Sedalia, MO Cook-Off

Boy, talk about crappy weather, we had it this past weekend in Sedalia, Missouri. We had strong southerly winds at about 25-30 miles an hour which absolutely killed our firebox on our Series 70 Diamond Plate smoker. Running with full charcoal and logs, the wind sucked the heat out of the firebox not allowing the smoker to go above 50 degrees. I believe in "low and slow," but let's get real.

Around Midnight there were tons of thunderstorms to our south. We watched them fade over the horizon thinking we'd dodged a bullet. Then the wind died down and the temp on the cooker went up to 225; perfect temp. We're cooking now, I thought. It wasn't long before the storms reversed engines and headed back our way. With that the wind picked back up and the temp plummeted.

I continued to play the damper game, but to no avail. Then, the skies opened and it rained for 2 to 3 hours straight. Our fire was dead. Our brisket and pork butt was way behind schedule, so we had no choice but to pack-up and head for home.

It's a real "whizzer" to get all geared up and then have the charcoal yanked out from underneath you. Oh well, So-long Sedalia, so-long.

Our First Call at Competition

With the disappointing results of the GAB in KC behind us, we spent the past two weeks tinkering with some things prior to this weekend's KCBS sanctioned competition in Sallisaw, OK. 

For the competition we agreed to participate in the "People's Choice" competition, which we didn't win and to remain Saturday night and sell BBQ. This was in addition to the KCBS competition. 

Once again we were up against some formidable teams such as Butcher BBQ, Twin Oaks, Smoke n' Ice and Little Pig Town; there were about 40 teams, but some were well seasoned, if you'll pardon the pun. Nevertheless, we were in it to win it and competed with the best of 'em.

Sallisaw's Cook-Off was very smooth and the organizers, a husband and wife duo did a great job in taking everything into consideration and the planning of the event.

We had a support team for this event as family drove up from Dallas to lend a helping hand and boy, did we ever appreciate all that they did. To Sandy and Terry, a huge thanks for all of your efforts, support and just plain old hard work. As it turned out, they arrived at our site just minutes before the Awards Ceremony. I told them we didn't have a prayer in Chicken and Ribs, because yours truly was an hour late on getting these two entries on the grill. I thought to myself, IF we had a snowball's chance in hell of anything it would be the Pork Butt or Brisket.

Towards the end of the ceremony the announcer got to the Pork category; here's the first chance we had of anything. 10th place, 9th place, 8th place and so on was called and we weren't in the names announced so I began to see all hopes fade. Then it happened: 4th Place Pork goes to Chain Gang BBQ! I stood up kinda dumbfounded and my oldest daughter began jumping up and down screaming. WOW, our third competition and we win a big red ribbon and $100. Now, we can honestly say, Award Winning BBQ.

We just get back to our seats and we hear "Chain Gang BBQ" from the awards stage. What? Again? Back-to-back? What the hell did we win? Come to find out it was first place for the "Best Dressed Smoker" category and it paid $200.

So now we're home and pouring over the judges scores and getting ready for our next cook-off in Sedalia, Missouri.

Damn! A ribbon. Makes a guy feel like Hank Hill or Homer Simpson.