Competition BBQ: First Competition In The Books, What It Was Like!

Introduction

Every single day, millions of people fire up their smokers or grills and try out different recipes and rubs for their friends and families to try. If you are like me, you may have seen BBQ competitions on tv and possibly have wondered what it may be like to participate in one of those events.

Recently, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and participate in my first ever BBQ Competition. I probably should have started off slow, but I dove in head first to this world and headed west to compete with 50+ incredible cooks at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas. This is what I learned and experienced during this incredible weekend!

Preparation: Excitement, Anxiety, and Making Sure you Have Everything!

In the days prior to this event, your head is constantly swimming with everything you could possibly need in order to be successful at this event. We are not a professional competition team, nor do I have any sponsors, banners, or anything like that so everything that we brought was straight from my kitchen. Being the type of person that I am, I created a checklist to ensure that I did not forget anything. Check out the list here!

The next thing we needed to figure out was where to sleep. I have done lots of reading about competitions, and I have been on lots of social media pages about sleeping arrangements during these things. There are people who sleep in their cars, people who sleep in tents, people who sleep on the ground, but the most common mode of sleep is a RV or camper. It is not realistic to think that I was going to go out and buy a RV for this event, but luckily there are plenty of great options to rent RV’s online! It actually ended up costing less than a hotel, and fit 5 of us! If you are thinking about competition, it is definitely something to think about. We asked the people to deliver it to the site for us. They set it up, and picked it up at the end of the weekend. Super easy and very convenient to be in one place the whole weekend.

Once I knew where we were staying, and everything to pack, I had one issue, how to get it all there. I figured the most cost effective solution for me was to stick with renting, so I rented a Uhaul trailer. I rented a 5×8 trailer and loaded everything up, including my family, and headed west!

Arriving with Big Eyes

I will be honest, I was not entirely sure what to expect when I drove up. I didn’t know if there was going to be 15 or 50 people ready to show off their culinary skills. As I drove by countless incredible setups, I couldn’t help but think, “what have I gotten myself in to?” There were some seriously incredible smokers here. I honestly was a little embarrassed as I unloaded my camp, but I was still determined as ever!

I was not sure of the vibe I was going to feel while here. Were people going to be friendly? Were there people who were going to give me any advice? Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do first? These questions would soon be answered by some friendly conversation right outside of our camp. We asked our neighbors where the cooks meeting was going to be and they informed us of the location and we got to chatting about the numerous competitions they had entered and sort of what to expect for the weekend. I took a sigh of relief, finished setting up, and headed off to the cooks meeting.

The cooks meeting informed us of the rules and regulations of the cook-off and that there were indeed 50+ teams competing at this event. They answered all of our questions and let us know turn in times and to have a good time. We were ready to go.

The Show Begins: Filling the Night Sky with Smoke and Flames

After a quick dinner, it was time to begin. I followed my timeline (Check out the Link Here) and began my prep. I fired up my smoker, soaked my beans, and began brisket prep at the time I would normally be getting ready to turn in for the night. After the beans were in water and the brisket and smoker were prepped and ready, I began my cook and decided to sleep as much as I could while I could.

I anticipated that not much sleep would be had during this night, but theres a whole other level that is added to your lack of sleep when it comes to competition bbq. The second your head hits the pillow, immediately hundreds of thoughts of cooking times, turn in times, marinades, sauces, all come racing through your head. You think about what needs to be done next and how long it will take. All the while, your time for sleep is slowly ticking away. This all being said is not to scare you, but to prepare you for the fact that you really aren’t going to sleep much.

What I Learned from Prepping and Night One

My biggest takeaway from this night was that if you have a team, utilize your team. My team was all family members with limited experience in bbq, but I should have utilized them. I could have had them stir beans, check temperatures on the smoker, throw a log on the fire, all things that don’t require knowledge of bbq to do. I tried to do everything myself and quite literally stayed up all night. If you don’t have a team, that is totally fine, it can be done, but if you do have people with you, use them and try and take care of yourself while you can.

Another thing I would suggest is to get everything together well in advance. I packed, and loaded everything the night before not realizing what a big undertaking it was all going to be. It ended up taking me close to four hours before everything was packed and loaded up ready to go. I could have easily avoided this if I had just casually packed some things here and there throughout the week and then just loaded it all up the night before.

These are minor things that I will make sure that I work on for next time! Nothing was catastrophic, but they are things that could have saved me time and could have allowed me to take care of myself just a little bit better prior to the event. Plus, it just relieves stress! You can never go wrong removing some stress out of your life!

The Big Day: Smoke, Sweat, and Smiles

As the sun rose and the adrenaline started to kick in, everything started to become more real. The long drawn out temperature checks on the smoker throughout the night would soon turn in to more frequent internal temperature checks, basting, spritzing, and meat resting. It was essential to stay on track and to make sure that I was hitting all my temperatures on time. The last thing I wanted to do was to serve the judges cold meat that had been done for several hours or even worse, undercooked meat that could make them sick.

Beans

I won’t lie about my experience, it didn’t start great. My first turn in time was at 10:00AM, beans. I had been tending to my beans all night. 7:00AM, beans were still hard and the sauce was too thick. 8:00AM, beans were still hard and the sauce now tasted funny because of the corrections. 9:00AM, beans are STILL hard, but at the least the sauce is better! 9:45AM, uh oh. I was definitely a little frazzled. This was my first competition and the first thing I was going to turn in was going to be hard beans. Luckily, I was able to keep my head on straight and just roll with the punches. I have made these beans countless times. I honestly have no idea what went wrong, but I couldn’t worry about that now, the chicken turn in time was coming up and I had to hit it perfect.

Chicken

My chicken recipe is a unique one. I use this Apple Butter Chicken Recipe that is always a huge hit at home. It is a combination of sweet and spicy that is complimented perfectly by the smoke flavor. My prep was going just as planned and the chicken was right cooking right on cue. My chicken turn in time was 11:30AM. At 11:10AM my chicken was sitting right at 164 degrees, I was shooting for 167 degrees just to be safe, but not overcooking enough to dry it out. As I pulled the chicken off, it was quite literally dripping juices, exactly what I was hoping for. I placed it on the cutting board, sliced it in half and made my way to the turn in table.

I was so excited about the chicken looking as good as it did, and dripping juices I forgot to taste the other half. At this point though, there was nothing that I could do. If I messed it up, it was what it was. Luckily when I returned from turn in, I took a bite and couldn’t help but throw my fist in the air. I hit it spot on. It was delicious. Delicious enough to crack me a top 20 finish in chicken (spoiler alert). I honestly could’ve just left right then I was so excited, but I had more to cook, and my next turn in item was one that I didn’t even know where to begin, the rattlesnake.

Snake

I actually have to write an entire other blog post about the rattlesnake and all the interesting stories that went with that. Click here to read that adventure. Just know, cooking rattlesnake is hard, like really hard, and there is zero way to prep for it if you live in a major city like I do. What I decided to do was to smoke my rattlesnake and just to sauce it constantly. My goal behind this was to make sure it didn’t dry out. That’s all I have to say about the snake in this post. Check out this rattlesnake post if you are interested in reading more about the adventure that was cooking a rattlesnake.

Ribs

Next up was the ribs. This was the event that I was most excited for! I used my Rib Recipe, and it did not disappoint! I ran into one slight issue though, time. The thing that I knew would make or break me. Ribs were my event! If I was going to crack the top 10 in anything, it was going to be ribs. However, I pulled off my chicken and my snake, looked at my watch and I only had two hours to cook my ribs. It could be done, but certainly not ideal. I threw another log on the fire and boosted my temp up to make sure that my ribs would be done on time. I finished them and they were fine, but not what I felt like the could have been. All part of the learning experience!

Brisket

Finally, the king of bbq, it was time for brisket. My brisket plan was to get the brisket cooked as fast as possible and then to let it rest until the last possible second. I started my brisket prep late on Friday night, and had it on the smoker by 10:00PM. I cooked the brisket until it had an internal temperature of 204 degrees and was probe tender. I brought my Traeger with me to the competition and once the brisket was done, I placed the Traeger on “Keep Warm” and let the brisket just sit there until it was time to turn in. When I wrapped my brisket, I wrapped it in a foil pan so that all the juices would stay and I could keep the brisket moist while it rested. My plan worked! After close to six hours resting, it was time to slice and turn in my brisket. It was extremely moist and juicy. A win for sure.

In the Midst of Chaos, Some Quality Family Time:

Throughout the craziness of turn in times and making sure that everything was cooked correctly, I still had my kids running around and playing in the midst of all of it. I made sure to include several fun activities. What would a BBQ Cook-off weekend be without my son’s mini smoker and mini Blackstone. Those were essentials! We also brought things like horseshoes, ring toss, and lots of music and games. The kids also loved going to help turn in the meat when it was time! It also helped that there was a massive carnival next door to the competition lol. The kids had an absolute blast overall and also loved all of the good food!

Final Thoughts from a Wonderful Weekend

I have been through lots of different types of tired in my life. You have: Newborn baby tired, newborn baby twins tired, Disney World tired, and now, BBQ Competition tired. I was exhausted and so were the kids, but it was a great weekend. There is a lot of lessons that I took with me as well as made some connections with some incredible pitmasters that I hope to see again at competitions in the future. That was honestly the coolest thing I experienced here. Everyone knew each other and when someone won, everyone cheered or made friendly jabs at the winner. It was something that made me smile and glad that I got to experience this. I finished in the top 20 in two categories which is all I could have hoped for. I knew I likely was not going to get a top 10 finish in my first competition, but it is a goal I can work towards, and something that I can accomplish in the near future!

Conclusion

Whether you are a seasoned competitor or you are just thinking about testing the waters, I hope that you enjoyed my thoughts and my experience. I hope that it is something that you can take with you and if you have never done one of these, it is an experience that you cannot miss. I truly cannot wait until my next competition and to put my skills to the test to hopefully crack a top 10 finish! So fire up the smoker, trust in your instincts, and let the flames of passion light your way to culinary greatness.

Happy Competition Season!

Kaydon