Chicken Time

For last nights dinner I wanted to cook a chicken on the smoker, I haven't done that in a while, and yesterday was a real nice day to cook outside. I started with about a 6 lb bird and liberally coated it with the Smokin' Hoggz chicken rub and a little drizzle of olive oil. Started the coals for the smoker, with a full chimney of unlit Humphrey's hard wood lump charcoal and then a half of chimney of lit coals, I also added couple of pieces of black cherry and oak as well. I cooked it at about 250 degrees for the first hour (applied a thin glaze of sauce after first hr)  and 300 degrees for the rest of the cook (1 1/2 hrs). Total cook time was about 2 1/2 hrs. After it was done I let it rest for about 15 min. The chicken came out awesome, I couldn't believe how tender and juicy the white meat was. I tell you if I could get this to work for competition, watch out. until next time. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Practice Brisket

Here is a brisket I cooked today. I've been thinking about some different combinations of marinades,rubs, and injections and decided on one to try. This one came out very good, the meat had very good flavors and was very moist, but just a little on the overcooked side. I think I need  to work on the the timing a little bit, but hey, that's what practice is for.

Pics from BBQ Brethren

6th Place Chicken

4th Place Pork

Meat @ Slims wins Battle of the BBQ Brethren

Well we just got back from the Battle of the BBQ Bethren and had a real good time despite almost getting carried off by the Nor'easter that came through on Saturday night. First off I would like to congratulate  the Meat @ Slims BBQ team for winning Grand Champion, they got calls in chicken(4th), ribs(1st), and brisket(7th) Awesome job guys!!!!! With that win they get an invitation to the 2010 American Royal and get put into the draw for the 2010 Jack Daniels.

We also had a very good weekend, we finished 16th overall out of 45 teams, and got two calls also, chicken(6th), and pork(4th). Pork has been one of our worst categories all year long, no matter what we did nothing worked. Looks like all of that practicing the past few weeks has payed off.

We didn't feel like driving down the NYC and dealing with all of the city traffic, especially on a Friday afternoon. So we drove to New London CT and took the ferry over to Orient Point, from there we had about an hour and a half drive to Sayville. I never realized there were so many vineyards on Long Island, it was a very scenic drive to Sayville, and I would definately go that way again.

Anyway, we got there around 2:45PM and there was one other team there waiting, I talked to Eric Devlin, one of the organizers, he said it would be about another hour until they would be ready for the teams to start setting up, that was fine because I still had to go out and buy the pork butts for the contest. Come to find out there was a Restaurant Depot about three mile down the road, and also if you are a KCBS member you can shop there(they are not open to the public) All I have to say about Restaurant Depot is AWESOME!!!!!!

We got back to the site and we set up. It pretty much rained on and off all night until the morning, then it cleared up and it was pretty good all day until about 8 PM, when all hell  broke loose. There was so much rain and wind, half of our site was under water. Poor Shaune thought we were going to be sucked up in a twister like in the Wizard of Oz, she was holding on for dear life while Al and myself sat there drinking beer. It was amazing that there was not any damage, except for one EZup from one of the vendors. Thankfully we got through it without a scratch.

All in all it was a great weekend. We definatley ended the season on high note.

Battle of the BBQ Brethren

Well it has been about 4 weeks since my last post. I needed to take a break and regroup from the last couple of contests in which we did not do so well in. We have been able to do a few practice sessions to try and work out some of our problems, and it seems to be going in the right direction. We have one more practice session this week as we prepare for the our next contest. We are going to Sayville NY, to participate in the Battle of the BBQ Brethren, this will be our first time competing in this event, and we are very excited. There are about 44 teams signed up for this event. Time to put on our game faces and bring home the money.

Harvard Fall Festival

GC - Ique
RGC - I Smell Smoke
3rd -Lakeside Smokers
4th -Uncle Jed's BBQ
5th - Mighty Swine Dining

Congratulations to Ique for winning GC and I smell smoke for RGC at the Havard Fall Festival, also congratulations goes out to the boys over at Mighty Swine Dining for placing 5th overall in a very strong field of 40 teams, and also getting a 2nd in Saturdays peoples choice (Chicken Wings) and a 1st on Sundays Peoples choice (Pulled Pork), great job guys you deserve it.
We on the other hand, did not fair so well, a very disappointing weekend for the Smokin' Hoggz BBQ team (35th out of 40). We tried a couple of new things that didn't go over very well with the judges. Looks like it is back to the practice kitchen for us. Although we didn't do well, we had a great time hanging out with good friends and meeting new teams competing for the first time. You know it is really good to see new teams competing at all the events, it just shows how big competition BBQ is getting.

Oysterfest, Norwalk CT

Congratulations goes out Mike and Kris from Lakeside Smokers for their win at the Oysterfest, this makes 3 GC's (Grand Champion) this year for them. Keep up the great work. Also congrats goes out to Ocean County Pig Assassins for their RGC (Reserve Grand Champion).