BBQ on the bypass

Our last competition of 2010 was the bbq on the bypass in Langley BC. Paul had planned to come down from Calgary but due to work commitments he wasn't able to make. Out friend Taurean and his wife Tiara stepped up and came along for the ride, even though the poor guy had never bbq'd before!

I loaded up the truck on Saturday morning hoping to pick up our new team mates at about noon and getting to the comp at 2 in the afternoon.......Well things didn't go as planned and the back window of the truck got taken out by a table, creating one heck of a mess. We ended up covering it with plastic and putting it together with duct tape for the trek to Langley. This didn't look bad at all, plus there was still glass everywhere unloading the truck was not going to be fun!
The truck was crazy full and we had to have a cooler in the cab......real comfortable with three people on a bench seat with a massive cooler and a sleeping bag! Add to that we missed the ferry and were now on pace to reach the comp at midnight! Good times!

Once we got there the fun continued as the rain started coming and coming and coming. We set up as quick as possible and Taurean and Tiara got started on the parsley. They look so happy......

After a bit of a cold and rough nights sleep we shockingly look reasonably happy, I do think we had coffee by this point though! And the cupcake girls had set up beside us and were filling us up with cupcakes!

Then the day got awesome......The chili tank arrived! They actually make chili in this old cast iron tank, it has a couple fire boxes in it and cooks while you tow it, super cool!

Unfortunately the rain didn't let up......I won't comment on the next picture but let you infer.....

T and T did great jobs on the parsley boxes as well as giving out samples.

But the rain just kept coming soaking everyone and everything.

The matches were garbage, it's a good thing the good folks at House of Q were willing to share there fire starters!

Finally turn in times came around. We were fortunate to make the times, we actually didn't start cooking until 5:30 in the morning with the first turn in being 11am.

The pork came out really really really good. We filled in the box side ways by accident but the appearance actually ended up looking much nicer! Better to be lucky then good!

The brisket looks a little dry in this picture but it really wasn't. It came out very well, moist and flavorful, maybe a touch over cooked but still good.

For some reason (just because it's close to home.....) we're still using those big chicken thighs. We've got it cased now though with some readjusted cooking times the chicken came out absolutely perfect!

And the last turn in of the day was ribs. We thought they were perfect but in hind site looking at the turn in pictures we were far too sloppy with the sauce. So it goes.....

And for the first time ever Team 58 received calls in all four categories, at our toughest comp of the year!

Chicken 2nd place out of 30 teams!

Pork 6th place out of 30 teams

Brisket 10th place out of 30 teams!

And ribs 6th place out of 30 teams!

This was a great way to end our season! The weather didn't cooperate but we had our best all around result in a tough tough field!

Team 58 is looking forward to next year and planning on doubling our number of competitions from 3 in 2009, 6 in 2010, and now we're targeting 12 in 2011! Wish us luck and see you on the trail!

Saskatchewan BBQ Championships

Team 58's good friend Rob Reinhardt from Prarie Smoke and Spice (the 2010 Canadian BBQ Champion) decided to put on the Saskatchewan BBQ Championships. We decided to attend. Pauley took off from Calgary on Saturday morning and head to bolt before the awards on Sunday. Colin came from Yorkton on Saturday and went back home Sunday. I loaded up the dogs and all the equipment on Thursday and headed off the Island on the 30 hour trek.......

The dogs may have had better times in there lives, exceptional company they were.

We all arrived on Saturday morning. Colin and I went and picked up the worse pizza either of us had ever tasted from a place called Verns and a pile of pilsner. Although Colin did try to buy some low carb bull shit beer until the girl at the counter mocked him into switching. After that we set up at the market in down town Saskatoon.

And Colin had a pop......

The only turn in on Saturday was a supplied pork loin. We didn't have much planned for it so we sliced it into chops. Brined it. Cooked down a marinara sauce with a pile of mushrooms and stuffed the chop with that mixture and cheese. Then we wrapped it in bacon, breaded it and grilled it. To finish it off we tossed it on a herb and garlic bun.

We didn't have a plan for presentation so Pauley ran too Mcdonalds, borrowed a tray and a few burger wrappers and we were set........

The judges didn't see our humor and gave us a 0 on presentation! That's hard to do. Needless to say we finished last in the optional pork loin category.....so it goes.......

After a little sleep we got the cookers fired up at about 3am, Paul loves smoke.......

Our meats weren't our best today but our presentation was different than the past. The pork was good but not cooking as fast as we would normally like.....

The head judge came and spoke to us and apparently our slices weren't cut all the way through and could not be judged so we were only judged on our chunks and pulled. Shockingly we still managed to finish 8th our of 24 teams. No call but still good.

In between the pork and brisket turn in the cops showed up and had the truck that was stolen and dropped off behind us the night before towed. They literally totaled this beast.

Our brisket came out ok. Not as tender as we would have liked but nice overall. Good smoke ring and decent size slices. We were ok with it but not thrilled. Luckily the judges were and we finished 3rd out of the 24 teams!

Next up was our chicken. For some reason we were still cooking our bigger thighs. They turned out perfectly thoug and we were thrilled with these puppies. So were the judges and they took 4th place!

Finally was the ribs. We kept the recipe and everything the same and nailed them! We Got all the slices off one rack and nailed the texture. The only issue was they were a little light in color, still darn good though.......The judges agreed and we managed to get FIRST place in ribs again!!

Since Pauley had to bolt Colin and I were the only ones around for the award ceremonies.

We managed to finish 3rd place overall. This was our most succesful comp of all time and we had a blast! Time will tell if we make that crazy trek to cook back in Saskatchewan again!

I stopped in Calgary during the trip home so Pauley could have the awards!

Birch Bay Washington 2010

I decided that we needed to squeeze in another comp so I fired up the truck and headed down south to Birch Bay Washington. The comp started out real real rough. I left work early on Friday and couldn't find my passport to get going. Took a few hours and found it in a text book that was taken on another trip, no clue how I actually found it! With that I arrived in Birch Bay around 2am, checked into a hotel and got sleep.

This was the first comp with our new team shirts.......Pretty snappy. The front has a big t rex on it eating the words at least we thought it tasted good! We set up around 10am or so and got everything organized. Since it was a US comp and we weren't licensed with the health department we got to do up all the walls and just chill. We also weren't able to do our own dishes or have water in the set up. Really weird health department and it made it really tough on us trying to keep clean utensils and so forth. This comp was in a parking lot and there was a grocery store near by. I loaded up on Kona Brewing company's passion fruit wheat ale. So good. Maybe too good and maybe it explains our results!

The only turn in on Saturday was anything goes. We made twice baked potato's with chives, bacon, and gouda and cumin cheese. Baked beans with roasted red peppers, apples, and skirt steak. Roasted tomato's marinated in olive oil and thyme and a smoked meatloaf. It turned out perfectly, tasted so good although I got a wee bit sick from eating the entire amount we didn't turn in......probably not the best plan!

We got our one call needed early with this baby and took the pressure off for the rest of the weekend. We finished 6th place and got a small cheque and trophy for the effort!

With that we drank a lot of beer and made a few parsley boxes, this time we added ice berg lettuce in the middle to try and make it go a little quicker and easier and so the judges wouldn't be picking up parsley attached to there meat.

Keeping with my attempt to keep us organized I made a schedule for everything that had to be done and tapped it down to the table......we actually managed to follow it shockingly enough.

Our pork came together really really nice. Tender with wicked flavor. We were happy with it. I thought it was the best pork we turned in this year. As is often the case and becoming old habit the judges think I'm full of it and hated it. We finished 12 out of 19 teams.

The brisket was our best cooked of the year as well. Nice and juicy, good smoke ring. Just nice all around. Exccept the judges hated it as well. This was really starting to become old habit. Having said that in hind site I would never present the brisket like this again, it gives a few judges far too small pieces of brisket. We finished dead ass last.

Next up was the chicken. We cooked it better than in Richmond but we were still using those big thighs which is a massive mistake. The judges don't like them. My honest opinion is there is probably too much chicken flavor in each bite instead of sauce, rub and smoke when they are that thick, Needless to say the judges weren't impressed again and we finished 17th out of 19 teams. Ouch.

The last category of the day was ribs. We changed nothing from Richmond were we won ribs. Cooked them perfect, they came out perfect. As was the theme of the day though the judges were not fond of us and guess what........15th out of 19 teams.

The comp was frustrating but taught us a lot and made us look at a lot of things that turned succesful for us for the rest of the year. We especially owe a big thanks to Left Hand Smoke who won this comp who took the time to go through our turn in pics after and give there advice.

After the results and before the oncoming depression (jokes of course) we hightailed it to the local Mexican restaurant for margaritas and food that wasn't bbq'd! Pretty good but man was I sick in the morning.......found out when I got home that I got some sort of parasite somewhere during the comp! This one just didn't want to go our way, think we'll listen to the Karma Police and skip this one next year!

The Canadian Festival of Chile and BBQ

For the third competition of 2010 Jonna, the dogs and I drove down from the island to Richmond for the Canadian Festival of Chile and BBQ. The event was held at the Casino and down the street from some of the best Chineese food money can buy! This was a full two day comp. Saturday had turn ins for hamburgers, kangaroo loin, competition chile, and finally camel chile. Sunday was the same old same old.

We got to the event nice and early on Saturday morning, unpacked quickly and got to work. We just made the hamburger turn in on time. Turns out we had to name the burger.......I choose the prophetic name of the winning burger, of course spelling it wrong and Jonna having to correct it! The burger turned out incredibly. We ground up fresh chuck and mixed it with a panade, roasted red peppers and mushrooms. We smoked them with jarlsberg cheese and put them on home made grilled naan bread. Honestly the best burger I've ever tasted! Very proud of this turn in.

Unfortunately as is often the case the judges didn't agree. Obviously because they have no idea what they're doing, not because someone elses was better! Yeah right! But like we say At Least We Thought It Tasted Good! We ended up finishing 13th out of 26 teams.

The next turn in for the day was Kangaroo loin. I had only tasted kangaroo once before so this was tough. I decided to go with a juniper berry rub and a blueberry sauce on a bed of strawberries. This turned out exactly like we wanted! So so good. The crowds loved it as well. Once again the judges didn't.......so it goes.......we finished 13 out of 26th again.

The third turn in for the day was an ole bowl of red. The crowd loved this one too. We made the same chile as in Astoria. A pound of chile and spices, very nice. With chile it is turned in with tickets and they announce the winners just by ticket numbers to ensure blind judging. Having said that they only called the top five and we weren't in, a rough day keeps going!

The final turn in for Saturday was camel chile. This one was tough, neither of us had ever tasted camel so it was really a crap shoot! We decided to make it a pineapple chile. The taste was amazing but very very unique. Needless to say we continued our shut out for the day, no calls....so it goes. The camel and the Kangaroo came from Hills Meats in Vancouver, check them out, they have everything!

With that we stopped for some authentic Chineese and parsley to make some boxes. Headed back to the Holiday Inn Express and got some rest, hoping for a better Sunday.........

After a few hours rest I headed back to the comp site at about midnight and settled in on the old portable cot for the night. Woke up to pouring rain and wind and the sound of a drill, the boys of Landshark bbq were building an enclosure around there cookers, pretty cool idea, I couldn't do it but still a cool plan!

After checking out the cookers I went and grabed some breakfast and picked up Jonna. Time now for the main even turn ins........

Unfortunately we were pretty wiped after Saturday and things didn't go so well......the pork was very very tough. Not at all what we were looking for. We were able to get enough good pork to build a box but it honestly just wasn't up to standard. We ended up finishing 11th out of 26th......much better than we honestly deserved! We'll take it. The fine folks of Richmond still enjoyed the samples though and they dissapeared quick!

Our brisket was the worse turn in of the day and maybe of all time. This was dry dry dry. We really had to sauce it up in order to try and make it passable. This was the worse brisket I have ever cooked in my life, anywhere. Really not ok..........The picture pretty much tells the whole story. We ended up finishing 15th of out 26, also better than we deserved, the judges were kind today!

We are a team that loves to cook chicken. We have our method down and we finish well in it as a rule. Not today. Not sure what happened with us but Sunday was not coming down our way.......The thighs we got from Pipers meats in Nanaimo were huge, way too bug, they barely fit in the box and I didn't cook them properly not letting the sauce set enough or all the fat render out. Not cool. We finished 18th out of 26th.

Now the fear was setting in. We decided at the start of the year that if we didn't get a single call in a comp, meaning for any category, extra's, mains, whatever we'd call it quits.......well seven categories were behind us and we hadn't heard our names yet.

At this point Jo needed a meat break.......apparently no vegetables is not cool and she ran out and bought some zuchinni to grill and made a salad. Pansy!

The ribs were the one thing that we thought we nailed today. We weren't holding out hope since we thought we nailed everything on Saturday and didn't do so well. But they were good, nice appearance, we cut the heat in the recipe from Kelowna, perfect texture. We had our fingers crossed......

As luck would have it it wasn't just us who thought it tasted good! The judges loved them and Team 58 took our first ever FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They also gave us all kinds of bbq prizes for the win!

After a relaxing night on the town and a couple adult bevs we started to make our way home in the morning. The fine folks of Port Alberni were selling whole salmon on the side of the road and we decided to take advantage.

We split it in half and made a paste of olive oil, savory, onion, garlic, and sumac and tossed it on the old WSM who somehow wasn't tired after the weekend!

I also fire roasted some corn and peppers and made up some barely in a chicken stock concoction.

With one of the sides of salmon we made a puff pastry salmon and dill pie.

And of course some dark chocolate and chipotle cookies for dessert!

The end of a great weekend!