Tuesday, May 4, 2010

2009 Wrap Up Part 3

Our 3rd and final comp of 2009 was BBQ on the Bypass in Langley BC. Our buddy Paul Chan from Calgary met my wife and I in Langley for this one. Langley is an excellent comp, lots of friendly teams, a pot luck on Saturday night, sampling for visitors, and a nice breakfast on Sunday morning! What more can you ask for! Overall we finished 18 out of 26 teams so another poor finish! Thanks mostly to our arch nemesis chicken!


We had our typical classy set up! We did get to set up beside Bullet BBQ which is an excellent team out of Port Coquitlam who made some excellent chicken wings!For cookers we used the WSM and kettle as well as Pauls Smokey Joe. We also picked up a Napolean Charcoal grill piece of garbage) from a fellow in North Vancouver for $20 so we had it at the event! Paul brought a couple of brisket from Calgary, we rubbed it up nice and early with the coffee and cocoa rub again. We dud one on the kettle and one on the WSM, we ended up turning in the WSM one.When you see this picture of our pork shoulder you will assume we got last place in that category. Basically the shoulder we picked up from Costco was a bunch of boneless small pieces. So not sure what to do we rubbed them all individually and stuffed 40 pounds of it into the WSM, the picture is pretty classic.For the pot luck Jo made mushroom caps stuffed with escargot and topped with herbs and parmesan cheese. They went quick!
While they did provide breakfast we just had to cook up some of our home cured maple bacon!We decided to go with a lot more flavor on our pork for this comp and over sauced it. Here is our turn in box.
While the box definately looks awful but we did manage to squeak out 12th place in pork

Next was our brisket box, the garnish is awful and it looks dry but it did taste good, we managed 15th in Brisket, with the flavor we actually did expect a higher finish.Now it was time for our chicken turn in, not going to lie we thought we finally did better. Looking at the box now there were way too many greens but obviously the flavor and everything else was off as well as we finished 22nd.Our final turn in of the day was ribs, we were confident with this turn in but the good old judges disagreed! We finished 14th which was actually our best rib showing of the year. The box could use a couple more ribs and less greens for sure!

Overall 2009 was a reasonable first season and a learning experience for us. Lets look forward to 2010!

2009 Wrap Up Continued

Our 2nd event of 2009 was the Canadian BBQ Championships at Whistler. We don't have many pictures from Whistler but we do have some good memories! Not much cooking wise. We had some darn popular Chile on Saturday with a line up about a block long to eat it! That was probably the cooking hightlite. This comp involved a little more beer and heat than it possibly should have! We screwed up the chicken again, adding way too much salt. The rest of our turn in's were reasonable. This is our set up, one of the two pictures we actually took.

Daryl bought a used Ranch Kettle from the team next to us. Kind of funny when you see how little room we had in the SUV and realize we had to put it on the roof to get it home (Which was 6 hours away!). That and the ash catcher falling off while we were driving on the sea to sky highway and having to stop traffic to get it, miraculosly with no damage!

Anyways out of 39 teams we finished 27th. Led by a good showing in brisket of 10th, a reasonable showing in pork of 16th, a decent showing in ribs of 23rd and an absolutely horrid showing in chicken of 35th. We had to be happy with not last in chicken though, I can't imagine what the four teams we beat turned in!

Monday, May 3, 2010

2009 Wrap Up

Being that we have now started the 2010 season I figure it is time to wrap up the 2009 season. While we do plan on doing 8 events in 2010 we only attended three events in 2009. So here it is!
Western Canada BBQ Championships In Regina

This was our first competition. John drove down from Winnipeg, Colin from Yorkton, and I flew in from Ucluelet. Rob Reinhardt of Prairie Smoke and Spice helped us out and gave us a few cookers to use, one Drum, a kettle, and a WSM. From there we just assembled what we could and had at it! Things started sketchy when we couldn't find charcoal in all of Regina but we eventually did find some at a Wal Mart (the 3rd one we tried!), then the night improved with the Roughriders winning! Saturday morning we took our time and got all set up. Then had a dram (What choice is there!)

Here is John setting up......And here is the end result......(with Colin keeping us classy)

And here were our borrowed cookersBeing our first comp we were a little concerned about timing so we got the brisket and shoulder on early. We did the pork shoulder wrapped in banana leaves and with red clay salt. Cooked on the WSM.The brisket was coated in a coffee and cocoa rub and cooked on the drum.
The open category was Rabbit. Being the losers we are we didn't realize that you were supposed to have a platter and serve it as a meal. One team gave the judges beer, you have to know we wouldn't go that far! The beer is ours! I digress, we braised the rabbit on the kettle in apple cider and a few spices. The flavor was amazing, our presentation not so much!
Saturday night we had a little garlic and cheese bread and some nice wild boar that Colin brought down. No pictures though. We proceeded to have a couple more drams after which John pretended to go to the bathroom and went to bed, leaving Colin and I up to watch the cookers all night. While it was cold we did get to hug the smokers and sit in the worlds greates lawn chair!
Sunday morning was rib prep time.
Now our traditional breakfast, home cured maple bacon, homemade english muffins, eggs, and some havarti. (This is the best way to wake up, trust me!), oh and it's better than it looks.
Sunday morning saw the pork shoulder came off of the smoker and we finished it with a white wine and dried mushroom sauce.
And here is our pork turn in box, we only turned it pulled, overall the box needs a lot of work but for the first time......
And now our brisket turn in, this is a bad bad box.....

And our worst turn in of the day was chicken......We marianted it in a worcy sauce mixture. We tossed it on the drum and then CBC interviewed us. Now one was looking at the chicken and there was a FIRE FIGHT! ot pretty burnt chicken turned in.

And our final turn in, ribs.......really needs to be cleaned up!

And finally our friend Rob from Prairie Smoke and Spice wone the Grand Champion
Overall we had a pretty good time at our first comp. The results were bad but what the heck it's about good friends and good food! Our finish was 12th out of 16 teams. Still we did manage 5th in Pork and 7th in Brisket. Our chicken was last, no big surprise and the ribs were middle of the road. Always could be worse!