Archive for September, 2008

This again provided to be a pretty fun contest and you couldn’t ask for better weather. 

Let me first jump into the good part.  First, the contest organizers did a fantastic job.  They delivered ice to you, picked up your trash and ran through the awards like they had places to go.  It was one of the most well run contest I have been to.  Friday night was a peoples choice.  We were given pork loins to serve to the public. The event raised $1500 for 4H  I also met a lot of people from the BBQ Brethren forum.  BBQ people are some of the best around. 

Now the bad.  There were some real characters out.  First the team across from us was all the way from Texas.  They were super nice and helpful people but they played country music so loud I couldn’t hear my own music.  It wasn’t just the music, it was 1970’s era country music that makes you want to get drunk and kick the dog.   Each twang from George Jones’ guitar sent a shivver up my spine.  Then we had the rednecks in front of us.  Let me explain.  Our spot was 40′ long but to get the ramp down I had to unhithc my truck. Well, the people in front of us also had a camper and backed up right in front of us.  Not a big deal usually.  Except these people didn’t realize after you turn in your last item you start packing up.  Or after the awards you start packing up. They had about 10 people standing around and only about two doing any work.  We waited for well over an hour on them before I could get hooked up and out of there.

Then there is the ugly.  Scoring.  Not sure what it is in the Council Bluffs/Omaha area with the judging, but it was the lowest of the year.  We were 75 points off our season average.  I thought we had the best overall cook of the year too.  We finished middle of the pack with only a top 10 in sausage which was an optional category.  To put the scoring in perspective (scale is 0 to 180), of the four main categories, only one of them had more than five teams score over 160.  A majority of the scores were under 150.  In most Iowa competitions, scores of 150 an under are usually less than 10 teams, not 30 or more like this one.  For as much fun as this contest is, I just can’t see further entry in here with such low scores.  What that tells me is the judges are too critical and over think the entry or they were not properly trained on what to look for.  Our friends from Iowa also cooked this contest and faired similar to us.  They had been in the top 3 overall the last 3-4 contest prior to this one.  I am sure they feel the same way.

What a great weekend in Independence.  You couldn’t ask for nicer weather.  This is one of my favorite contest just for the fact that there is tons of power available and the sites are huge.

The contest grew to 33 teams this year with 2 no shows.  On Saturday they have a beer festival with many samples avalable.  This also grew to 90 beers this year.  That brought quite the crowd.  Saturday we also provided lunch to Dawn’s family and had quite a good turnout.

Now as far as the BBQ.  Lesson learned.  Didn’t cut the ribs on foil this time and guess what?  6th place.  That was kind of nice to get back in the top 10 considering the Dubuque issue.  We tried a different sauce on the chicken as we have not had great luck up in that area with ours.  Not quite good enough to get in the top 10 with it.  Overall our only call was in ribs but we did finish 12th overall.  This was the last competition in Iowa.  It was also the last contest for Ken Nelson, the KCBS rep.  Ken does a great job at contest and always stops by to chat.  Ken has done a great job keeping things moving at these.  Good job Ken.