This was our second year coming out to Rochester, NY for the Roc City Ribfest. We had such a good time last year that we just had to do it again. We left early Friday morning and arrived at Ontario Beach Park around 1:00 in the afternoon. The weather was a bit cooler than I had hoped for, but what can you do. Once we finally found our site we started unpacking and setting up what would be our home for the next few days. Our site this year was awesome, we were right along the boardwalk overlooking Lake Ontario.
Around us this weekend was Big Guns BBQ, 2 Worthless Nuts, Lakeside Smokers, Show Me Your Rack and Beverage Brothers. This was going to be a fun weekend!!!!
Friday night we got all of our meat prepped for Saturdays NEBS Grilling Contest (Scallops, Cornish Hen, Tri-Tip, and Bacon) and the ribs for the Roc City Rib Off. The remainder of the night was spent hanging with friends, trying to keep dry and listening to the Bruins game.
Saturday was a good day but we did not finish as well as we hoped in the NEBS Grilling Contest. We ended up finishing 20th out of 57 teams. Our best was the Cornish Hen which came in 6th. Congrats to our friends Mike and Kris from Lakeside Smokers for kicking ass and winning Grand Champion... great job guys!!!!!
Next up was the Rib Cook Off. The event organizers decided to change things up a little on the judging, they charged $20 per person to judge the ribs and all the proceeds went to the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester, NY. They were able to raise about $2000!!!!! We ended up placing 6th out of 124 teams. We were pretty psyched about that!!!!
Sat night was a typical night at a contest, hanging out with friends, drinking beer, bourbon and eating Damn Dip!!! The big meats went in smoker around midnight, it ran like a finely tuned sports car all night, the only thing we had to do was fill up the water jug around 4 AM. Sunday morning was here and we were getting ready for crunch time. Shaune did a great job on the boxes as usual, we were ready for our first turn in. Everything was on time and we were very happy with what we turned in. Now it's time to wait for the awards. During this time I like to start packing up, it keeps my mind occupied from worrying about how we did.
Finally it's time for the awards...84 teams waiting eagerly for the results. We were 38th in chicken. 8th in Ribs which was big for us because our ribs had always been average. 11th in Pork, just missed getting a call. 1st in Brisket, WOW, I couldn't believe it!!!! As we were going up to get our trophy, Al and I went to give each other a high five and missed, Al's thumb landed in my left eye temporarily blinding me (look at he pix above), nothing a few PBR's can't fix. Knowing that we had gotten two calls I thought we had a pretty good chance of getting somewhere in the top 20. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine a GC, and sure enough they called us for overall winner. Our very first Grand Championship!!!!!!!!!!What an awesome feeling, here it is almost two weeks later and it still doesn't seem real.
