Ribs & Bibs BBQ Competition Results / Year 2009

The competition BBQ team from Old Dave's Po-Farm (Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team) had a wonderful year. We competed in five Midwest states and covered about 4500 total miles on the Kansas City Barbecue Society trail in 2009.

The team competed in 13 contests was fortunate enough to win two state Grand Championships during the contest year. Out of the 4679 different teams that competed in the US in 2009 on the KCBS trail, only 29 of these teams won more contests than the two contests that Ribs & Bibs won during the year. We also had several other good finishes through out the contest year so it was a very good year for the Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team.



This picture shows Ribs & Bibs win at the "Wabash Ribberfest Barbeque Championship" in Mount Carmel, Illinois in September. The Gentleman on my far right in the blue shirt is Paul Everman who co-cooked the event with me this year.



We were lucky enough to get all four of our competitive meats in the top ten and did receive some nice trophys and a ribbon along with a little cash.

Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team consists of myself and usually one other member per cooking event. I am really blessed with some great co-cooks, friends, and of course my bride Janet who has put up with me for 44 years. There is no way I could do these events without all the wonderful support I received through out the year from these people. I just can't thank them enough for their help with this crazy hobby of BBQ competition cooking.

Steve Creech

Steve is from Columbus, Indiana and was a co-cook with the team during the year. He and Linda call their cooking team ZZ-Que and also compete on the KCBS trail during the year. Steve is great help and a pleasure to cook with. My friend, I sure appreciated the help this year.

Jeff Toler

Jeff is from the Westfield / Carmel area on the North side of Indy and co-cooked the Madison, Indiana event with me this year. Jeff with his wife Teri and family compete as Snake Pit BBQ. Jeff is a blast to cook with and is great with the preparation of our turn-in boxes. Thanks much...my buddy.

Paul Everman

Paul is from Versailes, Indiana and has co-cooked with the Ribs & Bibs team for a couple of years when he is not competing with his own team. Paul and his good friend Pat compete as Hickory Flats BBQ. It is sure nice when he cooks with Ribs & Bibs as he is just too tough to beat cooking with his own team! Paul is a great cook and a joy to cook with as he is always one step ahead of this old fat man and sure keeps me on my game. What can I say Paul...Many Thanks!!!

Mike Zinkan

Mike is from Sheridan, Indiana and is a long time friend. He has co-cooked with me longer than any other cook and claims to be the Indiana State Micro-Wave Champion. At least, that is what he put on his resume. Mike is a great friend and keeps me in my place. Just couldn't find a nicer, easy going, and more liked fellow to cook with at the events. Mike is more than a co-cook, he is a life time friend. Thank you for putting up with me all these years and all the help with this crazy hobby.

I sure hope my co-cooks can find the time again next year to cook with the team again as this old fat man couldn't do it without the great help.

We had several friends and guests visit with us during the cooking year and also had two KCBS judges cook with the team early in the year to earn their Master Judge certification.

I know many folks visit this blog from all over the world and don't have the foggiest idea of how the KCBS barbeque contests work so I will try to give a brief discription of how they work and some information on the rules.

Most contests in our area will have about 25 to 60 cooking teams. They will usually compete for a prize fund of about $3000 to about $12,000 dollars. We cook chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder or pork butts, and beef brisket in these competitions. Our food is judged on Presentation, Tenderness & Texture, and Taste. We must turn in at least 6 samples of each meat and it will be judged by 6 judges. This means that all 4 of the meats will be judged by 24 judges. The judges will give out a score which is assigned to a point system and the winner in each class of meats will have the highest score with the judges. The overall score which determines the Grand Champion is the total score from all 4 meats.

We usually start prepping our meat after it is inspected on Friday morning and have it ready for the cooker in the evening. We cook 14 pieces of chicken, 3 slabs of pork ribs, 2 pork butts, and 2 brisket or brisket flats. We like to get the butts and brisket on the cooker by about 8:00pm on Friday evening as they cook overnight. We start both the ribs and chicken on Saturday morning. The turn in time is chicken at 12:00, ribs at 12:30pm, pork at 1:00pm, and brisket at 1:30pm on Saturday.

These are some typical presentation boxes for the 4 meats.



Chicken Thighs



Pork Ribs



Pork Butt



Beef Brisket

About 2 hours after the last turn-in, they have the Awards Presentations at the events. If we are lucky, maybe we will get our names called a couple of times and might win a trophy or ribbon with a little cash.

We now have enough contests in our area that we can kind of pick and choose the ones we like as we only do about two events a month. We prefer contests where we can arrive on the Thursday before the event, and then stay over on Saturday evening, and then leave early on Sunday morning. We also prefer a reasonable entry fee of $225 or less and will pass on contests that we feel try to hold you up. Another nice feature that we look for is inside restrooms and showers or someplace close we can go to get a shower. We need a large cooking site for our toy hauler so that as well is important to the team. I guess that the perfect contest would be in a RV Park with all the amenities including sewage hook ups.

A typical KCBS contest in our area is getting expensive and the teams are very difficult to compete against with all the cooking schools out there at the present time. We are not usually very serious cooks and do this for fun but sure find it nice to hear our name called once in a while at these events.

Typical Contest Cost..

$225.00----- Entry Fee
125.00------ Contest Meat
100.00------ Fuel for Truck
25.00------- Food on Road
60.00------- About 14 Total Meals at Cooking Site for 2 Team Members
75.00------- Thursday or Friday evening Party--feed 20
50.00------- Beer and other Beverage
50.00------- All Cooking Supplies for Contest-Rubs, Sauces, etc
25.00------- Misc
-------

$735.00------Total per Event

Ribs & Bibs compete out of a small toy hauler as older folks do need their creature comforts!!



In 2009, we used both the Old School Fast Eddy Pellet Cooker and my pair of Backwoods Party Cookers for contest cooking. These are great contest cookers.





I did get a few pictures at some of the events this year and will share them with the people that read this blog.



Our cooking year started out wet!! As you can see, I am stuck in the mud before I even got backed into my site.



Some of these units needed a very serious wrecker to get them out.



This is Charles and Velma Krininger at the Fairbanks, Indiana contest. This couple cooked with the team to complete one of the requirements of becoming Master Judges. They just did it all!! From trimming up the meat, to the injection, rubs, sauces, wrapping, presentation, etc.. they were there 24/7 and did a great job with this contest cook. Really nice folks and a pleasure to cook with.



It can also be cold at the end of the year and this picture shows one of the teams co-cooks, Paul Everman, at the New Albany, Indiana event in October. His cooking partner, Pat, is in the background.



This is another gentleman that cooks with the team once in a while during the year. The picture shows Steve Creech with his better half Linda at an event in Southern Indiana late in the year.



This is a picture from our Grand Championship finish at New Albany, Indiana in October. The gentleman on my right and co-cook for the event is Mike Zinkan from Sheridan, Indiana.



This was a first year contest right on the bank of the Ohio river in New Albany, Indiana. Real nice setting for a contest. If you look close, you can see the river in the background.

We enjoy doing some kind of party either on Thursday or Friday evening at the cooking events. Some of the treats we have done in the past include pizza, jambalaya, several Mexican dishes, hot wings, hawg wings, and some other appetizers.

We are kinda known for our pizza and do this one often. Hickory Flats and Ribs & Bibs teamed up this year at the Madison, Indiana contest for a large pizza party.



We put some tables together for this event and the beautiful salad was made and brought to the party by Hoosier Crawdaddy's (Doug and Debbie Searcy).



Isn't that pretty...



This is a picture of Doug, Debbie, and Mom from the Hoosier Crawdaddy's cooking team.



My co-cook Jeff Tolar and Paul Everman made them up and I cooked them on the Backwoods Party cooker. At times, we had 4 pizzas in the cooker.





We also did some cajun pizza which is always a hit at these events.

Again, 2009 was a great year for Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team. Had a wonderful time getting to visit and compete against many great friends and also had the chance to meet many new friends and cooks and hope to do it again next year.

It's a great hobby but is expensive...but what isn't in this day and time??

Interesting Cook / Backwoods Party Cooker

I did this interesting cook about two years ago when I was working on trying to get the Backwoods Party cooker to work the way I wanted for my contest cooking. Used some different methods and a different type of charcoal in this test. My biggest problem with the cooker is that I couldn't get over about 5 hours of un-attended cook time and this is not near enough to suit me for overnight cooking at a contest.
I do need my beauty sleep!!

Along with the cook, I was charting the cooker with a fairly large amount of meat with 4-7 probes. It was just a little less than what I would cook for a contest. The cook was done with a new charcoal from Wicked Good which is in briquette form but a fully hardwood lump with no chemicals, additives, or fillers. It is suposed to burn long and hotter than other charcoals. It is made from the same 4-5 hardwoods that the Wicked Good Competition blend is made from that is no longer available in this country. This was a very highly rated charcoal. I was looking for a charcoal that would burn longer than the 5-6 hours I was getting out of a full load of Ozark Oak or Royal Oak lump in my upgraded Party using water.

The cook was done without water with a new technique that I tried which is kinda a mix from information I have read on other forums. This empty waterpan method seemed to work fine at the lower temps. I wanted to try without water as it takes a lot of fuel to heat water and I was looking for a longer cook time on my one load of fuel. I also don't like sand as this changes the cooker completely with the lower grates hotter than the upper grates and very uneven cooking. The cook was done with a "sump pump" in temps of about 26-33 degrees and the meat was put on the cooker about 1:30am. The day turned out very windy!!

The cook was 2 pork butts that weighed about 7-1/2 pounds each, 1 brisket flat that weighed about 6-1/2 pounds, 3 slabs of loin back ribs, 1 four pound whole chicken which I butterflied, and 1 can of Spam.

The cook was planned to have all the meat done and ready at 3:00pm in the afternoon so the meat went on at staggered times and the cooker only had to total load on for about 3 hours near the end of the cook.

Setting up the charcoal pan....



I cut 5-6 sheets of the wide heavy duty foil about 2" larger than the pan and then slightly wadded it up into a ball, and then unwadded it out and cut it to fit the pan. The idea of this is to make several layers in the pan with an airspace between each layer to kinda filter the heat from going up into the cooker and this did work fine and I was able to keep all the grids in the cooker where I wanted them. The cooker ran with only 13 degrees difference from the 2nd grid from the top to the lower grid in the cooker. An example is the reading I took at 1:10pm where I found the upper grid at 255*, the two middle grids at 251* and the lower grid at 242*. This was with a fully loaded cooker.



This is the pan ready for the cover.



I covered the pan with the wide foil and used two layers to make for easy cleanup.

The new Wicked Good all Hardwood Brickettes...




This stuff is kinda pricy if you just order a few bags from them but the costs do go down if you order a pallet. I ordered 4 bags for the test and the shipping was as much as the charcoal. Dura-Flame also has a new all wood brickette but it's next to impossible to just order a few bags. They are very difficult to deal with unless you want a truckload.



I filled the firebox up as full as I could get it and it took 11 pounds or one full bag of charcoal. I also added some small chunks of hickory..I couldn't get any larger chunks in the box and get the firebox pushed back in the cooker.



The smoker was setup with the Sump Pump (Guru) running a 10 cfm fan and the gate on the fan was set to about 30% open.



I used several probes thru the cook so I would know how the cooker was doing and recorded the cook.

I started the cook with a Weber Firecube which I placed right in front of the vent on the right side of the cooker. As soon as the fire was out on the cube, I started the sump pump and brought the cooker up to temp. It took about 45 minutes.

I got the butts and brisket loaded about 1:30am and just turned the cooker loose and let it go until morning. It did fine without the water and the temp really held well until the wind kicked up and then I had to cut the fan back some more and close down the top vent to about 1/3 open to keep the cooker at the temp I wanted. I loaded the balance of the meat as the cook progressed. The temp in the cooker from the top to the bottom at all times ran just as it would with water. Really surprised me as I thought it might run hotter in the lower area of the cooker.



At 10 hours into the cook (which was about twice as long as I usually get), I loaded 2 more pounds of the brickettes into the cooker to be sure it would run to the end of my cook which turned out to be about 13 total hours. As it turned out, I didn't need this charcoal.



There are two butts on the top grid in the picture with one loaded to the back and one loaded to the front of the grid, next grid down is my brisket, next down is two slabs of loin backs and the lower grid has the third rack of ribs along with the whole butterflied chicken and the Spam.

The only problem I had was with the wind but I was able to control the cooker at all times at the lower temps and running without any water in the pan.

After the meat came off, I shut down the cookers vents and let the fire go out and this is the remaining charcoal I took out of the cooker.



Like I said, I don't think I needed this extra charcoal but I wasn't sure as this was my first cook with it setup this way.



This is the waterpan after I pulled it from the cooker and you can see all the grease and fat that is left on top on my foil. It was about 3/4" thick.



This is the pan after I remove the foil covering the waterpan. It is clean and ready to go again.

The food came out as good as it would have with my normal setup using Ozark Oak lump and with water in the waterpan except for a couple of items. The bark on the butts was a little harder than I wanted and I should have foiled them earlier in the cook. I also should have added more smoke wood to the fire when I put the ribs and chicken on the fire as they came out with less smoke flavor. I believe the new lump flavor is not as strong as the Ozark Oak.

I was very happy with the cook as my number one priority was to be able to get a longer cook out of a single load of fuel and it sure did that!! If it wasn't for the very high wind, the cooker would probably have run untouched for about 10-12 hours. Should be great for any overnight or contest cooking.

Just about the time I was ready to order a pallet of the Wicked Good charcoal, the Rancher charcoal showed up at Home Depot and I purchased 40 bags of this as it gave me the same cooking time as the Wicked Good. However, I think the Wicked Good was slightly better charcoal.

Later, during the contest cooking season, I found out I could also use water if I wanted and still get the longer cooking times that I needed with either the Rancher or the Wicked Good charcoal.

Pig Pickins / Backwoods Competitor

We did this whole pig cook for our Friday evening party in June of 2005 at the King City BBQ contest in Mt. Vernon, Illinois for the organizers, sponsors, cooks, and friends in a Backwoods Competitor.

We set the cook up as a "Pig Pickins" where the pig was cooked whole and then prepped to where the guests just come thru the serving line and just "pick" off the meat they want and place it on their plate. It is an old fashioned way of doing a whole hog or pig.

I got the idea of cooking a whole pig upright and on a rack from Candy Weaver who did a similiar cook in her FEC-100 which is another upright cooker about the same size as the Backwoods Competitor.

Myself and my cooking buddy Mike Zinkan teamed up with Randy and Marla Twyford (Ulcer Acres) for this cook and this is how it went.

I had two racks built for both myself and Randy to fit the Competitor on which we mounted the pig for the cook.



Randy did all the hard work as he killed and butchered two pigs that weighed about 60-70 pounds each and got them ready for the contest. It is difficult to get a whole pig anymore with both the head and feet on it so this worked great for our cook. He used the other pig for a later party.

The Competitor is really not designed for pig cooking but with all the grids out and the pig mounted on the pig rack, it will do a great job on a whole pig. We did have to turn the pigs head to the back of the cooker to get it in.



The pig was rubbed on the inside cavity and injected with some good stuff and placed into the cooker. It took about 10 hours to cook and came out looking great.



Marla Twyford, ( Randy's wife) did this beautiful presentation and we gave the people at the contest about 30 minutes to get their pictures before we prepped it for the Pig Pickins. Note the pigs head as it looked like the pig was looking at you as you came thru the serving line.



Since we wanted a pig pickins, which in my opinion is the only way to do a whole pig, we prepped the pig by cutting away the skin and got it ready for the serving line. This allows each guest to pick off the meat he or she wants on the pig going thru the serving line. I cut the skin from the top of the head right down the back to the tail and laid the skin aside.



Got our guests started thru the line and they sure did enjoy the event. Several of the guests brought a dish so we had plenty to go with the pig.



The pig went quick!

Lightweight Contest Cooking / Tailgating Setup

This setup is just great for many different cooks where you need to travel some to do them. This swing out cargo carrier will hold up to about 300 pounds and the cookers or cooker doesn't have to be unloaded at your event as you can just swing it out and cook on it. I used this setup several times a couple of years ago for contests and once for a private party. I would think it would be great as well for tailgating.



This picture shows my Backwoods Fatboy loaded up on the carrier as I was packing the SUV for a contest. I have two loading ramps and I just slide the cooker up the ramps and position it on the carrier and tie it down and I am ready to go. Many other cookers would also fit on this carrier including a ceramic cooker, maybe a couple of WSM's, a gas grill, etc..

One other nice feature that doesn't come with a standard cargo carrier is that if you need to get into the back of your car after you are loaded or on the road somewhere, you just drop the stabilizer leg and swing the carrier out and raise the tailgate of the car.



This picture shows the carrier in the locked position, the cooker strapped down, covered, and ready to roll to a contest.



This picture shows the cooker swung out and stabilized at a contest in Missouri and ready for cooking.



We did this contest out of our EZ-UP and this is our setup.



The Backwoods Fatboy sitting on the carrier and doing it's thing at the contest on Saturday morning.

The swing out carrier is made by Kargoholder in Oklahoma and is expensive as compared to a regular cargo carrier but it does work nice for my application.

Lightweight Contest Cooking / Backwoods / WSM

Wanted to do a contest over in the East somewhere to meet some e-mail friends and compete against some of the cooks we know but don't see very often and did this contest in August of 2004. The contest was in New Holland, Pa which is in the heart of Amish country and is a great event.

This contest is about 620 miles from the Po-Farm so we decided to go with just the SUV and a lightweight setup and use my Backwoods Fatboy and one WSM cooker.



Loaded up the Backwoods Fatboy and begin to wonder if we will be able to get it all in this car??



The back of the car just before we closed it up and finished packing the garbage cans on the cargo carrier.



Ready to get on the road.

Was a long drive but with our early start, we did get in to the contest site pretty early in the afternoon and got setup before dark on Thursday.



Was a hot evening and we did get to visit and meet with several other teams that arrived on that day.



My co-cook on this trip was my good friend Mike Zinkan who claims to be the Indiana Grand Champion Micro-Wave Cook and a friend from New York came down to hang with us and run our boxes.

We had planned to use the Backwoods Fatboy for our butts, brisket, ribs, anything butt, and the WSM for our chicken and also a holding oven. On Friday, one of the teams had an accident on the way to the event and lost the use of their big offset cooker and we loaned out our WSM to them for the contest. Had to double up some on the Fatboy but that cooker was designed from the ground up to do the KCBS contsts and it did us proud at this event.

We did Jambalaya for our Friday evening party and served it out of my homemade bread bowls. Was a nice treat along with a cold beer on this warm evening.

Had a few problems early Saturday morning with a Thermo-Pen that was reading about thirty degrees high and after I discovered it, had to get some meat back out of the cooler and place it back on the cooker to get it done correctly!

Anyway, got the meat all turned in and started to clean up and get ready for our trip home which was to start early on Sunday morning.

We went to the awards later in the afternoon and did very well considering my screw up on the overnight cooking.



We got one real nice trophy for our ribs that has an Amish Buggy on it along with some money.



We also received a nice plaque and a ribbon to go with our trophy along with some more money as we got 3 of our 4 meats into the top ten and ended up placing 4th overall out of this more than 60 contest team event.

Got to meet several new teams and visit with some friends and with a good finish, sure made for a nice trip home. Was a great contest and will probably go back in the future.