Please understand, people.  Most barbecue joints are about the meat.  These guys don’t know how to decorate a restaurant.  They only know how to season pork.  They don’t know how to greet you like a proper hostess.  They know how to say “Hey, how’s it goin?”  These places aren’t for people that are looking for a tuna fish sandwich on a bagette and then wondering why it’s not on the menu.

“How can you be a restaurant and not sell a tuna fish sandwich?”

These are not restaurants.  Give me a fine dining bbq restaurant and I’ll give you mediocre bbq.

Good bbq is only about cooking inferior cuts of meat until they become a delicacy.

Which leads me to my overall point.  Making consistent bbq in a restaurant is not just hard, it’s nearly impossible.  So, if you go to a restaurant and fine that their bbq is very good.  Maybe not mind blowing, but really good.  Then they are doing something extraordinary.  Because it should suck.  Perfect bbq is does not wait around for the customers to come.  It is perfect when it is perfect.  It has a mind of its own.

So the amount of time a bbq joint’s owner spends trying to make that meat come off the smoker the minute you’re hungry is a task that I would wish on no one.  BBQ is a different beast.

So go easy on BBQ joints.  Go to McDonald’s for the balls.

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See ya around the smoke!

When they say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas,” I agree.  Especially when discussing BBQ.  It’s not that Texas BBQ isn’t delicious.  All barbecue is delicious.  Slow-smoked meat covered in tomato sauce.  Even the most basic form of this tastes better than lima beans.   And the Carolinas, well, that’s another island in the barbecue world.  Rich with history, but not in the middle of the hub that runs from Chicago to Memphis to Kansas City and back again.

Sauces.  BBQ Sauces.  That’s what we’re discussing.  What sauces can you go in the store and buy that will blow your mind and make you a backyard barbecue genius.

Here are my choices:

1) Russ and Franks Fiery BBQ Sauce – I think these boys are from Iowa and man are they hitting a home run with their fiery sauce.

2) The Church of Swinetology Bone Dipping Sauce – This is our sauce and yeah we put it second. We wouldn’t make it if we didn’t think it was awesome.

3) Bone Suckin Sauce – Helluva nice sauce.

4) Head’s Red – Fella out of Chicagoland makes it.  It’s right on the money.

5) Blues Hog – This is a sauce used a lot around the competition circuit.  It’s a power house on the sweet side, so go easy.

So, try those five and you won’t be sorry.  There are some different flavors profiles with each of them, but you’ll find your favorite.  Keep slow-cooking meat and if you get a chance stop by www.cookmeet.com, where meat cooks meet!

Now go check your fire!

But do I want to travel to New Mexico to do it? F No.

Let’s face it the Sam’s Club National Championship is a cool thing for Competitive BBQ.  BBQ Sauce Works competed in it last year up in Madison, Wisc.  And it was fun.  We met a really cool bunch of people.  Hats off the Second City Smoke who finished 6th in that event and moved on to the regional.  But after going through all the stuff to enter, it certainly wasn’t the best event I’ve ever been a part of.

Now, don’t get me wrong, because yes, there is a bit of sour grapes going on here.  We turned in some fabulous food and felt the judging wasn’t on the mark.  But who doesn’t think there bbq is fabulous.  But we’ve been doing this for a while and we know when our food stinks.  We got a 7th in pork and 12th in brisket.  Not bad.  But those two turn in should have scored higher.  We we coming off a 4th and 11th in chicken in our two previous competitions, and this time our chicken was down in the 20s.  Our ribs, which honestly we knew weren’t fabulous, didn’t score well, but again we were surprised where we ended up.

Conclusion:  Yes Sam’s Club is a fabulous competition.  But it might not have the spirit of competitive bbq that comes at other smaller events.  Barbecue competitions are fun.  Other than the posers that spend all there money pretending to love barbecue just try to beat real barbecuers with bought, borrowed or stolen recipes, barbecue competitions are a place to hang out with others like you.  Have fun out there.  If you’re not in the Sam’s Club Event, then get into the Poduck Rib Tussle in Barbecue City, USA.  It’ll probably be more fun.

See around the smoke!

Smoke Ringz BBQ, Wheaton

This place has heart.  That’s all you can ask for out of a BBQ joint.  So many BBQ restaurants try to be something that they’re not, or something that they don’t really even need to be.  It’s BBQ.  It’s down home, and people that love BBQ want the down home experience.  That’s what you’ll find at Smoke Ringz BBQ in Wheaton, IL.  A down home place with passion for the food.  You can taste it.

I started competing to satisfy an appetite.  I like fire.  I like meat.  Fire and meat – - – Goooood!

So, right now I start thinking about March 1st.  I start preparing the rig for March to December.  That’s cooking season for me.  I’m like an old veteran pitcher that needs the off-season to rest his elbow.  My cooking elbow is sore and unless I rest I can’t get the action on my tongs that has given me such a long career in this league of home run hitters.

Anyway, point is  . . . get your shit straight.  It’s almost time for the real bbqers to head out into the sea of point grabbers and competition buyers.  It is time for the real lovers of all things sweet, tangy, smokey, and hot, to prepare for another year of getting our asses kicked.  But on June 19th, or July 22nd, or August 14th, or Sept. 23rd, you will receive a call for 3rd place pork, or 9th place Chicken.  You will redeem yourself with a victory, and at that moment you will know it is all worth it as you point across the field at the Jose Consecos of BBQ.  The juicers that buy their stats and you’ll know that you did it for the love of the game.

See around the fire this Spring!

See ya at the screening.

I just wanted to point out to you competitive bbqers that in the world of barbecue you have to consider where you are cooking.  When you start preparing for a competition trip, there are many concerns.  You have tons of equipment to organize and since you’re gonna take a pretty long trip out of town, you have to be ready.  But one thing that a lot of competitors don’t think about is that the judges are going to be different.

Yes, the KCBS does everything it can to make competitions uniform.  That the rules in one a place are the same everywhere.  But let’s face it . . . certain flavor are more accepted than others as you change location.  I can promise you that people’s beliefs in the proper way to make barbecue can change drastically in different parts of the country.

Find out where the best bbq place is in the town that you’re visiting.  Sit down and taste some of it.  Chat with customers and the owner if possible.  Find out what people in the area like and why.

It will be invaluable information!

What a beautiful store for starters. Just gorgeous, and the aroma – nothing beats fresh ground spices.

So, I wander in, and I run into David. He owns the joint, and gave me the full tour.

It’s just a wonderful place to find the freshest spices in the world.

Here’s to Savory Spices. What a top notch spice shop.

We really had to put the pedal to the metal to get ready for this one.

We arrived on site on Friday, tired but ready to throw down.  Let me tell anyone who hasn’t competed in a full on KCBS barbecue competition . . . You don’t want to be tired when you arrive.  You want to feel like you could run through a wall, because at sometime during the event, you might just have to.  This week I had to hop over caution tape all weekend, but that’s a different story.  Anyway, prepping for the event had beat us up pretty good, but we arrived determined.  Which leads to our first grade:

Preparation: C-

Saturday, we were asked by the organizers to do a few cooking demonstrations, so we had a couple really nice groups of people come by the tent.  John, the BBQ Sauce Works Pit Master, showed several folks how to trim chicken for competition and later worked with a group to show how to get a pork shoulder ready.  It was fun and the folks we worked with were very appreciative.  Soon they’ll be out there trying to beat us at our own game.  Ah, ain’t BBQ grand?

We battled through the night to keep our fire on point.  Some of our normal procedures weren’t going so normal, so we had to babysit the cooker more than usual.

Sunday came raging and for the most part we were on schedule.  Everything got turned in with time to spare.  And overall,  we did very well.

Which leads to the rest of our grades:

Chicken: A (4th Place)

Ribs:       A (20th Place)

Pork:       A (6th Place)  

Brisket:   C (43rd Place)

Overall :   B (15th Place)