Arriving at a contest we’ll either be shown to a designated spot or we’ll pick the best spot we can. If Chris drives separate we’ll unload his truck and our tow vehicle and then park them outside the designate “cook arena”. We’ll then set up our canopy and get some stuff out of the trailer i.e. lawn chairs, coolers trash cans etc. so the meat inspector can come check our meat and my wife and Chris’s daughter Rachael can start setting out the things we need and getting the inside of the trailer organized for the day. We’ll also pull the drums off the trailer as we usually put them in front of the canopy. Number one, tons of people come by to ask about them, and number two, they block everyone from walking through our prep area.
At this time we usually have a little downtime so we’ll mill around talking to other teams we know and go to the cooks meeting. Obviously if we’re cooking our pork shoulders low and slow instead of in the drum we’ll get there earlier and get the Backwoods fired up and ready for the long cook. Once the cooks meeting is over Chris will trim the ribs and then help me handle the shoulders and brisket while I inject them both. I’ll then put the rubs on all meats and they’ll get wrapped back up and back into coolers while we fire up the drums. Now it’s just fire management and getting ready to put meat on. Meanwhile, Audrey and Rachel are working inside the trailer. Rachel will usually time her walk to turn in a couple of times and pick up our turn in boxes. Her and Audrey will work on building boxes, writing times down on the white board and be our time keepers for however many categories we’re cooking that day.
Obviously the meats have been put on the smokers at different times and I won’t say our exact methods but at some point all of our cuts are either wrapped or covered with tin foil at different intervals with some type of steaming ingredients and flavor enhancers. As turn in’s happen, first with chicken and then ribs they come out of foil, get finish sauced, and back on a smoker rack to set the glaze. At this time things are getting pretty fast and furious. The chicken goes into the first turn in box that the girls have built with garnish if it is a garnish contest and Rachel heads for turn in. The ribs come off and the brisket flat usually is ready to go in the CAMBRO so we quickly separate point and flat and Chris cuts the burnt ends and gets them back in the Drum. We do the rib cut and box and get the pork out to rest. Pick the pork and build its box, Rachel runs the box and then we slice the brisket and get it and the burnt ends in the box and we are turned in. This is all happening pretty fast and an hour and a half flies by.
After turn ins are finished we start shutting down smokers, dumping water pans, ash pans, and throwing away trash and policing our area while the girls do the utensil dishes and clean up our work stations inside the trailers. Obviously this is almost the perfect scenario and it almost never goes this smooth. You always forget something or don’t have enough of something. We try to be fairly well packed up before awards and then we go find out how we did for the day. and then We OUT.
