LBC made the News Paper in Chester SC! Here is a great read on the Hog on the Hill BBQ Competition. Pig Tales by Travis Jenkins tjenkins@onlinechester Cheyenne Ledyard of Summerville still remembers his first-ever barbecue competition. It was a big event in Charleston featuring barbecue heavyweights (and BBQ Pittmasters TV judges) Tuffy Stone and Myron Mixon. Needless to say, I got my butt handed to me that day, Ledyard remembered. Ledyard had eight butts handed to him Friday...pork butts, as did the other 11 teams in Chester to take part in the annual Hog on the Hill Barbecue Festival. The event began, as always, with the Anything But contest. As the name indicates, contestants can cook anything they like other than barbecue. The Grilling Tigers, a team made up of locals Jason, Roger and Jerry Owens, offered the crowd and judges shrimp tacos with mango salsa and avocado ranch dressing. It sounds like the kind of dish that requires a lot of planning and prep, but it wasnt. I figured out today when I went to the store what I was going to make, Jason said with a laugh. The group said the salsa was sort of done on the fly. We bought some pico de gallo and messed with it, Roger said. Jerry reported that three avocados were left over. Obviously we didnt plan too well. The Cant Quit Smoking team from Winnsboro is made up of Helen Bryant, Troy Cody and two-time state barbecue champion George King. Their Anything But entry was shrimp balls in a phyllo dough crust. We had leftover shrimp from a catering job. We cooked them, chopped them finely and added some breading and spices, Bryant said. J.T. Handy is a one-man team (JTs BBQ) from Summerville. A former two-time barbecue winner in Chester, Handy made rib tips. He arrived on the backlot early and smoked them for four hours. Jim Bennett and Kenny Skaggs of the Slap Yo Mama team, chose to do barbecued chicken wings. Theyre relatively easy and we do a lot of them, Bennett said. Team Heybo was one of several teams competing for the first time. Dustin Roof, Mark Elkins, Joe Martin, Brad Fairfax and Dwayne Schell are all Ducks Unlimited committee members and are all from Chester. Chicken purloo was on their menu. Its something different. We like Cajun food, Elkins said. Fort Lawns Ronald Dorman, a one-man outfit, gave attendees the most bang for their food ticket buck. His Anything But offering was a whole leg quarter of a chicken. I like giving people something to eat, said Dorman, who goes by the barbecue alias Road Kill Cookers. I like to see people happy and having a good time. Ledyard had a fairly high-end offering, putting shrimp and a slice of fillet on a rosemary sprig garnished with some bacon jam. The Blind Swine BBQ team made some chicken stew. Mike Sanders and Alan Sanders, David Bond and Curtis Burnett made the trip up from Greenwood for the competition. Mike is actually a certified South Carolina BBQ judge and has judged at Hog on the Hill before. I dont fish, Mike laughed. This is what I do. You get to meet a lot of people. Ronnie Windham, Mickey Dawkins and Donnie Jacobs also made chicken stew. Jacobs said his teams name matches their attitude. Were Just Having Fun, he said. By around 9:30 p.m. Friday, the Anything But entries were judged and the crowd had left with full and satisfied stomachs. That meant it was time for the teams to really get down to business. Each team went to work on their butts (a piece of meat that comes from near the pigs shoulder), trimming away fat, adding spice rubs and shooting up the pork with syringes full of injections. No two teams did things just the same, with some rubs being sweet, others spicy and a few veering toward herbaceous. Injections included butter and fruit juices. Cook times, temperatures, the kind of wood and kind of smokers used ran the gamut. Ledyard said his injection really isnt aimed at adding moisture to the meat or adding much flavor. He just wants to enhance the natural flavor of the meat, so he goes heavy on the salt. You want to create one-bite barbecue for the judges. You want all the flavors to come through in that one bite, he said. Some competitors, like Ledyard, dont mind sharing recipes and tips. Others like to keep things under wraps, mindful that one ingredient in their sauce or one extra bit of spice in their rub can make the difference between finishing in the money or going home empty-handed. No pictures of this, Handy said with a laugh as he sprinkled rub on his meat. The teams do seem to agree that its best to develop and stick to a routine. The Grilling Tigers say they used to make significant changes in their recipes, but really had no way to tell if it was having an effect on the judging scores. They make occasional tweaks for the six contests they do a year, but dont vary much from what works. We stick with one thing now, Roger said. That one thing has been family tested and approved. Handy provided the one notable exception to the stay the course philosophy. Handy, who has competed for years and teaches barbecue classes abroad, basically discarded his normal techniques and recipes. I smoked over pecan wood. I used a new sauce (mustard based) I just kind of flipped everything, said Handy, who said contests with fewer than 20 teams present a good opportunity to try something new. A love of barbecue is often handed down from parents to children. Its an art that requires lots of trial and error and is usually honed in backyards and churches. The Slap Yo Mama team started off cooking at fundraisers for the high school band and their church. Chesters Alan Ramsey was basically born into barbecue royalty. His father was an eight-time North Carolina State champion and he started following in those footsteps at the age of 14. He uses his dads sauce recipe. Dorman is originally from Buffalo, New York. Folks do grill and smoke meat up there, but it is usually beef, fish or chicken. I didnt know what Boston Butt was until I moved down here, he said. After the fires were stoked and the meat prepped, the teams put their butts in their smokers. They would spend the night keeping the fire temperature where they wanted it, with some spritzing their meat occasionally to keep it moist, to impart a little more flavor and to help build up bark a tasty semi-blackened shell that forms on the outside of the meat as fat renders out and mixes with spice rub. Most of the teams only got an hour or two of sleep overnight. This is when the sense of community starts to show among the competitors, though. People walk from tent-to-tent (or customized trailer depending on the team) sharing stories, laughs and sometimes a beverage. It was a long night but we had fun, Jacobs said. Many will also cook food for themselves. Early in the morning, King actually smoked a few slabs of ribs. He declared that his ribs arent that good and was trying a new recipe. He gave some to the official S.C. Barbecue Association judges on hand for some feedback. With turn-in set for 10 a.m., the teams had their butts off the smokers no later than 9 a.m. They started the process of pulling or chopping the meat. Most applied sauce and some, like Ledyard, added a finishing powder to the meat he planned to turn in, to pack every ounce of flavor into his entry possible. Most of the teams agree the meat they turn into the judges bears little resemblance to what they would make for themselves at home and it often isnt exactly like what they sell to the public later in the day. They have a good idea of what judges want, though, in terms of appearance and flavor. Ledyard knows what they dont want too. Judges at one competition found a hair in his box a while back. He was allowed to redo the box, but another hair was found. He said he was crushed to have 12 hours of work go down the drain, but he also figured out later it wasnt actually a hair in the box. Hed used a paintbrush to apply sauce. It had started to come apart a bit and left some bristles on his meat. He now uses special brushes that dont shed. South Carolina competitions do not require the use of garnish in the styrofoam turn-in box, but the teams meticulously place the meat. Most put slices of the money muscle (a choice piece of fat-laden shoulder meat that is the beginning of the loin) and some pulled or shredded meat that looks more like traditional barbecue. Others add in bark. Its always arranged in symmetrical fashion. Once the boxes are turned in, the teams go to work on the other butts to make the barbecue the public comes to enjoy. They also start to stress over how the judges will receive their entries. Everything went pretty smooth. We hope they like it, Elkins said. At 2 p.m., the entertainment stage went quiet as organizer Robert Cauthen came forward to announce the winners. Just Having Fun won The Peoples Choice award in the Friday night contest. The Palmetto Smokers took third in the judged Anything But contest, with the Grilling Tigers coming second with their shrimp tacos. Palmetto Smokehouse was second in the barbecue contest and Handy was first, despite changing his entire approach. It was a good day for Ledyard too. He was third in the barbecue contest and took first place in the Anything But contest. When he first jumped into competition, he had his butt handed to him. Saturday, he had two trophies handed to him.
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 15:13:28 +0000
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