Worth County Smoke-Off 2012 BBQ Competition!

This past August I finally had the opportunity to do something I had been dreaming about for a very long time, compete in a BBQ competition with my very own team. My BBQ team name is "Gettin' Saucy With It" and consisted of my Dad, who was an assistant cook myself as Chief Cook. We competed in the Worth County Smoke Off BBQ competition on August 3-4.

Here's my pride and joys that I have built myself. I do plan on making a few changes to the black one, it doesn't hold the temps like the red one and the bottom grate is to close to the fire basket.

It was not long after I put the chicken thighs on the cooker that a pretty nasty thunderstorm rolled through. It took out almost every shade canopy at our end of the field and left the other end unscathed, lucky for them I guess.

See those two drum smokers setting there? Well I found out later that guy who built them and was competing was the same guy whose YouTube video played a part in me deciding to build my UDS in the first place. I learned a lot from him at this competition, he did win Grand Champion so he knows what he's doing. I look forward to see him at future BBQ Competitions.

Here's the aftermath of the storm when we dug in and tried to salvage what we could of the meat in hopes of having something to turn in to the judges. Here's the chicken which was probably the best chicken I have ever cooked, but more on that later.

My ribs were good, but they weren't quite done and just a little to chewy to have done well. I placed 11th out of 12 teams.

Here's the pulled pork which was not as good as I would of liked but the judges still scored me pretty well, I placed 4th.

And last, well not that bad, I took 10th place in this category. Going in to this competition I spent hours coming up a cooking plan, but in a last minute decision I changed my plan and put both the brisket and pork butts on 4 hours later then planned. Now had the storm not rolled through I may have been able to come up with a better product, but I don't know that for sure. I plan on practicing these two categories some more to have a better handle on my cooking times for the next competition.

Well here it is, the wild dream fulfilled. I took first place in chicken!!! I was completely shocked to hear my BBQ team name called, much less the fact that it was for first place! I was even more shocked when I found out later that I placed 7th overall, not bad for my first competition, and had beat out the Grand Champion in this one category. I can't even begin to explain how excited and proud I was of my team.

I have to give a HUGE thank you to my Dad, who with out I would not have been able to even afford to go to this BBQ competition. I also have a HUGE thank you out to my Wife, Jennie, and My daughter, Sammie, who helped support me in doing this, put up with the hours of planning, the practice cooks, and me being gone for almost three days straight while at the competition. I also want thank the Lady's Auxiliary of the Worth County Fire Department for hosting the BBQ competition.