Archive for September, 2009
Buster Dog BBQ to cook at the American Royal
Sep 28th
Buster Dog BBQ will be cooking with Dr. BBQ this weekend at the American Royal BBQ contest. The contest features more than 600 teams from around the country.
River City Roundup wrap up
Sep 27th
Buster Dog BBQ competed in the River City Roundup in the parking lot of the Qwest Center in Omaha, NE. This is always a lively event as the Ak-Sar-Ben rodeo is going on inside the Qwest center, along with lots of horse and cattle trading. There was a fair amount of foot traffic most of the day. We were in Brethren row. Most of the teams in our row are part of the BBQ Brethren. We were setup next to Big T’s and across from Jack Daniels winner 4 Legs Up. I got there early due to the tight spacing. As I sat and watched teams come in, I never saw so many teams arrive to a contest with everything in their pick up truck. I think I counted six or more Char Griller smokers. Nothing against them. You got to start someplace.
Friday night was a peoples choice pork loin. It was met with huge success despite light rain showers. We did not participate as the time interfered with our prep work. Additionally my buddy Casey and his dad came to hang with us for the contest.
Saturday turned into a really nice day with a little rain giving way to some sun. at 9:22 we did an Iowa Shot. There were a small handful of teams from Iowa so we got together at our site for one last toast on the season (we did let a few from Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas join in). We then got to our food. Everything seemed to be cooking ok and all was right on schedule. We did a sausage entry as well. As I walked around giving samples to some teams I was cautiously optimistic it would do well. We finished 9th in sausage. Same as last year. I was a little worried about our chicken, just as I have been the past few contest, because it just isnt meeting my standards after trimming. The only reason I am sticking with it is because I know how it cooks. I thought it was a little spicy and we had a hard time finding 6 pieces we really liked. The judges must have really liked it as we finished first in chicken for the second contest in a row.
We had some really nice ribs and they seem to be getting back on track. I made a slight adjustment to them back in Vermillion and it worked again this week. We finished 7th overall in ribs. ON to pork where we have done well, no calls. In fact, DAL – Dead Ass Last. The slices we used just weren’t good quality after cooking. We should have just shredded and turned in but kept to our routine. The brisket was what I thought might have been my best this year and just missed the top 10, finishing at 11th place. Overall Buster Dog BBQ finished 12th out of 47 teams. It was our last contest and I am pleased the way we finished the last half of the year.
River City Roundup – Omaha,NE
Sep 20th
Our last contest of the year coming up. River City Roundup at the Qwest Center in downtown Omaha, NE has been hit and miss for us. Our first year there we had two top 10’s and 7th overall. Last year we finished 32nd. It sure would be nice to finish the year with a win.
It’s a small world
Sep 13th
So Dawn was talking to the team next to us while I was cleaning up in Vermillion. She then yells at me and tells me the guy there judged my ribs in Dubquque last year. He was telling her that he was worried his chicken would be disqualified because it bled a little. She explained we had ribs dq’d once. Talking further he was a judge at the table where I had a small piece of foil attached to the back of a rib. Probably cost us that contest as he also echoed with the rep that the ribs were the best of that day. That guy was from Minnesota.
Vermillion, SD
Sep 13th
So this past weekend, Buster Dog BBQ competed in the Ribs, Rods and Rock N Roll BBQ contest in Vermillion, SD. Not a contest we had planned on going to until the end of July after finishing 3rd in the LaPorte BBQ contest. Dawn and I knew we were close to winning and needed another contest to give it a shot.
My plan was to go to Vermillion on Thursday night after David’s football game in Marshalltown. I like to get to contest early because of my trailer size. Figured it would be 12 or 1am when I got there and I would just sleep in the camper for a few hours. Well, it was 745 when we got back from Marshalltown. By the time the brisket and chicken were trimmed it was 915 or something. I drove the trailer around in front of the house to finish loading when I saw I had a flat tire. Dang, we just filled them up Wednesday and it wasnt flat. So down to Flying J to fill up and come home to watch for a little bit. After an hour I went out and could feel air coming from the valve. Where can you get this fixed at 11pm? I was thinking crap, I am going to have to wait till morning and try to get it someplace and it will be like 1pm when I get to Vermillion. Luckily Bosselmans Truck Stop’s service was open till midnight and I got there all 1145. Five min later I was on my way all fixed. I said screw it I am going to Vermillion.
So 89 miles from there the free subscription I had to Sirus radio in my truck decided no more freebies and shut off right in the middle of no where. Great huh? At 4am I pulled into a Kum and Go Truck stop outside Vermillion for a short cat nap. Getting into our spot and setup was very smooth. The drama was over.
Friday was pretty uneventful. After I got setup this weiner dog showed up at our spot. Buster apparently invited some buddies over. I later found out the dogs name is Smokey. How funny is that. With a thunderstom coming I decided a nap was in order. Dawn and David were not coming until school was out. Despite the band playing till 1am on the next block over we really didn’t hear them or were just so tired we slept right through it.
Saturday the food was cooking as expected except the chicken on the Green Egg. The temp fluctuated more then I wanted to so I had to crank it up a little. After the pork turn in my friend Brent from high school stopped by from Sioux Falls with his family. I let them try everything we made and was pleased they liked it (or at least they said they did 
)
We went up to awards at 4 hoping to get out quickly. Were were dropping the trailer off in Omaha since we will be back there in two weeks for the River City Roundup. My friend Casey’s step dad was storing it but had a party to go to at 7 and it was a two hour drive. With awards starting about 15-20 min late I was a little jittery and ready to get rolling.
I hate it when people ask how you think you did. I hate to speculate about how did anymore either as I dont want to jinx it. In my mind I knew what I thought of the food. As they started calling chicken and got into the top five, I knew I had no shot. So I was shocked when we got the first place chicken call. Then onto ribs where we hadnt scored well all year. I thought they were a little too fall off the bone. 5th place in ribs. I was texting my buddy Chris who was also at awards at another contest. He told me to get the grand. Pork called and it’s 7th place. Three calls, but each worse then the first. Parrothead Smokers also had three calls. Only brisket was left. Our worse category. 9th place brisket. We had calls in all four categories but so did Parrothead. And if you know BBQ Scoring, you can win and not get any top 10’s. Everyone around us is telling us we’re going to win. I will believe it when I hear it. I thought the same for some friends of mine at another contest only to see them get 3rd. I grabbed Dawn’s hand as they were reading to read the overall top 10. All I can remember is saying I don’t want to hear my name, I don’t want to hear my name called. Down to 5th, 4th and 3rd. It was down to us and Parrothead. Please call Parrothead I said. And our Reserve Grand Champion – Parrothead Smokers. Could it be? Could Buster Dog finish first? I gave my camera to Dave from Pork Country in anticipation. Jody, the organizer brought out this really cook trophy and was talking about it being custom made and how much Rod Grey (last years winner) loved it. I am only hearing about half of what’s being said with such a large crowd around. Then he announced the Grand Champion. Buster Dog BBQ. I jumped out of my chair high enough to get air between my feet and the ground. It was such a surreal momment. We were up there in front of everything getting this big check a huge (and heavy) trophy and photos for the town papers. I really dont remember a whole lot. Reporters were talking to us, friends and other teams were congratulating us. It was unreal. Our first championship.
Here is a picture of the trophy we got. It weighs about 20lbs and is hand made and designed from a steel plate. It is the only one like it. I love original awards.
And everything all together.
I am going to frame the check. It is 4 feet long. The first thing that popped in my mind when I tried to get this in the back of my truck was all those big checks Happy Gilmore had.
Thanks to everyone for all the support through this process and helped along the way. Hopefully there are many more to come.
IBS Team of the Year
Sep 7th
Final standing for the Iowa Barbeque Society Team of the Year shows Buster Dog BBQ 3rd in chicken and 5th overall. We nearly missed out of both categories but an 8th, 3rd and 4th place overall finish including top 10 chicken calls over that stretch propelled us into the top 5. Unfortunately four contest we normally would have done were canceled, so who knows what would have happened. In addition to the top five placements, we also finished within the top 10 in pork and brisket. Last year we were also 3rd place in chicken, although I think this years is better.
We would like to congratulate all those who we competed against. The points race was very tight and the competition was top notch. As I said before, I would put the cooks in Iowa up against those in another state in a heart beat.
Bacon Explosion
Sep 6th
Believe it or not this is my first bacon explosion I had made. After winning a bacon gift bag from BBQ Addicts (the original creators of Bacon Explosion), I thought I should pay tribute. Next time I will use better then Hy Vee brand bacon and sausage and stuff the inside with much more then what I had here.
First you make a bacon weave.
Then you add about 2 lbs of sausage on top of the bacon. I had about 1.75 lbs.
Then it was some fried bacon, some cheese cubes, bbq sauce and some plowboys bbq rub
Then we roll up the sausage layer then the bacon layer on the way back
Onto the smoker for about 2 hours until the internal temp is 165-170
And finally sliced.
ABT Rack
Sep 6th
I saw this at Hawgeyes BBQ and thought it was pretty cool so I picked it up. It’s a stainless steel pepper rack with a jalapeno corer. I usually make my abt’s by slicing the jalapeno in half length wise and wrapping with bacon. This method seemed simpler and I had some like this in Paola, KS at the BBQ Shack and liked how they were all enclosed. The corer seemed like a nice bonus too.
So Saturday night it was a given we were having ABT’s. I picked up a handful at Hy Vee and began to core them. One thing I found out was the corer works best with straight jalapeno’s. Ones with a curve broke the skin on the pepper. Through trial and error I also found out you need to core from the start and can’t really plunge the corer into the pepper.
These were filled with some cheese cubes that were wrapped in bacon and cooked around 350 for about 20 min. I liked the end result. Next time I will add a water chestnut like the BBQ Shack did and would use a bigger piece of cheese and some good quality bacon. Here is the recipe the BBQ Shack had on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We went there and they were good.
