Our brutal August BBQ schedule, 3 BBQ contests and 1 Grilling Contest is finally and mercifully over. The contests, in order were…
1) Battle of the BBQ Brethren, Holtsville, NY 2) Hudson Valley Ribfest (Grilling and BBQ) – New Paltz, NY 3) New Holland Summerfest – New Holland, PA
The results in order were…
1) Battle of the BBQ Brethren, Holtsville, NY – We struggled with temps on the overnight, and I overcooked the pork, and undercooked the brisket. Our chicken was 8th out of 34, and that was it. Brisket was the lowest score in 4 years. Our overall score was the lowest ever. Needless to say, I was not the happiest Qer in the house. We finished 24 out of 34.
2) Hudson Valley Ribfest (Grilling and BBQ) – New Paltz, NY – Every year we look forward to the HV Ribfest because I love to Grill as well as BBQ. In 2008 we were 3rd overall with 2 trophies. In 2009, we had 2 first places (steak and shrimp) and won the Grand Championship. In 2010 we got shut out of trophies, settling for two 6th places (dessert and shrimp) and finished 4th overall out of 35. I was disappointed because I did not do a good job with the steak and it cost us. As far as BBQ, I will first say that it rained a little from midnight Sat until Sunday 6PM or so…… actually it rained a lot . If you know anything about BBQ contests, you will know that that is the time that we cook our Q. Although our food was mostly well cooked, our flavors were flat except for the brisket. We got 8th place out of 72 in brisket, and finished 24th out of the 72 overall, which seems like a trend – it is our 4th 20-25 finish out of 6 contests (3rd and 16th were the other 2 finishes).
3) New Holland Summerfest – New Holland, PA – This contest is the only one that has a Kids Q. Therefor it means extra work, extra people, and extra fun. It is set in a beautiful park that is really long and very narrow. 72 teams are spread out, with the ends being VERY far from each other. We are at the farthest end. The kids Q is at the other end. This year we had 2 teams cooking one in the 11-15 year old category, one in the 16-18 category. Our young ones included my son Jordan, his friend Rob, and Ilana and Noah, children of RW team member Wendy. We call them Team ADD. They scored a 3rd place Chicken, and 5th overall out of 14 teams. Our big kids Travis, Shai and his friend Mac, took 1st in Chicken, 1st in Beef and 1st in Chefs Choice and swept their way to Grand Champions. They won $25, our only money in August. They were awesome. On the BBQ front, we had a nice cook. Our food was good, but not great. We got 17th in chicken out of 72, and were 25th overall. We though the pork was very good and the brisket was cooked perfectly for a change. Both got good, but not great scores.
With all of that, August BBQ finally is over. One more contest left, in September in Seaside Heights, NJ. We will try and break our streak and win something.
If you want to here a fun Podcast talking about Beer, BBQ and Cheese, check out http://finalgravitypodcast.webs.com/ and choose archives Podcast#9.
Happy Smokin!
Doug
