Nick B
New member
My team, Grate Expectations, cooked at the Montana BBQ Cook Off in Absarokee, MT this weekend and ended up with a 6th in chicken, 3rd in ribs, 1st in pork (second competition in a row), and 12th in brisket ending up with 3rd overall with 29 teams competing. Upfront, I'm not a purist, my chicken is cooked on my Green Mountain Grill; everything else is cooked on my two 22" WSMs. This was a fun contest. Absarokee is a small town and all the teams line up along main street on both sides. We were tucked away in an alley. I didn't get the chance to wander the area like I'd hoped, but there were no WSMs in the vicinity.
This event had sampling for tokens which is something we've never done. We cooked a total of 14 butts including the competition ones and two briskets. My brother in law brought his Traeger and we had surprised him with a new 18" WSM for himself (he keeps looking longingly at mine and says the meat just tastes better on one of those). There's nothing like looking at all the cookers full of meat at 3 am and coming to the realization that none of it will be done in time to make room for the competition ribs (turn in started at 10 am). I told this to my brother in law and a friend that was helping out and we all looked at the 18" that was still in the box because we had been too busy to get it out. I said that we still had two hours before the ribs had to go on which should be enough time to put it together and let it burn in for awhile. They went to work assembling it while I started a chimney and it got broken in with four pork butts which we had wrapped just before putting them in it.
The sampling was fun. A few thousand people descend upon this little town to sample BBQ and listen to some bands. We held the meat in a large cooler and pulled the pork and sliced the brisket as needed to keep it hot and fresh. I overestimated the slider buns and underestimated the homemade sauce, but all was good. It's always good for the ego to have someone come back 5 times for the pulled pork sliders.
Here's our set up (pre-traeger and 18" WSM showing up).
Here's our space for the sampling (my brother in law got us a banner and made a frame for it).
Here's our awards (a little bragging).
This event had sampling for tokens which is something we've never done. We cooked a total of 14 butts including the competition ones and two briskets. My brother in law brought his Traeger and we had surprised him with a new 18" WSM for himself (he keeps looking longingly at mine and says the meat just tastes better on one of those). There's nothing like looking at all the cookers full of meat at 3 am and coming to the realization that none of it will be done in time to make room for the competition ribs (turn in started at 10 am). I told this to my brother in law and a friend that was helping out and we all looked at the 18" that was still in the box because we had been too busy to get it out. I said that we still had two hours before the ribs had to go on which should be enough time to put it together and let it burn in for awhile. They went to work assembling it while I started a chimney and it got broken in with four pork butts which we had wrapped just before putting them in it.
The sampling was fun. A few thousand people descend upon this little town to sample BBQ and listen to some bands. We held the meat in a large cooler and pulled the pork and sliced the brisket as needed to keep it hot and fresh. I overestimated the slider buns and underestimated the homemade sauce, but all was good. It's always good for the ego to have someone come back 5 times for the pulled pork sliders.
Here's our set up (pre-traeger and 18" WSM showing up).
Here's our space for the sampling (my brother in law got us a banner and made a frame for it).
Here's our awards (a little bragging).
