The Makings of an Obsession

It’s been a few weeks since our first BBQ competition in Rhode Island. The next one, the New Hampshire Rock’n Ribfest is one week from today. I’m starting to get fired up.

It turned out to be a great idea to do the Rhode Island competition. I chose that one to start because it was smaller, with only 21 teams participating. The idea was to get a little experience under my belt and not get trounced, as I had never done anything like this in my life. In fact, I had never even been to a BBQ competition before. My only experience was watching recaps of some of the big Q events on the Food Network, and from reading the many informative posts on the Virtual Weber Bulletin Board. Here’s a link to the board.

http://tvwbb.infopop.cc/groupee

I stumbled onto that site a few years ago after Sheila showed me an article about beer can chicken that intrigued me. I Googled beer can chicken and came across the board. That’s when I began learning about “low and slow” cooking.

I had always loved ribs. Going back to my teenage years, there was a restaurant in New York City called “Rusty’s.” Rusty Staub, a former baseball player for the Mets and a few other teams, owned the restaurant. My father used to bring me there from time to time, and the guy’s ribs were out of this world. Nothing like any ribs I had ever had before in my life. I guess that’s what laid the groundwork for the current obsession.

Too bad he had apparently opened his joint with backing from the mob, and in the early 1990's Rusty's was gone.

I went to college at the University of Alabama. The school is located in Tuscaloosa, which is also home to world famous Dreamland Ribs. This also helped fuel the fire.

http://www.dreamlandbbq.com/main/default.asp

Once I learned a little about how real Q is made, I decided that I needed a smoker. My mother had one of those el cheapo Brinkman’s water smokers sitting in her garage that someone had given her as a birthday present a few years ago. I believe it was only used once. It was Thanksgiving, and I have no idea what she did, but the turkey arrived at the table and was as black as night. This was not bark, the bird was completely burned. She never used the smoker again.

I took the thing and began experimenting. Made ribs first, then a Boston butt, and both turned out pretty good. Then, a life changing experience occurred.

For my birthday in March of 2005, Sheila gave me a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker.

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/grill/2005/charcoal/cg_sg_smk.aspx

I had done my research and knew this was the most cost effective backyard smoker out there. With a WSM, you could smoke around 10 racks of ribs at once. This is when I began getting serious.

I had learned about a BBQ competition in Connecticut at the Podunk Bluegrass Festival in East Hartford in August. My goal was to smack together a team and the equipment and enter that competition in 2005. It was just too soon, and logistically it didn’t work out.

However, we decided to have a BBQ for friends and family that same weekend at our house in New Haven. We invited some 40 people and around 30 showed up. I cooked 12 racks of ribs, two Boston Butts for pulled pork, a seven-pound brisket flat and around 30 chicken thighs. I cooked the butts and brisket overnight, pulling them off the WSM at around 8AM, wrapping them in foil and putting them in an empty cooler wrapped in towels to hold until the bash started. That freed up the WSM for 10 racks of ribs (some in racks and some rolled) and used the old Brinkman to do the chicken and the extra two racks of ribs.

I used all my own rubs, and made all my own sauces. The food was a big hit, and proved to me that I would be able to manage the four categories in the same day if I decided to compete.

I started getting serious in the beginning of 2006. I bought a second WSM, and a 22-inch Weber kettle and began assembling all of the other things needed to compete. I bought tables, chairs, sanitation stuff and all kinds of other things that are necessary to enter a competition. We did well in Rhode Island, but that was largely because of an extremely strong showing in brisket, where we finished second. We just missed getting a call for chicken and took sixth, but did not do well at all in ribs or pulled pork.

We have a lot of work to do in order to have a strong showing in New Hampshire. There are more than 30 teams entered, and several top teams that were at Memphis in May when the Rhode Island contest was going on will be at this one. There is no room for error. Hopefully we won’t shoot ourselves in the foot.

RI BBQ Competition

This weekend, my wife Sheila and I entered our first barbecue competition, the Ocean State Spring BBQ Cookoff in Warwick Rhode Island. I’ve cooked competition style BBQ for some time now, but this was the first time we have put it to the test. The goal I set for us for the weekend was simple, for our team, named "Q Haven," not to finish in last place overall out of the 21 teams competing in the event. We met that goal, and then some. First, the details.

We were the last team to arrive at the contest site, which was located in a parking lot of the Warwick Mall. The only site left was one in the back of the parking lot, but overall it was fine. We were located in between “Dirty Dick and the Legless Wonders” and “Big Boned BBQ,” two more experienced teams. They were kind not to laugh at Sheila and I as we pulled up and began putting our setup together. It must have been mildly amusing.

Here's our setup!

Our tent was a problem from the beginning. We had trouble getting it up in the first place, and within the hour the Rhode Island winds that were whipping snapped part of the tent. The people from Dirty Dick and Big Boned BBQ all jumped in and helped us save the tent, which was greatly appreciated. The rigging we were able to do saved the tent, and it barely survived the weekend. This is what I get for buying anything important from Wal-Mart.

Once we got things set up and stable, life was better and we got down to the part I know, the cooking. I had all of the recipes and timetables ready to go, so once the fire was going and the pork and brisket were on, we could relax.

It was certainly intimidating looking around at some of the other teams. Some of them had these massive, expensive smokers, trailers complete with kitchens, and nice tents. We came complete with two Weber Smokey Mountains (around $200 each), a Weber kettle, a $79 pop up tent from Wal-Mart, a few tables and our Sirius radio (a necessity). Needless to say we felt a little inadequate.

The overnight hours did not go well. I brought an air mattress to sleep underneath our pop-up tent. My wife Sheila has been very supportive of my efforts to start competing, but she has her limits and drove home to sleep there. The rest of our team (my brother Cristiaan and my sister Kathleen) both had to work Saturday night and would not be arriving until Sunday. So, I was alone to suffer through a windy night with temperatures in the 40’s. Miserable.

Once the serious cooking started Sunday, it was challenging but a whole lot of fun. As a new team, the last thing we wanted was to be late with any of our turn-ins. So, we were early with every one. Two times, Kathleen said that she had to wait until the turn in time started to hand over the container.

The first category was chicken, which we did pretty well and scored 6th out of 21 teams.

Next came ribs, which usually is one of my strengths, but I knew that this would not go well. Long story short, I bought bad ribs and overcooked them, and we finished 15th out of 21.

Pulled pork was next. The bark was great, but some of the meat we felt was a little flavorless. Finished middle of the pack, 12th out of 21 here.

Then, came the brisket.

As soon as I cut into the brisket, I knew it was special. The meat was juicy and tender, and the smoke ring was perfect. It was so good, that I completely abandoned plans to put a little sauce on it. The judges agreed with my assessment, and we took second in brisket, which is a big accomplishment for a rookie team. Even bigger, we finished in third place overall for the entire contest, which really stunned me. I never expected to score so well our first time out of the box.

While I handled most of the real cooking and all the planning, several people made key contributions that helped make the weekend such a success. Obviously my wife Sheila, who has been my biggest supporter and taster, and who was able to keep her temper in check as the expenses mounted over the last few weeks.

My brother Cristiaan was only there for the last few hours, but he is a restaurant lifer and really helped with the presentation of our turn in containers. No doubt this helped our appearance scores. He also knows food inside out, and from the second we finished our turn in he was convinced the judges would score the brisket well. He was surprised it didn’t win.

My sister Kathleen had one simple but very important job, to deliver our turn in containers to the judge’s table. She did a great job, and the high scores for appearance on all categories proved that she got the boxes there just as we intended them to be.

More big thanks go to my parents, who have been extremely supportive of us throughout. Everyone, including Sheila’s friend Sabrina and her boyfriend Rob, pitched in and helped us get the place cleaned up and packed the cars. Thanks all!

We will be cooking at another contest in June in New Hampshire, which should be more competitive with a lot more teams. That should be a lot of fun, and we’ll see whether our strong showing in Rhode Island was a fluke or if we are the “real deal.”

Joining the Ranks

Well, everyone else in the planet has themselves a blog, I might as well start one too.

In case you are some stranger who stumbled on this site, here's my story in short. I'm Ted Lorson, age 36, a radio news reporter toiling in Hartford, Connecticut. I live in Norwich, Connecticut with my lovely, tolerant wife Sheila and our four cats.

I plan to use this blog to deliver observations, poke fun at people, complain, and share stories with whoever feels like reading them. Check back often as I plan to update often.