Friday, May 29, 2009

New Cooker

Went to Kansas City a couple of weeks ago and picked up the first cooker that I have ever purchased. I have always built everything before, but when you start needing the big ones on short notice I had to break down and buy it.

We bought a used FE750. In fact it is one that Eddy had in his restaruant in KC. Eddy rebuilt it and put new burn pots and controllers in it before he sold it to Bill about 8 months ago.

I will try to get pics as soon as the camera gets here.

It cooks great, very even from one side to the other. I was a little suprised that the bottom rack cooks slower than product on the top rack even with as much seperation as there is, and with the convection fans.

Just need to get the carport ordered now to get it covered!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

510 lbs of Pulled Pork

A few months ago I had told my sons FFA Chapter that I would cook pork for them for cost and they could sell it as a fund raiser. We thought that if they sold 100 to 150 lbs they would be doing good. Well, Keelan came home yesterday and said they had orders for 510 lbs, I said BS, how much did you really sell, he said 510 lbs! So we spent most of yesterday afternoon working with the FFA advisor trying to figure out the logistics of cooking, pulling and packaging that much pork!

Next week is going to be fun! Along with the FFA pork, we have all the graduation meat and side orders going out. So I am thinking that sleep will not be an option at all next week. Plus we are down to 2 roaster ovens from the 4 that we usually have to do sauce and potato casserole in.

Ahhhh restaurant life, ain't it great!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

North Platte, NE

We will be in North Platte, NE at the Honky Tonk BBQ contest next weekend. Looking forward to seeing our Colorado friends there as well as cooking at "home" in Nebraska.

America's Best BBQ

Finally got my copy of America' Best BBQ - 100 Recipes from America's Best Smokehouses, Pits, Shacks, Rib Joints, Roadhouses, and Restaruants, by Chef Paul Kirk and Ardie A. Davis.

We are proud that Chef Paul asked us to include our Prime Rib in his book. It has been exciting working on the recipe and our 2 page layout (actually Paul and Ardie did most of the work) and watching the book come together.

I have not had time to go through the book page by page yet, but it looks fantastic and I was drooling over the few pages that I have been able to look at. I really think that they should have included a roll of paper towels with each copy!

St Joeseph, MO.

What a great location for a contest. They had 50 teams all parked in the grass around the St Jo Civic Center and they actually had room for another 20 teams or so. I still can't believe that they would let all those rigs pull into the grass and make deep tracks, but they did. Even after all the rain there, everyone got in and out without problems.

Thanks to Tom Supple for putting on a great contest. Tom did an excellant job of making sure that everyone had everything they needed. He even made sure that Fred from 4 Mile Smoking Crew got a chance to meet us since we had not meet after the Jack Last year when Fred was Reserve. I think Tom and Fred spent a little too much time with the teams until the wee hours of Friday night, but thats ok!

I was looking forward to meeting 4 Mile Fred and had a good time visiting with him Friday night and Saturday morning. That is always the highlight of my time at a contest is visiting with old friends and meeting new ones.

Thanks to Andy "Gravy King" and Kim Groneman for the Friday night supper. Fried pork chops and gravy what more can you ask for! There was a lot of other good stuff on the buffet table as well, along with Val's bananna pudding - great stuff Val!

As the teams rolled in, it started to look like an invitational event. There were a lot of great teams there as well as several new teams. Congrats to my neighbors, Burnt Finger BBQ for their calls.

Congrats to JP Custom Smoke for a well deserved Grand Champion. We finished 12th in Chicken, 5th in Ribs, 16th in Pork, and 18th in Brisket with a 3rd place Overall. Thats the 4th contest this year that we have finished in 3rd place!