Red, White, Blue & BBQ Topeka KS 5/28 & 5/29

This was the first year Topeka has had a contest in about 5 years. Jon is from Topeka so he suggested that we cook it. Will, his son Zach and Jon headed out Friday morning and got to T-Town around 12:00. It was hot and for a first year contest the organizers did a pretty good job getting all 38 teams in. We got set up and Jon's dad and his dog "Rosco" came out to spend the afternoon and that was pretty cool.

I will go ahead and say, this contest was a complete freaking disaster for Sticks-N-Chicks. If you wanted something to go wrong it did. Here is the list of crap that happened to us!

1) When hanging the team flag we hung it upside down!
2) Ran out of Rib Rub for the ribs Saturday.
3) We had $100 worth of briskets spoil on us Thursday the day before the contest.
4) Our chicken was spoiled when we opened it Friday night to prep it.
5) Forgot our pork injection in Kansas City.
6) Neighbors next to us where noisy as hell partying all night.
7) Jon burned his leg Saturday morning.
8) Generator was turned off the Friday night 2 times by the neighbors, not sure why.
9) Thought the temp on the smoker, cooking ribs was off by 15 degrees. Jacked up temp to make up time and overcooked the ribs.
10) When we wrapped our pork the our wrap broke and the pretty much over all the liquid spilled all over the table.
11) Last but not least we almost managed to kill us all by putting the smoker to close to the trailer Friday night. The smoke started pouring into the trailer when we went to bed! Zach woke us up telling us that smoke was pouring into the trailer, and yes it was. We moved the smoker :)!

Saturday morning we were pretty much over all the crap that happened Friday. We started working on our chicken turn in and the chicken was salty as hell. We scrambled and decided the only thing could do was turn it in skinless, because the skin was what held all the salt. Chicken finished 25th. Ribs were a disaster and we knew it, they finished 35th. Pork was the first meat we pulled off that was decent, but it finished 25th. At this point we were like WTF. We had brisket left to turn in and we thought it was pretty decent.

Sitting at awards, they called the top 10 for all categories. We got to 3rd place in brisket and Will looked at Zach and shook his head, all of us heard who got 2nd, and Zach looked at his dad and said, "there is always first and that was a first place brisket," the next call made was Sticks-N-Chicks for 1st place brisket! Unfreaking believable!

This contest was very well run. We were dumbfounded on the brisket call and to top that we missed a perfect score, which is a 180, 6 tenths of a point! That was incredible and it shows you never give up on any category regardless of what happens. We learned a lot from this contest and trust me we will make sure we learned from our mistakes!

Platte City BBQ Cook-Off Platte City, MO May 7th and 8th 2010

This is going to be a quick post because there really was not anything too exciting that happened at this contest, and I need to get caught up with the blog :)! There were 47 teams competing and other then it being windy it was a great contest. We got to witness a good friend, Jeff Stith (Big Creek BBQ) along with his wife and daughter, win there first ever GC. That was pretty cool to see and these guys have been on a tear this year.

This is a very well run contest and the the resort is one of the best sites to hold a contest, we will definatley be back next year. Overall we finished 23rd, Chicken we finished 46th, Ribs we finished 40th, Pork we finished 6th, and brisket we finished 10th.

Sugar Creek MO 4-23 and 4-24

Our next contest is in Sugar Creek MO. This is another 1st for Sticks-N-Chicks and we were excited to be there. Will dropped the trailer on Thursday afternoon and both Matt and myself got a phone call on his way home, stating how frustrated he was with this contest already. I was like, "dude we have not even cooked it". Turns out there is a limited amount of space and it was a very tight fit getting the trailer dropped in our spot. I will admit I was concerned for what the weekend would bring after hearing that. Will went out Friday morning and since Matt and I do not have the luxery of having 10,000 hours of PTO days, we had to work and come out in the afternoon.

The concern Friday was the weather. This is the start of Tornado season in the midwest and we were in a decent risk of a tornado outbreak. Thankfully someone was looking out for all the contestants at this contest. We dodged a huge bullet and for whatever reason we were spared the sever weather. We did get rain but nothing severe.

The highlite of the weekend was, a very dear friend of ours and many in the BBQ community, decided to come out not only Friday but again Saturday and hang out with us. "Snail" is the "Godfather of BBQ." Snail has cooked BBQ before all of us were born. He is the manufacturer of the "Trash Cans" we cook on, and his knowledge of BBQ is unreal. From a personal stand point he makes me think outside the lines when it comes to cooking BBQ. The hours Will, myself, and Matt have spent with Snail are irresplacable. He truly is a blast to hang out with and to sit and not only cook BBQ but hear his stories are beyond words. Snail thank you for all your insight and hours you have spent with us helping us in our journey.



Overall we finished 16th out of 52 teams. Chicken killed us again, 39th overall. Ribs we finished 7th, Pork 16th, Brisket 19th and Sausage we finished 7th.

This was an awesome contest overall. Spending time with Snail was a treat and finishing the way we did was awesome. We have ideas on chicken that are in the works and we will debut that in 2 weeks, May 7th and 8th in Platte City MO.

Pleasant Hill MO April 2,3 2010

Our 2nd contest of the year was in Pleasant Hill MO. This is the first time we have competed at this contest, but from its reputation its a contest we had to cook. Jeff Stith and Stan Cook are some of the best organizers in KCBS and let me tell you these guys do one hell of a job putting on a contest. We took the trailer out on Thursday night to get it out there early. Friday, Will picked me up and we were out there by 9:30. We got everything set up by 11:00 and then out of no where, we had a storm blow through. It was somewhat breezy for a while but we survived. It rained a lot throughout the day but it finally cleared late in the day.




All the rain left a lot of mud. As I write this, I wish I would have taken a picture, of the amount of dirt we had in the trailer. Will said he swept and mopped the floor 2 times to get it clean. We got to cooking around midnight Friday night. Went to bed and got up early Saturday morning to get the briskets started. Like North KC we were on schedule and we were happy that things were going as planned.

We got everything turned in on time and we were pretty happy with the what we turned in., unfortunatley the judges had a diffrent opinion.

Overall we finished 23rd out of 65 teams. 41st in Chicken, 44th in Ribs (We learned a valuable mistake we mad that Matt will keep to himself LOL), 15th in pork and 15th in Brisket.

Our next contest is 4-23-10and 4-24-10 in Sugar Creek MO

NKC March 12th and 13th 2010

Hey I know we are late getting this posted but better late then never IMO! We survived the winter and cooked a ton of food in practice sessions and Will was even kind enough to buy us a new toy, a trailer that is big enough to live in. we had 1 practice cook out of it and it was really nice. Everything organized and really allowed us to concentrate on cooking without having to worry about the weather.

NKC was start of a new season for Stick-N-Chicks BBQ team in 2010. As usual the contest was fun but very cold. It is always hit and miss when it comes to this contest. Weather wise you never know what you are going to get. The selling point of this contest in my opinion is its is the first one in KC and tons of teams are anxious to get cooking from a long winter.

This year was no diffrent then last other then the amount of teams exploded from 78 last year to 108 this year. My personal opinion is the reality show "BBQ Pitmasters" shown on TLC had alot to do with it. It was fun the to see the growth of the sport.

Our cook was good and we were lucky enough to have good friend of ours, who as I write this has become a "Master BBQ Judge" (you get to be a master judge after having judged 30 competitions). He hung out all weekend with us and it was fun to get an opinion from someone who knows what to look for when it comes to BBQ. For this contest we finally hit all of our marks. we went in with a plan to follow our cook schedule and we did a good job doing that. The overall results showed in that too.

Although we did not get any calls we finished strong. Overall we finished 19th out of 108. Chicken was 27th, Ribs were 20th, Brisket was 37th (All of us thought we got robbed on brisket, we did think it was one of the best we have cooked), Pork was 36th overall.

All in all a good cook for the start of the year. Our next contest is Pleasant Hill MO on April 2nd and 3rd 2010.