog and use it as a way to track our results and share our experiences. We are planning to start the year off in Jefferson City Mo on April 17th. In the next couple of weeks I will post our 2009 schedule.