Open technique BBQ competition

I have a BBQ competition this Saturday. There are basically no rules except use the meat you are given. I will have pork ribs and a pork shoulder. I don’t have a bunch of smoking experience but I have a BGE and I do know how to smoke. I had also given thought to incorporating some sous vide and even considered some wok finishing to glaze ribs. Definitely using a dry brine before hand. I have a personal rub mix I am comfortable with.

That being said, can the hard core smoking community give me some tips and ideas? Looking at you Tex. I will be prepping Friday through Saturday and serving at 5pm on Saturday.

I’ve done the sous vide/smoking combo a couple times. It never quite works out texture-wise. That’s an easy pass for me.

There are bbq competition tricks to make your food stand out. For instance most judges like a little sweetness, stuff like that.

Hmm -‘Parkerizing’ food!

I have never entered a sanctioned competition before, and I probably will not any time soon. David and Kevin above are correct in judges are looking for a certain manipulated end product that has indeed been “Parkerized”. Each judge will be looking for his/her respective favourite regional profile…sweet, spicy, too much/little smoke, etc.

Also, in most competitions visual appearance and even a verbal story are heavily weighted in the scoring. Having three pieces of perfect looking kale in a Styro box is akin to a pretty label on a wine bottle pushing the score to 100 points. Personally I don’t think people wait for hours in line at Franklin’s to have a pretty presentation piece on the table. Thank goodness most competitions no longer score on a deep red smoke ring.

Having said all of that, first and foremost go with what you know on your rig and don’t get fancy. The sous vide idea is one that I don’t like at all. Try to find out what exactly the judges will be tasting for as I stated above.

If it were me and I were given just two pork products, I would prepare two separate rubs for each product and use a mild fruit wood to smoke them both. For the shoulder, consider a fruit nectar injection of either apple or peach along with some cider vinegar. Don’t forget to add salt to the injection. Don’t under rub/season the ribs.

What is your plan for time, temp, foil/no foil, service, etc.?

There are countless recommendations about how to achieve BBQ perfection, but the best advice I have is make a plan and stick to it. The biggest issues I have encountered are controlling the variables like managing the stall (pork shoulder) or controlling temperature issues.

Most of the tricks the pros utilize would render a normal BBQ meal unappetizing after the third or fourth bite. Since most judges are taking one bite of your food, you want to maximize the flavor and appearance of that single bite. Think about the palate fatigue from eating five bags of Skittles and you’ll understand.

That being said, nuance won’t win many competitions. Keep your meat well seasoned, and I have found moisture is your friend for longer cooks, whether it is in the form of a spray bottle filled with apple juice/beer/water (mist that shoulder maybe 30-45 minutes after the second hour) or even a pan of water creating a steamy environment.

Also, remember to stay hydrated yourself because BBQ competitions are really just an excuse to enjoy several cold ones. Good luck!

Yeah probably overthinking it on the SV idea. But my thought was for the ribs. I’ve done them many times and the results are awesome. Strategy would be to smoke them to internal 125 then stick in SV for 24 hours. The I can either hot grill glaze or wok glaze.

The shoulder was thinking similar, but oven finish, then hit a hot smoky grill to finish.

But if I don’t do any of that then I would be targeting 225 smoking temps in the 8 to 12 hour range. Fruit wood, check. Good idea on the injection mix. Do you mean wrapping in foil on grill? No experience there so not sure. I assume you may wrap after internal gets over 130?

Shoulder would be cut on the spot served w choice of sweet bbq or mustard based. Ribs glazed and charred with either sweet bbq, or a spicy bbq mix with homemade apricot habanero jam added in.

Yes, foil on the grill. If you do, for the shoulder, I would not wrap until you hit the stall at 160 or so. My reasoning is that once it gets there, you stop the evaporative cooling and start steaming for tenderness in foil. Also, you will be able to capture the rendered fat in the foil and you can mix with reserved injection to reintroduce into the pulled pork if you need some extra moisture.

Foiling ribs is always a safe bet to follow 3-2-1. Three hours of smoke, two hours of foil and then the final hour of unfoiled smoke with a mop, spritz or glaze.

I do not like wrapping the meat in foil because I feel it changes the texture of the meat, especially the part of the meat that rests on the bottom of the foil package. I prefer to put a rack on a foil roasting pan. I then place the meat on the rack. Lastly I create a foil tent around the pan. The goal is to let air circulate around the meat.

That is an interesting technique.

Excellent tips, thanks.

My wife makes a fantastic turkey every year. In the past she would place one of those v racks inside the roasting pan. She asked me how she could get more “color” on the turkey. I mentioned that she should try using a different rack so that no part on the turkey was below the rim on the roasting pan. The results were rather dramatic. Air circulation baby!

On another note, use a bit (be very conservative) of curing salt to your rub. It will help in the creation of the “smoke” ring. Its purely cosmetic (it can be created without smoke), but people love to see it.

So…

I went straight smoker. Could not have been a worse day to do it. 20-25mph wind out of the south making vent control almost useless, and the wind flipped to north in 10 minutes at 4:30pm when the thunderstorms hit. My vents are a joke, the way the grill was facing made a bigger difference because of the pressure drop than vent setting. I went 3-2-1 on the ribs with apple and peach wood. I rubbed the ribs 36 hr in advance with my own mix. I did 3 different mops, but the judged mop was simply sweet ray’s with a touch of cider vinegar that I find is critical to making a balanced bite. I did one rack with a Carolina mustard bbq, it was fantastic. I also did a rack with a thai inspired sauce of bbq, fish sauce, tamarind concentrate, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sriracha, chili sauce, that was pulled from service so I could wok them on a propane burner. Surprisingly they were not as epic as the sous vide version I have done so will have to work on that, but still really good.

Here is the rig that beat me. This is a $10,000 custom smoker, a Nascar trailer, and a team of 6 guys. I had a big green egg and me, along with my 2 year old who doesn’t do much grilling.

…

I was 2nd place of 20 teams. This was the first time I have done smoked ribs.

I used Jay’s method of racking and tenting for the 2 hour portion.

Great job Kenny (and son)!

Congrats! You definitely won on QPR…

Outstanding.

I made some ribs on Saturday with your inspiration:

Congratulations!