Oct. 3rd and 4th

The Thrillerz on the Grillerz will be back in full force for the Gallatin Smoke on the Square contest. The contest is held on Main Steet near the courthouse. If you attend please stop by and say HI!! Look for the blue Horse trailer



More pictures from Hot Springs:

Smoke on the Water Contest in Hot Springs

Sorry about no post during the summer the team took off for the summer and will be competing in Gallatin, TN Oct. 2-4th.


I have been itching for another contest so I have a friend who lives in Arkansas (Jay) and one in Texas (Matt)-- I talked them into entering the Hot Springs contest neither guy had ever attend a BBQ contest.


This was the first time for me to compete out of Middle TN and this was going to be the largest event I had attend. The city of Hot Springs sponsored the contest which included two free concerts one from Tracy Byrd and a Jimmy Buffet cover band. They also had a hot air balloon show and car show. I would guess that the event had over 50,000 people attend all events. They also had 95 BBQ teams competing in the contest.






So, I competed under the name TAT BBQ team in the KCBS 4 meats. Some of the best teams in the country competed in the contest. So, I tried Indian Tandoori chicken which bomb finishing 87 out of 95. Then we tried baby back ribs for the first time and the ribs were just falling apart in my hands as I tried to move them. I found three slabs that stayed together so I cut the ribs using two bones. This is the biggest shocker we finished 2nd out of 95. We won a trophy and $1000 dollars. I thought the pork was better than Fan Fest contest that we finished 7th but I forgot to sauce before turn in and that might be the reason we finished 61 out of 95. I tried a whole brisket because we had scored so bad with our brisket in previous contest. We finished 42nd out of 95. Then with all scores tallied we finished 52 out of 95. This was a great contest for me and I'm excited about the Gallatin contest.

What Happen at Sam Davis Home?

We felt good about the Sam Davis Home contest because we had just competed in the CMA contest and placed with our Pork and it was back to back so everything was still packed and ready to go.

Should have known from the beginning that it wasn't going to turn out how I expected. So, On Friday after work we arrived for what they called a Hoe Down dinner. I thought they had music and something special to eat. So remember it was 90 degrees, they had one pan of white beans that was empty and some cornbread. We got nothing but a little juice and some cornbread. No music or dance. I'm not sure why they called it a Hoe Down. Anyway moving on...

My dad delivered the trailer earlier in the day so we had no problem unloading and getting everything set-up except my tent was broken. I'm not sure what happen maybe at the ocean for the week caused some type of problem. So, anyway we got everything set-up and left for the night.

It rained all night Friday and Saturday morning. I arrived first at 1:00 to get the meat inspected and first thing I see is Robert's tent is buckled in. So, we lost both tents during this contest. Second thing that happen was I couldn't find a meat inspector. They were short of judges for backyard contest so I didn't get an meat inspector until 3:00pm. This really hurt because the pork could have used the extra brining time.

The because of all the rain the night was very damp and I couldn't keep a fire in my cooker and I had to manually fan my cooker all night. We also for the first time basted the ribs with sauce and added them back to the Weber but it was to hot and caused them to stick to the grill.

I still felt good about our product but we didn't have anything that would place but I found out how to create extra moisture in my pork and brisket and will use the secret next time --thanks to swiggin piggy.

We celebrated Father's Day on the grounds. The Sam Davis home is probably by far the prettiest venue that we have attend a competition.

Turnin boxes from Sam Davis Home BBQ contest

CMA BBQ Contest June 7-8

All,

OK - So , I'm going to finish talking about the CMA BBQ but I wanted to show proof.

Sam Davis Home BBQ contest June 14th and 15th

We will be competing in the Sam Davis Home BBQ contest this weekend in Smyrna, TN. We will be at our site around 1:00 on Sat until 4:00 on Sunday. We are really excited about competing again after placing at the CMT BBQ contest.

Some pictures from the CMT contest:

Picture of our boxes from CMT BBQ

I have displayed all of our Boxes from the CMT BBQ contest. We didn't sauce any meats at this competition. We turned in all meats dry. We scored the best overall at this event but I think that is because we went back to the way I have been cooking all winter.

The Horse Trailer

So, I want to talk about our Horse Trailer. First my brother in law is upset that I haven't said anything about us using his horse trailer and Second it seems to be a joke on the BBQ circuit about our Horse trailer. So here is the story about the horse trailer.

I ask my brother in law ( Billy Estes) if he used the horse trailer alot. He said that the floor is out but is going to be replaced before I would need to borrow for Pulaski event. So, I went the week before the event to make sure I could hook up to the trailer. Things that jump out at me - Four horse trailer and lots of rust. I thought how in the heck'm I going to back the trailer. So, Once I hooked up to the trailer --my brother in law wouldn't let me take the trailer until I could show him that I could travel around town with the trailer attached. I was nervous but I had no problems.

On the BBQ circuit the trailer is already a Legend - They want us to change our name to the 4 horsemen. Whoa...........

CMT BBQ contest results

The Team had the very first call to the stage in the meat categories. We finished 7th in Pork and I will post more information in the next couple of days with pictures.

This was a very big deal for us.

CMA BBQ Contest June 7-8

All,

Just back from Gulf Shores, Al from vacation with my family.

We are preparing for the KCBS CMA BBQ contest this weekend located at:
FROM SOUTH OF NASHVILLE: Follow I-65 North then merge onto I-40 East/I-24 West. Take Shelby Avenue, Exit #49, towards LP Field. Cross over the Gateway Bridge toward downtown. Take left onto 4th Ave South. Take immediate right onto Franklin. Go through 1 stop sign and Sports Zone entrance will be on your right.

To get an overview of the rest of the activities taking place, check out www.cmafest.com. Pay special attention to the activities in the Chevy Sports Zone, as this is the area where we will be set up.

Sundrop Notes

The Sundrop event was our first of the year. We had a practice run just two week before the contest but at the end of the practice run it becomes a big party so sometimes you are not sure how you actually done. I thought we had actually produced during the practice run call out products. I switched our process just a little bit before attending the Sundrop by trying to use the green egg to cook the butts and brisket once wrapped. This didnt work so we will return to cooking on the Horizontal smokers. We also tried to cook the ribs one hour less which didnt work for the contest. I hope to have better results at the CMA event.

The Sundrop BBQ had great people involved in the event and were extremely helpful. I can't say how nice everyone was to us during our time at the event. This was also the first time my parents attended the BBQ events. They couldn't believe the rigs most of the Pro teams have for cooking. In this event even the Backyard group has some very nice rigs. The thing is if your cooking just cook all night and enter all meats instead of just doing chicken and ribs for the backyard event.

Other notable items - We got to meet the Ulika team and spend time with PSIP again.
This was one event were the Gentleman Jack seem to be flowing. I think Robert was using it to control his pain in his back. Not sure it was working by how much was being consumed. We also enjoyed talking with people who come by the our site asking questions. Also we used my brother-in laws horse trailer to carry all of our grills. This was great to have the trailer and made it much easier.

I'm leaving on vacation for the next week so I will be back on June 2nd getting ready for CMA's.

Sundrop display boxes

Our turn in boxes from the Sundrop BBQ contest

Sundrop Contest May 8,9 and 10th results

I was disappointed looking at the overall score but I have highlighted the positive items from this weekend:

1. Congrats to Steve - Our First callout from the Stage—8th place for the pizza tied with 7th place

2. Congrats to Robert – Our First perfect score from a Judge for the dessert

3. The chicken placed in the top 20

4. We were very organized and hit all of our timeframes with 3 pizzas, 12 lbs of rib extra, 2 desserts, 2 butts, 2 briskets, 6 rib slabs, and 18 chicken legs cooked over the weekend.

5. We also know we were better at the trial run. We will quit chasing the judges and cook for ourselves

The negative:

We scored overall better at our first event but we would have finished last with our overall score from the Gaylord event as well.

I will load our plating pictures later.

First Trial run for 2008

The team had it's first trial run for 2008 and added our new team member Steve Cork to the mix. We also are working with one hurt team member Robert is currently down in his back and is very limited in his ability to help. Robert is very valuable with overseeing everything and keeping everything sanitized.

Steve has a Green Egg so we have added it to the mix of grills for 2008. We are going to use a slather this year and found that it creates an issue with the size of the smoke ring. We couldn't even get a smoke ring using the egg because it cooked the food too quick. Anyway, we created great tasting food but nothing was turn in quality because of the lack of smoke ring.


Some picture from this weekend:

Easter Pig Roast

The family decided to have a Pig Roast for Easter. So, all of the men agreed to help me with setting up and cooking a whole pig for Easter. The woman got a little nervous about us cooking a whole pig for the first time with a large gathering of people and no other meat being available. Which sort of upset me--- they had didn't believe we could actually cook the pig properly. So, I agreed to smoke some chickens as well as the pig for Easter. This was a blast I used the the 3 guys from Miami setup. Web site: http://cuban-christmas.com/pigroast.html



I was able to order the pig from Publix's in McKays Mill. The Pig weighted about 60 lbs and needed a week to thaw out at the store. So, I order the pig three weeks in advance of Easter.


We didn't butterfly the head because no one was interested in that area of the hog ---I know some people really like the head.

The Pit really worked on roasting the pig. I didn't use the same method as the Cuban Guys on creating heat. I created coals from Hickory in another pit and added the hot coals to the pit and added apple, maple, and oak chunks to the fire to create a nice smoke.



Here is a picture of the pig after cooking



Pictures at the turn:



Here is what I learned about the pit the concrete cinder blocks will radiate heat and once they were warm they started pushing the heat into the middle of the pit and that is the reason the pig is darker on the middle section than the outside which was the location of the fire.

Pictures of the turn in boxes