by gazz_46 » 28 May 2014, 21:39
Round #2 Report "Drum & Baste"...its a long one!
It was a lonely start to the competition, Mrs Evil was working and couldn’t make it to Tongham until Saturday night, Bazz was busy at work too and Grumpy man had a crisis at home which meant yours truly had to do the meat prep Thursday night then try and get some kip (no chance....nerves) gather the not insubstantial kit we have and load it all solo Friday....gulp!
Having learned from our 1st comp i managed to cut down on some of the stuff we had hoping to just take essentials, anyhow this took quite a bit of reorganisation and time was pressing. Had to get a hire van for this trip which i collected at 12:00 then began the long and torturous job of loading.... that was some ask but by 17:00 had just about broken the (my) back of it.
Grumpy man arrived around 17:30 and off we set, wasn’t looking forward to unloading at the other end but hey ho....gotta be done, we arrived in Surrey very late due to traffic and an accident on the M25 (god bless the M25) but surprise, surprise Bazz had made his way down to the comp after work to help unload and set up (love ya Bazza).
Set up of the camp kitchen went ok but it was getting dark, time to put up the tent.... Oopps this was a new bigger tent that i had insisted on due to my bad back and hurriedly purchased but never previously erected. Damn it was getting dark, where does this pole go......what pole i cant see it, its the yellow marked one etc. It was farcical really but Bazz and grumpy man pulled thru while i faffed around like a girl.
We were fully erect (Phnarr......) by about 22:30 and had missed out on going to the pub with Toby and the other competitors however we felt glad when they returned very much the worse for wear..... there had been much celebrating of the British Bulldog Teams massive result in Memphis!
Bazz made his way home for the night & me and grumpy made our way to the big top to chill, imbibe and chat with our friends from “Taking the brisket” a team from Wales before retiring for the night..... oh dear mucho shots were to be had, someone in their infinite wisdom had opened 3x bottles of the strong stuff and it all got a bit messy
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I retired to bed in my spacious new accommodation at 02:30 and heard the grumpster fighting his way into his tent about 15 mins later it was now pershishing down and remained so throughout the night, dammit. I held onto as much liquor as i could until around 06:00 when my kidneys insisted i make the trip across the field to the toilets. I’d not partaken of that much but did feel pretty rough, i felt substantially better when i saw the grumpster later on who’d had more than a few lol.
08:00 It was time to get going the “Anything Butt” round was to be presented at 16:00 we still needed to finish set up and prep the 2nd four comp meats we picked up from Toby, then there was the drum part of the weekend......... we were supposed to build a Big Poppa UDS to take home with us and was included as an option on the entry fee, an absolute bargain and the king of drum smokers.
Organisationally we had learned from our 1st comp and were a little more relaxed but there was no way we were gonna get to build the UDS and present our entry so the decision was taken with Toby’s consent that we would take the UDS kit home to build (bonus, coz i am so flippen anal i was gonna have to strip it again to paint anyhow)
For this round i had chosen 3x Poisson to smoke and had prepared a home made bbq sauce a clone of a well known brand, long story shorter we got it on late and it was barely cooked by hand -in...Doh! it was safe so it was sauced and sent but not really acceptable, the judges did their best to taste it but were rightly cautious......suffice to say we came nowhere and they didn’t like the sauce.
On to the big 4, injected rubbed and ready we actually caught a break and had the smokers going and the meats on early, time to relax. Taking onboard feedback from round 1 i had made some adjustments to flavours, temps & timings but still had no idea how it was gonna go.........Badly was the answer!
Everything was running like clockwork, a set of meats in the Thuros cabinet and another in Bert (my wsm) for direct comparison and an insurance policy should anything go wrong.......... it did!
Both smokers had been chugging away nicely at 250F for around 5-6 hours when it came time to spritz. I sprayed the meats with a mix of water and apple juice every half hour for two hours when all of a sudden and for no fricken reason the BBQ Guru system on Bert had a hissy fit, there are no words to describe what happened or how other than to say it went completely “Tonto” and nothing i could do or did would rectify it............. temps were all over the place feckit! I tried new probes, batteries and resetting several times over the course of the next few hours but to no avail..........i was resigned to losing the lot. Then i chanced upon a solution, not by design but by sheer luck i moved the pit probe about six inches and to my surprise it settled down....WTF?
Temps stabilised and all was good in the world again however due to the time taken to resolve Berts woes we had lost temp on both smokers and that didn’t make for a happy Dr. I can tell ya the briskets and butts were still in foil and stalling like crazy when the chicken and ribs had to go in, we were playing catch up again.
Chicken thigh turn-in came and went without drama but i wasn’t entirely happy with them the ribs on the other hand had gone much better and looked killer, i was over the moon with them and felt sure we would get a call. Pork was next and didn’t go to plan, i messed up the presentation and had to have a 2nd go at loading the box, tempers were frayed..... well in truth i cracked under the self imposed pressure and shouted at Mrs. Evil who was trying to be positive (sorry Gill) but made the best of it and turned it in feeling pretty shitty, not much hope of a call.
Briskets didn’t come out too well either and took a lot of trimming i thought these were a step backwards but it was all done now. I was inconsolable feeling the only chance we had was ribs, another comp done it was time for a beer and chill.
The time came for the prize giving ceremony and i wasn’t that happy to go if I’m honest, i hadn’t slept i had major pain all weekend and felt with the exception of ribs i hadn’t improved on our 1st comp.
I manned up thanked the team and sat down to applaud the winners....
Chicken.... No call
Ribs...........Nothing....... but they were the best i had ever cooked!
Pork...........2nd place Dr. Evil....
“what did he say?”
“2nd.....No fuffing way!” were my exact words, we all looked at each other in disbelief but it was true Toby had called us was looking our way with a trophy in his hands and said he expected to see more of us in the future!
I cracked just managing to hold it together hoping no one would notice i was on the edge of tears(Gill noticed) We graciously accepted our trophy and posed for the team photo and sat back down still in disbelief. We looked like a bunch of rabbits caught in headlights I couldn’t speak it was all too much.
Brisket came and went without a call, that was it but we were on cloud nine anyhow.
Steve “Jedi Swine Tricks” was awarded Reserve Grand Champion
Ed & Emma “Bunch Of Swines” were hailed as Grand Champions
Bazz then went to get the score cards, shock and yet more horror we were listed as 3rd placed overall...!!
Must be some mistake... nope...by this time i had prolapsed, there are no words except to say im a dick!
Checking our scores we had improved dramatically in all four categories and yet i felt it had gone so badly..........
what the hell do i know.
Its tuff this competition lark, thank you Team Evil