How It Began
How does someone get into the crazy world of competition BBQ? For me it started with a love of learning how to cook, from my youngest years I remember helping my mother or grandmothers cook in the kitchen. From main meals for dinner to baking deserts. In college I was on my own and experimented with cooking anything anyway I could…some good, some NOT!
I’ve owned multiple grills over my lifetime, mostly gas grills. I thought I was the king of the grill for many years. Then I received a Masterbuilt Electric Smoker (MES) for Father’s Day…the addiction started then! I learned to smoke everything you could think of on that machine. Googling all kinds of things, never afraid to give it a try: pork, ribs, roasts, chicken, turkey, fish, olives, Cheezits, Goldfish crackers, pickles, eggs, nuts, salt, cheese, etc. One day while smoking cheese on a bitter 5 degree November day I dropped my MES while moving it the garage. The plastic hinges shattered…not repairable. I had dreamed of something bigger, so with money I had saved up I went BIGGER! With the help of my friend PT, I purchased a Cookshack PG500 pellet smoker. This was a new learning curve, but mastered it well. There was even MORE I could do with this beast. I learned how to reverse sear a steak and now NOTHING I have at a restaurant will ever compare to what I create at home.
In 2015 some friends and I decided to enter a BBQ competition being held by my church. Nothing sanctioned, but sounded like fun. I sought the advice of my friend Randall who’s been competing for years…I still had no idea what I was getting into! Being new, Cory, David and I thought it was best that all 3 of us cook all 4 of the meats and we’d decide at turn-in time who’s was best….looking back now that was NUTS! Our only call was when we used David’s chicken, nicknamed “rainbow chicken” (another story), when we got 2nd place…missed 1st by .001! I was hooked. That same year I attended my first American Royal BBQ competition, I was blown away by the set up and # of people there…the entire night I was dreaming of “how I could compete in this event?”
A year later I was asked by a friend to cook for a party of 100 people at the American Royal BBQ. Now, I had never cooked for that many people so enlisted the help of a friend who had also wanted to get involved in competition BBQ. We learned that when you have a party you have to enter the Open…ok, twist our arms! The party cook went well, everyone enjoyed the pork and brisket we cooked. Jake joined us the morning of the competition as our “runner” and helping out wherever he could. We had a friend cancel at the last minute so Rick ran to the store to buy ribs and anything associated with them. That was our best turn-in…61st out of 570 teams! I knew after that weekend I had to get into competitions.
Jake and I met our freshman year while joining our fraternity and always joked we’d open our own restaurant one day…I think this may be it!