Pictures prior to turn in

Pictures of Brisket cooking and Pork Butt and Brisket prior to loading

Sunset set on Friday night

As you will be able to see in the pictures. I seem to have lost Page and Robert by sunset.

Story: So, the day before the contest I was laid off from my job. I thought we should drown my sorrow with some Jack but what really happen. Page and me went early and set-up the site and we thought Robert and Steve would arrive by noon. Instead because I got laid off Robert had to take my responsibilities at work so they didn't arrive until 6:30. Mike Crabb came out right at 6:45 so I had the usually Jack shot to start the competition. Since Mike was out I took him around to see the contest and all the grills. We got back to the site at 7:15--- The whole liter of Jack was gone and they (Robert and Page) wanted to buy more. I had dinner ready so we ate and by 7:30 Page went for more Jack. He got back to the competition at 7:45 and by 8:00 Page and Robert were done...... I guess they took the hangover for me.....

Teams in Gallatin BBQ Smoke on the Square

This is team QUAU -they won the contest


This was Linda Gould teams these girls were a hoot... Linda was having a good time which was nice to see.




Pig Smokers In Paradise - Reserve Champion - what a great way to end the year

Jobeaz Blazing Butts - this team was set-up beside us. They laugh at the crew all night.

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