BBQ Craft

We are packed and ready to go! Tomorrow morning we will be heading to the National BBQ Festival in Douglas, Georgia.  We are competing in the “Best of the Best” invitational and the Open on the Wiley’s Championship BBQ team.

Hope to see you there!

I remember my first real pit barbecue sandwich. My grandfather grew tobacco on a small farm in Cobb, Kentucky. Every year on the way home from the tobacco auction, he would stop at Rip’s Barbecue in Gracey, Kentucky. I remember the sandwich very well. Nothing really special. Plain white hamburger bun, sweet spicy sauce, and smoked pulled pork. It was good but it represented much more than just a sandwich. It was a special event, a celebration, a good time. To me this is what barbecue represents almost everywhere I go.

Fast forward a few years…

My wife, the gourmet cook, frequently attends and assists chefs, in cooking classes at our local kitchenware store. A little over a year ago she came home from a barbecue class taught by Wiley and Janet McCrary. She brought home leftovers and was very excited about her discovery. Little did I know what was about to happen. “You have to try this brisket” she said. I dug right in. I don’t want to get all cheesy and say I had an epiphany or anything like that, but it was good. Amazingly good. Slightly sweet, spicy, tender, juicy, beautifully sliced brisket. And then she hit me with the next surprise- ribs. I could go on and on with the description but let’s just say it was better than any I had ever tasted. Where did this food come from? Why had I been deprived of this incredible BBQ my entire life? This was my first taste of competition BBQ.

Wiley’s Championship BBQ Opens

During my wife’s BBQ class the McCrary’s mentioned that they were opening a restaurant. Would it be the same amazing brisket I had sampled that night after the cooking class?

September 2008. Wiley’s Championship Barbecue opens in Savannah, Ga. Now my favorite restaurant. We started eating there at least once a week for lunch. I think I hold the record. Four lunches and one dinner in one week. We talk with the McCrarys about their BBQ career, the daily specials and even trade BBQ for computer services a few times. Trading something I love to do for something they love to do. How great is that! And yes, their brisket was still delicious.

My Turn at the Cooking Class

April 2009. My wife receives an email with a list of upcoming cooking classes. She notices that the McCrary’s are back on the list. Now it’s my turn. The classes fill up very quickly. The day they open the classes I was second in line to sign up. I bought four seats to bring along three of my Wiley’s BBQ addicted friends. The class was very insightful. Lots of emphasis on meat preparation, consistency and temperature. Wiley didn’t hold back and shared his secrets with everyone. That’s all I will tell you. If you want a few of Wiley’s secrets you will have to attend the class yourself. After it was over I thought to myself “This isn’t that hard, why isn’t everyone doing it?” I would soon learn how hard it can be. I started barbecuing every weekend after the class testing everything I had learned. My course was set with a stuck rudder. BBQ. Full speed ahead.

My First Competition- Dillard, Georgia

Dillard is now a memory, but it was a blast! Before the competition we had meetings, created spreadsheets, practiced recipes and none of it really prepared us for the actual event. Luckily we had a seasoned veteran for a captain- Janet McCrary. Wiley had to stay home and mind the restaurant. Would we let him down? Expectations were very high and we didn’t want to disappoint. Our team consisted of Janet, “Buckhead Janet” (another seasoned vet) ,a local attorney, my wife, the restaurant pitmaster and me (names withheld to protect the guilty). Most of us were rookies in the world of competition barbecue except Janet & Janet. Pork was my responsibility. I had been cooking butts almost every weekend for two months testing recipes that my BBQ mentor, Wiley McCrary, tossed at me over and over again. I ate more pulled pork in that two month period than I think I had in the previous five years. We finally settled on the recipe. An injection, two different rubs and a mop. We would cook six butts with the two different rubs and choose before turn in. Two days before the competition I made the injection and mop. I felt more like a chemist than a cook. Meticulously measuring the ingredients, careful to recreate what we had chosen as our recipe. All the time thinking “don’t screw this up”.

When we arrived at Dillard, setting up our site was controlled chaos at best. We had planned this to the nth degree. Three different vehicles converging on one spot assembling a puzzle that had never been put together. It was ugly, but we made it work. Who the hell brought the mini convection oven? What recipe called for that? It was never used…

Our spirits were high. Meat inspection was over so we dove right in. Trim, inject, rub, rub some more, check temp, add wood, adjust damper, mop, mop some more, is it time for chicken? We worked through the night tending a smoker that was difficult, to say the least. Its name was Bertha. Bertha ate around 150lbs of wood during cooking. And temperature control… let’s just say there wasn’t any. It really was like battling a beast. The ladies went back to the hotel that night. The guys didn’t manage to get any sleep. We took turns going to our hotel room to grab a shower. And we waited. I learned quickly that a BBQ competition was a lot like being in the military- moments of terror followed by hours of waiting around for the next big thing.

Next big thing- 30 minutes to turn in. What? IS the chicken ready?

Turn in after turn in we cranked it out. Our captain maintained a cool head and kept us on course. Chicken, done. Ribs, “I want another rack more done than this one in thirty seconds!” commands Janet. Pork, done. Brisket, done! Take a deep breath, relax, have a beer. Everyone grabs a chair and pretends to relax. Then we wait. Secretly we are all still going a hundred miles an hour in our heads. We start reviewing our turn ins over and over analyzing every little detail. Was that too much sauce? Was that the right rack of ribs? We start optimizing, without even thinking about it, what we will do next time. Next time? Wait! Who said there would be a next time?

Five P.M. We start walking toward the presentation area. A hundred or so people are already there. Fifty seven teams all gathered to hear their name called. First category chicken. As they get closer to the top spot your mind races. Is it possible? Did we place that high? It’s like a mental roller coaster of emotion each time they climb toward the winner. No joy on the chicken. Ribs. To be honest we didn’t think our ribs were our best product but Wiley had taught us well. The announcer starts, 10 nope, 9 nada, 8 – Bingo! We get called! 8th place ribs. The hook is now set. I will spare you the suspense. We didn’t get top ten in pork or brisket. We came close in pork, 11th place. Not bad for a team filled with rookies. We were extremely happy. We also had two top tens in the ancillaries. Grits and cabbage.

Yes, there will be a next time. And sadly, Bertha will not be attending. She has been retired.

Wiley and Janet McCrary are BBQ ambassadors. They put out incredible food and it speaks for itself. This blog isn’t big enough to recap their list of wins, accolades and accomplishments, so instead I will point you to their website www.wileyschampionshipbbq.com. If you ever get to Savannah, Georgia, stop by and try their barbecue. I am confident you will enjoy their restaurant. I am also glad to call them friends.

See you all in Douglas, Ga. Best of the Best and the Open.

We spent last weekend in Greenwood, SC sampling the Q and visiting some of the teams. It was a great event. Not too hot and plenty of interesting BBQ folk. While taking pictures of some of the teams during turn in prep, we were treated to a few samples of their turn in Q.  Based on those samples I am sure the judges had a great day tasting some really good Q. There was one slightly annoying aspect of the entire event- Food Network. They had at least six full camera crews setup and roaming around at the event. They were from the Food Network Challenge TV series. They had trip hazards everywhere. Between Bub-Ba-Q and Checkered Pig it was like a full TV studio setup (see pictures below). I guess that’s the price you pay for BBQ fame.

Google map of the teams: LINK

Competition results: LINK

All of our pictures from the contest: LINK