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

BBQ Contest -Gaylord Fiddlin and Brewin

The big day came for our first contest, We felt good about the items we had learned from the practice run that was only two weeks before and we had a good schedule and learned a lot about the actual cooking process as a team. Little did we know that we were not prepared to cook against the competition teams.

Items that we were ready for:
1. We had all of the items like knives, tongs, gloves, cutting boards, tables, tent, wash station, meals, drinks and etc… We didn’t have items that we had to leave the contest to retrieve.
2. We had a good schedule and everyone knew their responsibilities.
3. We had no surprises about how the contest was going to be run. Thanks to the book: Competition BBQ Secrets
Items that we weren’t ready for:
1. We really didn’t know what the products should look like during turn in
2. We struggled getting our food up to temp because our smokers weren’t as nice as other smokers.
3. How nice all the other teams are to you during competition.
4. How much fun you actually have during the event.
5. Getting a nice looking product as well as tasting good.

Use the first event as a learning experience and ask question to other teams because they will help you with suggestions. We have to give a big shout out to South Pork and Pig Smokers in Paradise for all the help.

We finished the first competition 73 out of 78 and received some scores of 9 on chicken and brisket. We didn’t get disqualified and we scored average on almost all over our products.

Here is what we found out later:
Chicken – cooked to dark, need to cook the glaze into the skin
Ribs - Have no idea – extremely tough but the meat should leave a mouth bite in the meat. Cook the glaze into the meat
Pork Butt – Good bark but needed to rest at least 1 hour
Brisket – we over cooked the brisket because it was falling apart it should have some give.

Some pictures: