Emptied my shopping cart during the livestream yesterday. So awesome that it came today with the free shipping!

Well, it seemed like there was some interest in following along with us this year, so I’m going to start this post and add to it as we go through the season.

To start, a little background on the team. There’s 5 of us - myself, my wife, and 3 other guys - who all were athletes at various levels when we were younger. As we got older and fatter, playing soccer, basketball and football were becoming less of a possibility at a competitive level, and were looking for an outlet for that competitive spirit.

So, in 2012, we signed up to compete in the American Royal World Series of BBQ. This is the largest BBQ competition in the world, drawing teams from Europe, Asia, and all over North America to compete here in KC for a world championship. We didn’t think we’d do anything like win that our first time out, and we were excited to have a weekend with the boys (plus my wife) and hang out and have some beers while making food.

Well, we didn’t win. We didn’t come close. But we did beat 20% of the field and had an absolute blast doing it. We decided to keep going forward and do a few more of these the next year.

Fast forward to today, and we have evolved. We realized there’s a lot cheaper ways to drink beer with your friends, and that if we wanted to keep doing these things we needed to get serious about it, or quit. We chose to get serious. We have been that way for about 3 years now, and we finished last year ranked 24th overall in the world, and 8th in pork, and in the top 20 in brisket and ribs, and top 50 in chicken #frickenchicken

So I’ll be chronicling our adventures this year, which already is promising to be interesting. I did a steak contest last weekend, and we have our first BBQ comp this weekend, and a double the weekend after. After that the next 5 we were scheduled to do have either moved their date, or postponed still due to the pandemic (no comment). I wonder if some of them are looking for a reason to not do it, but I also know that a lot of these are put on by either non-profits or city parks departments, etc, and none of them can really afford the bad press that comes with holding a food contest during a pandemic and then people potentially getting sick. Plus, many rely on the public turnout to turn a profit, so I get it.

In the next post, I will recap the steak contest I cooked last weekend, including some pics. Thank you to everyone who reads a follows along, and if you want to hit us up on the socials we are @meatrushmorebbq on everything, but mainly Facebook and Instagram.

Last weekend the American Royal put on their first ever Backyard BBQ competition, and steak cookoff. Backyard competitions are typically 2 meat affairs (chicken and ribs), and are a great way for people to get their feet wet in competition bbq without feeling like they are going up against the “big boys.” We do not qualify for a backyard contest, as we’ve done too many of the “master series” or “pro” competitions, and won too much. However, the steak contest was open to all, so I paid the entry fee and went down to Hale Arena in KC to cook some steak, and try and win some cash.

Cooked the steaks on my PK Grills TX, with Grill Grates over Royal Oak briquettes (we always use RO charcoal, it’s my favorite charcoal - and I’ve tried a lot of them). Steak contests are nice, because the meat is provided, it’s a short, one day cook, and who doesn’t want to eat some steak? Usually, the steak you’re given is a ribeye, and you draw for what order you pick your steaks in. It then works as a snake draft, so if you get the first pick, you get the last pick for your second steak. Right in the middle is generally where you want to be. You can get a pretty good steak the first time, and they’re not all picked over the second.

I got the final pick in the first round, which means I got back to back picks. Instead of ribeyes, these were strip steaks. I’m not going lie - I don’t really eat strip steaks. I rarely go out for steaks, and if I’m cooking one at home, I’m not going to let the $3 or whatever a ribeye might cost more than a strip deter me from buying what I really want. It had been years since I cooked a strip. I wasn’t super confident in what I was going to do, but I put a plan together.

I got some of the exterior fat trimmed off, and got it into a shape I thought would cook more evenly. I then whipped up a marinade with Beef Consume, some spices, and a tenderizer and let that set for a bit. I then rubbed it, and got the fire going.

Cooked the first, practice steak, and overshot the doneness just a tad after carryover, so I backed it down a couple degrees in order to keep it more moist and tender.

Then it was boxing time. This is where my wife is Queen. She sees things that I just never pick up on and is able to make those adjustments to make sure that we are presenting the best looking entry we can.

AND…off to turn ins

Then we got to relax and wait for awards. Ended up taking home 3rd place, which I was happy with. I didn’t feel as comfortable with the strip as I would have been a ribeye, and I don’t think I nailed tenderness. The judges mostly agreed giving me good, but not great scores in tenderness though they all really liked the taste and appearance.

Next up is BBQ in Olathe KS this weekend!

As someone new to this hobby, and new to Walton’s, I do hope that you keep your YouTube presence up, simply because that’s how I found you, and the quality of the videos and the information led me here, and, ultimately, to spending the first $300 of what I assume will be many hundreds of dollars with your store. Now that I’ve found you, that won’t change without YouTube, but I am sure there are many like me who have not found you who would be good customers out there lurking in YT land, maybe not even realizing they want to process meat yet.

This didn’t suck

After cleaning up and loading up, we headed down to the awards ceremony, to await our fate. We ended up taking 2nd in both ribs and pork, each one within a point of a perfect score. We were hit pretty good on chicken and brisket though, and landed 19th out of 70 teams overall. When you’re competing in a field like this, the margins for error are tiny. We were only a couple scores outside of the top 10, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Up next we have a double this weekend, and it’s what we call a “rolling double” which means we’ll cook Saturday, clean up, and head to another contest to cook Sunday. It’s a ton of work, but we get a chance to take one day of PTO on friday and cook 2 contests, so we like to do them when we can.

Thanks for reading!

I’m a banker during the day. I manage a branch, and generally enjoy it. I’m not any good at playing politics, so that has hurt me in the past, but I do enjoy what I do, especially my interactions with small business owners and helping them achieve their dreams.

I’m always interested in the foil vs paper debate. Unlike some of the debates that happen over and over, I don’t think there’s a right/wrong answer. It’s about preference. If you want a thicker, crunchier bark, run naked. If you want a more tender product, but virtually no crunch, run foil. If you want somewhere in between, run paper.

Personally, I’m a tenderness guy. I use foil for virtually everything.

I have a competition BBQ team, competing around the KS/MO region. We did 24 competitions last year, and have plans to do around the same number this year (though it will feel like less, since COVID made it a very condensed season last year). The season is getting ready to get going next weekend (actually, I have a steak cookoff this weekend), and I was wondering if anyone would want to follow along on our year this year?

Last year we finished 24th in the world overall, 20th in both brisket and Ribs, and 8th in pork. In a normal year, if you’re not doing 35+, you’re not doing enough to get that high in the rankings, so we’re not planning on being that high again, but we will certainly give it a go. I find myself looking for outlets outside of Facebook and Instagram to share my experiences, triumphs, and failures, so if there’s interest, I’d love to share about the Comp BBQ world, and all that’s going on in it.

In addition to competing, I’m also on the KCBS rules committee, work part time in a BBQ shop (way more fun than my real job) and think about BBQ (and now meat processing) pretty much all the time.

Let me know if you’d be interested in reading about this topic, and I’ll start one up next week!

A water pan isn’t necessary, though I use one sometimes for various reasons in different style of cookers. For a propane cooker, I don’t know that I’d worry about it.

As was mentioned before, pork butts are super forgiving. About the only thing you can do to screw it up is undercook it (not undercook safety wise, but tenderness wise). Even then, you can slice it and still make some good sandwiches. There is a ton of fat in them, as well, which makes them very accommodating to higher heat. Don’t be afraid to bump it up a little. Whatever your cooking at, I almost guarantee you can up it by 25 degrees, cut a couple hours off the cook, and end up with the same product in the end.

I’m also a big fan of wrapping them in foil, with some vinegar sauce, and then using the collected drippings to mix back in with the pulled. This gives a nice, moist product, but doesn’t come across like a “sauced” product, either, if that makes sense.

So I made up the pork cheddar summer sausage the other day. It was a bit of a s---- show, with my pellet cooker having issues, so I ended up doing them mostly in the oven and then sous vide. It’s good, but certainly not what I would call summer sausage. More of a ham loaf, or something of the sort. I’ll tell ya though, with some more cheese and some crackers? I ate it up!

So, while I didn’t get what I was necessarily after, I’m calling my first crack at cured/smoked sausage a success. I have some wagyu beef brisket trimmings that I’m going to turn into snack sticks next, and I’m going to work on changing my jalapeno cheddar fresh sausage into a cured one.

Thanks to everyone for all the help I’ve received over the last few months as I’ve gotten into this. You guys rock!

I’m a banker during the day. I manage a branch, and generally enjoy it. I’m not any good at playing politics, so that has hurt me in the past, but I do enjoy what I do, especially my interactions with small business owners and helping them achieve their dreams.

Moisture retention. I thought a lot of people used it in fresh sausages. Maybe not, but I’ve liked my previous results with it.

Tex_77 cool. I was a bit concerned because I used carrot fiber and wasn’t sure if that would ha e some negative impact not having the extra moisture for itt o hold on to.

OK, ok… I know the answer is not too bad, but I got you to click on the thread. I’m also curious what will await me.

Last night I made up about 25 lbs of jalapeño cheddar brats, and 25 lbs of pork summer sausage. After mixing and stuffing the brats, I got everything ready to mix the summer sausage, and I realized I never added water to my mix on the brats.

I corrected that and made sure to use it in the summer sausage, but I’m curious when I cook these brats up, what will happen? Will they be dry? I felt like the seasoning mixed fairly evenly, am I wrong and some will be bland and others too salty?

How bad did I mess up?

Pivodog used to use a chopper just like that at the grocery store back in high school. It was the 90s,but we still made our own salads for the salad cases, etc and we used this all the time.

gChart said in How to Make Homemade Summer Sausage - Recipe:

I’d be curious to hear of your results of you do try it. Mine is almost always 50/50 venison and pork butt. But sometimes those pork butts are so darn cheap, I’ll likely forgo the venison at some point when I want to do some experimentation.

I’m going to try it this week. I’ll let you know. I think I’m also putting some cheddar in it because I have extra high temp cheddar sotto g around I need to probably use.

I’m always interested in the foil vs paper debate. Unlike some of the debates that happen over and over, I don’t think there’s a right/wrong answer. It’s about preference. If you want a thicker, crunchier bark, run naked. If you want a more tender product, but virtually no crunch, run foil. If you want somewhere in between, run paper.

Personally, I’m a tenderness guy. I use foil for virtually everything.

Yeah, it’s definitely on the list. The wife started asking how much we’re into this last night, so I might have to hold off for a few months until she forgets, lol. Maybe the foodsaver will “break” at some point this year!

Has anyone ever done all pork summer sausage? I have an abundance of pork butts, and was thinking trying just a cheddar/pork summer sausage. My concern is that missing out on some red meats would change the flavor too much from what we normally think of with summer sausage.