North Kansas City BBQ Contest

Albino Rhino BBQ will be competing in our first contest of the year in Kansas City on March 12-13th. This appears to be a pretty large contest and will have some pretty tough competition. We did a bunch of R&D on our brisket this year so we are hoping that we can increase our scores over last year in this category.

I'll try and remember the camera this time and will post pics and results when we get back.

Left over brisket= NACHOS

After the brisket cook on Friday we had left over burnt ends and brisket flat. I chopped the brisket and added tortilla scoops, sour cream, queso dip, mozzarella, and salsa. I also sprinkled some Plowboys yardbird rub over the top. These were very good....and good for you!

Competition Practice--Brisket

Got a 14lb packer(whole brisket) at Sam's on Thursday to prepare to a comp test run this weekend. I am using a new injection for the first time so I was a little anxious to see how it turned out. I injected the brisket late Thursday night and then rubbed it early Friday morning. I fired up the egg and got the brisket on around 6am. Egg ran like a champ in our crappy weather, it was running between 240-260 throught the 11 hour cook. After the cook I wrapped it in foil with a marinade and let it rest in a cooler for about an hour. Overall I was extremely please with this brisket, the burnt ends were off the charts. The taste was outstanding, and the tenderness was good. I cut the brisket too thick but if I cut it a little thinner(like competition) it was have been perfect. It also had a a great bark on it. We finished it with smoked beans and cornbread. We have our first competition coming up next month in KC....I'll post more about that soon.

Competition Practice-Ribs

I fired up the egg yesterday to do some experimenting on our Rib competition recipe. I didn't change the rub or the sauce, just the temperature I cooked them at. I tried cooking them about 25 degrees hotter than I normally do. They turned out pretty good, probably the juiciest ribs I've ever done.

It's been too long!

With work, weather, hunting, and a 16 month old I haven't been able to do much smoking. I'm having withdrawal! I did do several pork shoulders 2 weekends ago that were very good, it was good to be smoking again. I have taken several deer this year and wanted to take another run at summer sausage. The sausage I did last year was mediocre at best....

I took 7 lbs of venison and 3 pounds of pork and cut it into small chunks. Then I used the kitchen aid attachment to grind the pork and venison together. After it was ground I mixed it with a curing agent, summer sausage spices, and Dizzy Pig Red Eye Express. It smelled great.

Then the real manual labor started.....stuffing the casings. This is by far the most labor intensive part of the process. I used 1 inch thick pork casings for this sausage.

Once all of it was stuffed, I put it in the fridge for about 4 hours. After that I cooked it at 185 for about 3.5 hours.

This stuff rocks, it is much better than last year and the Dizzy Pig adds nice flavor. I will definitely do this recipe again.

Blue Springs Wrap-up

I got into KC on Thursday night so we could get the ribs, chicken, and brisket trimmed and the trailer ready to go. Friday morning I had some last minute errands to run and left for the contest around 10, arriving at 10:45. To my surprise, I was the last team to check in. I had a hell of a time backing the trailer into our spot, but after about 5 attempts I finally got it. It only took me about an hour to get our site up and functional. Bayou Style BBQ was one of the teams right next to us and we hit it off right away. Sean and crew are a great bunch of guys and were really helpful with some seasoned pro tips. Most of Friday consisted of me loitering and drinking beer. Brad and Dad showed up around 4:30 and I think they were also taken aback at how big this thing was...80+ teams. The contest reps did a great job of having everything set and ready to go for the teams.
Friday night we walked around and sampled some of the other teams bbq via the Buck a Bone registration. Basically the teams can pay $50 and the general public can sample their food. My mom came out around 6:30 and hung out with us most of the evening. We got the smokers fired up around 9:30. We prepped the shoulders and the brisket and got them on the smoker around 10:15. We transferred one of the shoulders and one of the briskets to the egg around 1 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning I spent with Bayou BBQ watching movies and preparing the garnishes for the turn-in boxes.
Saturday morning was a bit on the chilly side so Brad and I went to Starbucks and loaded up on coffee. We had our ribs on by 7 a.m, the chicken on at 9:30 and the sausage on by 10. Looking back we put the sausage on too early. By the time we cut it for turn-in, it was lukewarm/cold - rookie mistake. The preparation of the turn-in boxes went well for the chicken, ribs, and sausage but we realized that 15 minutes before turn-in time is not the time to be strategizing about how to do a pork and brisket box. Our pork shoulder box looked brutal. It was basically a lump of pulled pork in the middle of the garnish...oh well, we will get it next time. The brisket box actually looked decent with both burn ends and slices in the box.
Due to the number of teams and the seasoned veterans we were not expecting much come awards time. Chicken was the first category up and to our surprise we placed fourth in chicken! We were really proud of this because our chicken has not scored well in past non-sanctioned events and we have been working to improve it quite a bit. No calls for brisket, ribs, or shoulders. Ribs 32 of 80, Brisket 20 of 80, Shoulder 29 of 80. We took 10th place in sausage, which wasn't too bad considering we served it cold! We finished 13th out 80 teams, so for our first contest, we were really happy. All in all it was a great weekend hanging out with the family! We learned a ton and are anxiously awaiting our next contest! Unfortunately I left the camera at home! Sorry there are no pics to post from the contest. Here are pics of the ribbons.

Blue Springs Blaze Off

Albino Rhino BBQ is going on the road to Blue Springs, MO this weekend for our first full sanctioned contest. We will be cooking the four competition meats plus the sausage contest. I'll post a full write up when we get back. There are 80+ teams so we aren't expecting much.