Both Neil and I were lucky enough to attend the 31st American Royal this year as part of the British BBQ Society team. We had a team of seven this year wtith representatives of four Pit Masters teams in attendance along with BBBQS boss Toby of course.

As in 2009 we flew out to KC a few days before the competition in order to get “acclimatised”  or in other words for a week of partying in what is one of my favourite cities. The great thing about KC is it’s friendly, almost not like a city at all but there’s still everything you could want there including a mass of BBQ shops and restaurants.

So we spent the first three days scouring the shops for swag during the day and hitting the Power and Light district for lots of Boulevard beer and Buffalo wings by night. Apart from having the world’s most useless Sat Nav, it all went off without a hitch. I’ve got to take this opportunity to thank the guys over at the Kansas City BBQ Store for being so helpful and friendly.

Obvioulsy, being in Kansas City, we had to eat at Oklahmoa Joe’s. For me this is the best BBQ restaurant in the world, period. I resisted going for a whole rack of ribs and tucked into the legendary Z-Man sandwich instead – sliced brisket, provolone cheese and onion rings on a Kaiser bun. Only one word can describe this – Jawgasm!

As an extra bonus we were given a full tour of the kitchen which was a great experience. There’s a great write up of the visit over on BBQ Fanatics, thanks to Cuan and Ben for writing such a great article. Ben has also posted a video on Youtube of us being shown how to pull pork. So we’ve nicked it and embedded it here.

So by the weekend it was time to get down to the serious business of cooking the Royal. Of course first we had to hook up with all our American friends as well as sharing a drink or two with some new friends. I got the chance to spend some time with Jimmy Brod from Everglades Seasoning (formerly Smoking Cracker) who kindly showed me around my dream barbecue, a Spicewine cabinet smoker. I also managed to do plenty of shigging from Diva Q and Big T’s.

But soon Toby was cracking the whip and we were off. At the Royal we cook both the invitational and open competitions which means we are cooking two nights consecutively. Add into the mix, supporting the Royal tour and Neil off to compete in the poker competition and a busy weekend ensues. As in 2009 we were cooking on an FEC 100 pellet smoker, kindly supplied to us by BBQ legend “Fast” Eddy Maurin and yet again we got support from Stuart Powell of Cookshack as well. These guys make it possible for us to compete in the US by loaning us equipment and sourcing meat for us.

The competition weekend was a bit of a blur for me, especially given that I caught a nasty American cold and felt like crap all day on Sunday. The team did really well though, with a best placing of 21st in Brisket at the invitational. A second succesful trip to Kansas City for me, particularly when I got home and took stock of all the swag I brought back – even if I did have to get a second case for Neil to bring back for me.

Well that’s it, the British competition BBQ season is finished for 2010.

August bank holiday weekend saw the grand finale to the season happen at Rudgwick Steam Show in Surrey, what a great weekend with both Pit Masters and Ready Steady Q competitions happening over the weekend. We arrived on Friday night for the customary pre-competition drinkies with the other teams, had a great evening with Bite The Bullet, BBQ Shack, Miss Piggy’s, Bunsen and Burner and all the other teams. Saturday morning it was time to clear the hang over and get down to the serious business of BBQ.

So the competitions kicked off with Ready Steady Q on Saturday, this is an individual event rather than a team one. Neil and I both entered as the possible £1000 prize was too much to resist. To quickly explain how Ready Steady Q works, you get given a main ingredient, usually meat or fish, then there is a larder from which you can pick five ingredients to add to your dish, there are also herbs, spices, seasonings, oils etc available in the larder. You then get 1 hour to prepare a meal on Weber Q200 gas BBQ, judging is completely anonymously, you just hand in a covered plate.

I was up in the first round and got poussin as my main ingredient, I picked a yellow pepper, red chilli, avocado, tomato and red onion as my extras. I blackened the pepper and chilli on the bbq, then allowed to cool before making a quick salad from these along with the tomato and finely chopped onion. With the poussin, I spatchcocked it then rubbed it in a mixture of olive oil, tarragon and sea salt, I grilled this on low with the lid on then quartered it, handing in one leg and one breast quarter.

Neil got the best qualifying round, rump steak! It was a lovely piece of meat, prime for grilling with just a good seasoning of salt and black pepper. He did a blinder on it, perfectly seasoned and excellently cooked, turned in with some nice grilled tomato slices and mushrooms.

Low and behold we both qualified for the final. This meant it put our Pit Masters prep back an hour but for the first time Neil and I would be going head to head. Bring it on!!!!

Quail was the main ingredient for the final round, the competitors’ faces all dropped when that was announced, I’m not sure anyone had ever cooked quail before. Thankfully, I’ve eaten it plenty, so I at least know how it should be. I made up a quick stuffing of finely chopped leek and mushroom with garlic granules in a skillet on the Weber, then rubbed my quails with Maldon and put them on at a low heat to roast. I also took a nice big potato, halved it and sliced into 1/2″ slices, I then coated these slices with olive oil and finely ground sea salt and put them in with the quails. Every time I flipped the potato slices I added a drizzle of oil and more salt, this gives a great result, try it for yourself some time, it’s worth it. Neil kept it simple, roasting his quails, firstly in foil, then finished them off uncovered.

After judging was complete, we were able to sample the left overs ourselves. The judges said that every dish was great and they weren’t wrong, every one was really good. However only one person could walk away with the £1000 prize and as it happens, that person was me!!!! Yep, that’s right, my stuffed quails did it for me, this means I have won both Ready Steady Q competitions this year, something I’m really chuffed about. I also want to congratulate Claire from Bite The Bullet BBQ and Sue from Miss Piggy’s for grabbing second and third place respectively.

So after all that excitement it was on to Pit Masters and the chance to win that place at the Jack. Well ultimately we didn’t manage to take the title, it was a close run again, we pulled a third in ribs and ribs and another third in brisket but for some reason we seem to have lost the edge on our chicken and pork. I spoke to the head judge for a while afterwards and she said it was very fine margins and we only need a couple more points to be winning. That’s BBQ though, so many things can affect your end product. I suspect it’s the sauce on our pork that let us down this time, I felt it was a little boring when we turned it in and needed a bit more kick. We’ll be completely reworking our chicken process for next year as we have some great ideas in the works, we just didn’t want to chance them at the national finals, brisket we’ve got some ideas on how to take it to the next level so watch out next year Pit Masters teams we’ll be back bigger and better.

We’ve had a great season in the BBQ sauce category, with a second place last time out and our first BBQ sauce win at the weekend.

So now the summer is coming to an end and there are no more competitions this year. We’re off to Kansas City at the end of September to be on the BBBQS team for the American Royal but then we’ll be taking a break from competition style BBQ for a little while. I want to take some time to work on a few ideas I have for BBQ versions of some of my favourite dishes.

So with the season at an end, we have a few thank you’s to make:

Firstly, I’d like to thank my dear wife for virtually being a BBQ widow for a few months, your support enables me to do this, without it I couldn’t.

Secondly, thank you to Toby & Kate at the British BBQ Society for working their backsides off to make the season a success. I take my hat off to both of you, you’ve done an amazing job.

Thirdly I’d like to thank our sponsors for the 2010 season, Smoking Wood Supplies, Cook Equip, Jennings of Caversham, Sign Wise and Fresher Pack, your support is invaluable to us and we’re so proud to work with you all because we love your products.

Well that’s enough of me babbling on now, yet again we took hardly any photos… oops. We reckon we need to get a photographer as a sponsor next year, so if any photographers are interested in coming to comps, taking some pictures and getting fed like a king in return, let us know. We did manage one decent photo though, here we are with our trophy haul for the weekend…

Royal Q Pit Crew @ The BBBQS National Final

P.S. you’ll never catch me smiling in a photo, it’s like a reflex action not to smile when a camera is pointed at me

Thanks for reading,

Cheers

Steve

Over the second bank holiday in May we packed our gear and drove down to Surrey to compete at Mayhem In May. The competition was the biggest British BBQ Society event yet with 13 teams competing. Yes this is still small-fry compared to some of the competitions across the pond but it’s a major step forward from the first competition season. If the circuit continues to grow at the same rate we’re all going to be very happy.

We’d been in Surrey the weekend before to attend a boot camp for new teams and share some advice, the weather was stunning then and we hoped for the same over the competition weekend. Neil and I had been glued to Metcheck all week watching the forecast change from sunny, to pouring down and then back to sunny again. For the sake of our el-cheapo Gazebo we were just hoping for little wind.

Arriving on Friday night, the weather was great so we proceeded to make a large dent in our beer supply as well as exhausting bottles of rum and amaretto. The pre competition party was great as always, we were pitched next to Big Foot BBQ who like a drink as much as us and were also kind enough to feed us with some chilli. It’s safe to say I felt a little rough in the morning.

Unfortunately Saturday’s weather was not good. Every time we had to do some work, the heavens opened. All through the mystery box event – rain. All the time we were prepping – rain. Hell we need a gazebo with side walls!!!

Thankfully it all cleared up for the overnight cook and the smokers ran well through the night. We all grabbed the customary 2 hours sleep at some point in the night before kicking off the ribs in the morning. Ribs that we did a great job of burning. Yep that was our competition disaster, we ever so slightly burned the ribs – oops. We also had the bonus disaster of our salt tube getting wet and the bottom dropping out into our BBQ sauce as we made it. Thought of turning it in but as I wouldn’t have seen the judges faces when they tried it, best not.

Sunday was hot, wifey came down to laugh at us running around like idiots during turn in and ended up being our waitress for the afternoon, getting all our drinks from the chiller. It was much more fun on Sunday though until we got to packing up time that is. Turn in went ok, no calamities, close one getting the chicken done on time but we made it with 5 minutes to spare in the end and it was cooked through perfectly unlike some other teams. When it came to the presentations, we were a bit disappointed not to place in more categories, but we were consistently good across all categories which got us the RGC. I think that my back going 6 weeks before the competition hurt us as we had not done enough practice in anything other than pork. Not surprisingly we were 30 points better in pork than all the other categories, pulling in a second place call.

Eventual Grand Champs were Bite The Bullet BBQ. Our heartiest congratulations go to Adie, Claire, Jamie and Jade. BTB have done lots to promote the BBBQS and have worked hard all Winter on practice so we’re really chuffed for them. Hopefully we can up our game for the next competition in July and give them a good run for their money.

Picking Up Our RGC Trophy

All in all it was a great weekend. Everyone I spoke to had a great time and everyone seems to be up for the next competition. We’d like to thank and congratulate John from BBQ Shack in Brighton for a strong all round cook, staying up all night, scooping a number of awards, and generally being a top bloke to hang out with. We’d also like to congratulate Miss Piggy’s for coming third in their first ever competition, including a win in Brisket.

And last but not least, we’re giving a shout out Yeti & Patrick from Big Foot BBQ for cooking some great ribs and pork and being top notch neighbours all weekend.

The next BBBQS competition will be over the weekend of July 24th/25th. It’s sure to be a great event, if you’re up for a challenge, why not compete? Head over to http://www.bbbqs.com for more information.