Haven't posted in awhile but I've been cook'n!

[Chili Head]

How's everybody doing?
It seems like I have less time now to post than I did when I worked vampire hours. Anyway I've been cooking. Cooking a lot! I've cooked in my first competition recently. I've cooked more ribs and chicken than I care to admit!
I cook on the drum more than anything else it seems. I haven't cooked butts or brisket in six months. My weekends if I'm free I'm scraping skin and practice cooking chicken more often than not. Any way here's some pics of some of the cooks I've done recently.

I cooked some beef ribs which had great flavor but not much meat. I was disappointed to say the least. I love my big poppa seasonings!

Here's one of our practice cooks. Mainly playing with flavor profiles. Tried some different chicken technics too. The mini bread pans had holes drilled in the bottom to allow fluid movement. This was the last time we tried those pans..

Food wasn't bad but we were a long way off of what I was looking for that weekend.

 

[Chili Head]

Score! I finally found some!
Call me crazy but I honestly believe the competition tastes better.

Got some of the new cuckoo racha and tried it on some pork steaks. Awesome! I can't wait to try it on some sriracha ginger wings.

 

[Chili Head]

We'll I cooked in my first competition a few weeks ago. Ribs and chicken is all. The ribs were some of the best I've ever done as far as taste and tenderness. We nailed both our cook times but there's room for improvement on a few other things. One thing we didn't practice is building boxes..big mistake! I didn't do these two and left them to the other two guys as I tended to the cooking,saucing rib cutting ect. No excuses and now I know and lesson learned. I didn't take pictures as we were cooking but I got some pictures of the boxes that one of my guys took when they got done with them.

We managed a third place in ribs! Whoop whooop not bad for the first time out!

We bombed in chicken...bad. Like tied for last place lol. Not enough flavor according to the judges sheets. Damn more skin scraping on my weekends..

We have another competition on September 20 with 50 teams. Can't wait! Maybe I won't be a nervous wreck pacing around this time..

Tonight is my 25 wedding anniversary. I made my lovely wife a ribeye dinner with baked potatoes and garlic bread cooked in the MAK. You know you haven't cooked on a cooker in awhile when you find spider webs in your fire pot..sad.

That's about all i got for now. I hope you all are doing well! I miss hanging out here looking at all the great looking food you guys post. I'm really going to try to participate more often too. I noticed lots of new folks too. That's awesome!

Take care everyone and I'll be sure to let you know how " Smoking Buds BBQ" does in our next comp coming up. We don't smoke the buds..we're just a couple of buds who like to smoke!

 

[scooter]

You've been busy Chili!! It all looks so good!
Congrats on your first comp!

 

[So Cal Smoker]

Great stuff Chili, thanks for sharing.

 

[TentHunter]

My word, you have been busy. looking at all your food pics now has me hungry (good thing it's lunch time).

Congrats on your third place win your very first time out - that is quite a feat!

 

[MattBPS]

Good luck with the comps chili!

Awesome thread! Thanks for sharing!