The goal for our inaugural season was to enter 4 certified KCBS competitions, have fun and get at least a few calls. We accomplished all 3 of those!
Being new to the competition game this season was filled with a lot of trial and error and knowing what we needed to bring to a comp and what we didn’t need to bring…let’s just say our first competition in St. Joe, MO we not only brought everything and the kitchen sink, we brought the plumbing connected to the sink and the city water lines connected to the sink! The Weekend Bum BBQ van was loaded for bear!
The Apple Blossom competition in St. Joe, Mo was May 5-6 and we couldn’t have asked for a better set up for space and weather for our first competition. We got set up next to an old college buddy, Grill Sergeant Barbeque, and made new friends with guys like Toad Hollar BBQ, Bucky’s Badass BBQ and Parrothead Smokers. Friday night was full of entertainment with friends who lived in St. Joe. There was an option blind judging People’s Choice of 2 pork butts they provided. Kevin wasn’t sure how easy it would be to juggle all the meat on only 2 cookers and didn’t want to do the PC. Jake convinced him to do it, what did we have to lose? We cooked People’s Choice pork butts and chicken on our Cookshack PG500 and ribs, pork and brisket on our RipTangle. Turn-in time was more intense than we could’ve imagined! Being so paranoid about timing we had our box of ribs ready to go 5 min before the earliest time to turn in! When we got to awards we were exhausted, lack of sleep, Busch Light and the hustle of comp time had gotten to us. We were just excited to be sitting down. People’s Choice was first, after they announced 2nd place Jake joked that the winner was Weekend Bum BBQ…we both laughed. Then they announced that the winner was a first time team (we were the only first time team!) and those magical words were said “First Place People’s Choice…Weekend Bum BBQ”! We couldn’t believe it! We were given a nice big trophy. That was enough for us to blow our expectations out of the water, but then a few minutes later we heard the magical words again “7th place chicken….Weekend Bum BBQ”! A ribbon was awarded. No other calls, but we didn’t need them. The drive home from St. Joe was filled with an energy and dreams of what could be next!
Results: People’s Choice Port Butt – 1st, Chicken – 7th, Ribs – 26th, Pork – 22nd, Brisket – 29th, Overall – 21st.
In June we shot for a larger competition and one that brings in a lot of the big boys, Smokin’ On The Summit in Lee’s Summit, MO. This was going to be a birthday competition for Kevin, held June 2-3…that didn’t bother him. Good ‘ol Midwest heat & humidity had arrived, being on an asphalt parking lot didn’t help much. Again, Friday night we had friends from the area come out and enjoy food, drinks and company. We got to meet some good people and our friend Charcoal Monkey BBQ came down from Omaha to compete. Now, remember I said it was Kevin’s birthday and one of our goals is to have fun…well, we did! Chicken wasn’t prepped ahead of time so Kevin went to town on that while Jake focused on creating pristine boxes. Let’s just say there should be a warning label on Fireball to NOT trim chicken while consuming. The thumb was not lost, but it did get wrapped up well at 2:30am! Results weren’t spectacular on anything we cooked and we knew it…too much fun. We learned our lesson, have fun, but control it! Our friend Charcoal Monkey BBQ ended up Reserve Grand Champion…very happy for him.
Results: Chicken – 27th, Ribs – 46th, Pork – 19th, Brisket – 31st, Overall – 32nd
The first weekend in August Kevin was invited by his friend Chris at Code 3 Spices to come observe and help at the Route 66 competition in Eureka, MO. This is a SLBS competition, which basically follows the same rules as KCBS. Code 3 has a beautiful competition/catering trailer. He met so many good people and had a great time…but not too good of a time! The morning of turn-ins we were fortunate to have Dave Stidham come join us, talk about a wealth of competition BBQ knowledge…WOW. It was amazing just to watch him and Chris work.
Early on, the idea was to do mostly smaller comps, hoping to lessen the competition and get a chance at a call. So, there was a small 2nd year competition in Winston, MO called Smokin’ Trackside located at the I-35 Speedway dirt track. Well, the good news was that there were only 25 teams that signed up…the bad news was that at least 6 of the teams were in the top 15 in the country with the rest being somewhere in the top 100…this was like a mini-American Royal! That said the friendliness and showing of support for new guys like us was amazing! Everyone has been in our shoes at one time before and they let us know if we needed anything. That’s what I like about competition BBQ almost more than getting a call (have to love that!), I have yet to meet anyone at any level who isn’t friendly. The morning of the competition we were joined by Mr. Smokin’ Elvis himself, Randall Updike. Randall’s been competing for years and we’ve known him for almost 30 years. Not only did he bring us beer, but our very own Elvis Mr. Potatohead! We were pleased with all of our entries, but this was a top field. Happy with what chicken did.
Results: Chicken – 13th, Ribs – 25th, Pork – 19th, Brisket – 23rd, Overall – 22nd
Kevin is a certified KCBS judge, really all that means is he paid $100 to sit in a class on how to judge BBQ. Not much else. He figured on way to learn how to cook good BBQ is to judge an event or two each year, so he was lucky enough to get signed up to judge the Sam’s Club competition on September 9th. This had some of THE top cooks in the country. It’s amazing what goes into the judging side of an event, if you ever get a chance to judge…go for it.
Our last competition of the season was picked as our “American Royal” last hurrah! Jesse James Days BBQ Competition in Kearney, MO on September 15th and 16th. This is also our friend Randall’s backyard, we were parked right next to Randall and Jeff. Friday night was a good ‘ol time with family and friends. A lot of prep work went on that night so there were plenty of questions of “why do you do that?” and “how is that done again?” We were cooking on 2 new smokers for this final event, had purchased 2 used Hunsaker Drums. Kevin learned first-hand how these worked while with Chris at Code 3 Spices and was impressed. So, we had 2 Hunsaker and our RipTangle. These smokers all cook hot & fast so sleep is a reality…if you choose to go to bed! Kevin pulled an all-nighter, some due to nerves and some due to “if I go to bed now I won’t wake up”! During turn-in everything was going great, food was coming out super. Then came one of the most devastating things you can experience at a competition….we missed turn-in on pork by less than a minute! Kevin was trying to cut the turn-in time down to the last second…cut it too close. Our first DQ, hopefully our last. What made it worse, that pork was the best we had cooked that season. No different than a QB throwing an interception, we had to have a short memory…brisket turn-in was next! Luckily we cooked 2 briskets this comp, one had perfect burnt ends, the other good slices. Exhausted and disappointed sitting at the awards we didn’t even hear our name…Randall had to tell me to get up and go get my ribbon for 10th in Chicken! Then a 5th place call in Brisket came…we edged out some of the top teams and were very pleased!
Results: Chicken – 10th, Ribs – 32nd, Brisket – 5th, Overall – 37th
We were tempted to sign up for one or two more comps after that, but held off. We sold the RipTangle and now have 3 Hunsaker Smokers painted a beautiful AMC Metallic Blue. The off-season is time for fine tuning and practice.