BBQ Junkie

Four Q BBQ Team wins People’s Choice

BBQ Junkie is not pictured … see all of the photos here

The Wishland Foundation’s BBQ Competition, Que’n For The Kids, that took place this last weekend was pretty awesome. It was my first competition where we had to do a peoples choice category and we won it with a decisive “landslide” victory. People’s Choice is a great category to compete in because we get to meet with many BBQ fans and the public loves it because they get to sample competition-style BBQ. We placed fourth overall and got 6th in chicken, 4th in ribs and 7th in brisket. GO TEAM!

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Wishland’s Que’n for Kids this Saturday

The Wishland Foundation along with the California BBQ Association are putting on Orange County’s first-ever BBQ competition on Saturday April 19th. The festivities go from 11am to 4pm at Canyon RV Park at Featherly Park (91 Fwy. At Gypsum Canyon Rd. www.canyonrvpark.com) and are free to the public (parking is $5). Music, entertainment and a children’s activity area… what else could you want?… oh yeah, and super delicious BBQ.
Four Q BBQ team, me included, will be representin’ at this competition along with 22 other teams. It will be the first time this year that the entire team is cooking together. The rest of the team (minus me) has been doing really good this year; I hope that I can keep up. Aside from this being a great event for a wonderful cause full of pure BBQ bliss, the public will also be allowed to taste authentic competition-style BBQ and vote in a the people’s choice award. The tasting packages start at $10.
If you happen to go to this event stop by the Four Q BBQ Team booth and say hello. Hope to see y’all there.

Wishland’s Que’n for Kids (wisland.org)
Saturday April 19th from 11am to 4pm
Admission is FREE! Parking is $5.00
Tasting Packages start at $10.00

Canyon RV Park at Featherly Park
91 Fwy. At Gypsum Canyon Rd.
www.canyonrvpark.com
(Canyon RV Park is located just north of the 91 Frwy on the Santa Ana River under the Gypsum Canyon Bridge. Just Exit the 91 freeway and Gypsum Canyon Rd and enter the park on the North side of the frwy.)

Wishland’s mission is to provide assistance and cherished moments to seriously ill children and their families.

Happy leap-year barbecuers!

Yeah, the BBQ Junkie has been a bit of a hermit lately. The good thing is that my love of BBQ is remains alive, it’s just my love of writing is what’s giving me problems (actually it’s just finding time to write). I was just looking at my blog and noticed that my last post was during Thanksgiving. Wow, that’s sad. I didn’t even write about the smoked pork but tamales that I made for Xmas… or any other barbecue related items.
Four Q BBQ team will be competing this weekend in an unofficial backyard event that I am not able to attend. But, come April we will be having our first event in the O.C. (more details to follow). For now hang loose and I will have my first restaurant review of the year coming up next week. Thanks for continuing to visit.

Smoked Turkey

Smoked Thanksgiving Day turkey with a BBQ rub.

This was one of my first smoked BBQ turkeys; the other one is on the bottom grate. I was trying to get out of doing the turkey all together just because of all the craziness that having a new baby brings, but my family wasn’t going to allow that. Plus, the baby isn’t that new anymore and I should be able to work within this so-called “craziness-”
I must say, that I was impressed with the results and nothing could have been easier. This was especially true of the clean up, no roasting pans to scrub! YAY!
My smoker (WSM) fits two small birds, about 12lbs. each. I like the smaller birds for a few different reasons. First, they cook faster. Second the meat to skin ratio is more to my liking. Third, the drumsticks are way more manageable. They’re smaller and you have four of them.

What I did:
Generously rubbed some BBQ seasoning all over the birds (nothing special, just some extra BBQ rub that I had in a jar).
Got my smoker up to temperature and added some hickory chunks to the coals.
Smoked two turkeys at about 230º for about 9 hours (the time will vary)
Placed them in an aluminum tray, wrapped them in foil and sent them to the in-laws.
Tada!!!

If I were to make some adjustments here is what I would do next year:

Brine: First off, the birds were still a little frozen the day before the smoking, so I ended up not brining them…which I usually do. The meat could have used a little more saltiness and moisture, but isn’t that what gravy is for?

Inject the bird: I didn’t bother to inject, but I should have. This would have delivered some additional flavor deep into the meat. Especially in the breast.

Gravy: find a way to get some pan drippings from the smoked bird and make the gravy. This is one advantage of doing an oven roasted bird.

BBQ Sauce: consider offering some as a condiment to the smoked bird. This seems a bit heretical, but it may be the perfect addition to your Thanksgiving Day table.

Moorpark Fall Fest & BBQ Cook-Off

First place brisket turn-in box.
I had the opportunity to participate in a BBQ competition this weekend, along with the rest of the Four Q BBQ team, up in the lovely city of Moorpark. Overall we did pretty good, 1st place brisket, 3rd place pork, 5th place ribs, and 6th place chicken. 6th place chicken isn’t bad when there are more than six teams. Unfortunately that’s all there were. We were all pretty happy with what we turned in and had a great time BBQ’n in a walnut groove.

Check out my photos from the event: See my flickr photos. Want to see more? Then check out Soul Fusion Kitchen’s flickr photos here.

Here are the result from the competition:

Results

1. Tropic Heat and BBQ by Dan
2. Tie Breaker Tropical Heat

Half Chicken

1. 1 Tropical
2. 2 OU8 BBQ (Todd Eves)
3. 3 BBQ by Dan
4. 4 Pit Stop
5. 5 Papa Smoke House

Spare Ribs

1. 1 Dan
2. 2 Tropical
3. 3 OU8 BBQ
4. 4 Pit Stop
5. 5 4Q

Pork

1. 1 Dan
2. 2 OU8 BBQ
3. 3 4Q
4. 4 Tropical
5. 5 Pit Stop

Brisket

1. 1 4Q
2. 2 Tropical
3. 3 Papas Smoke House
4. 4 Dan
5. 5 OU8 BBQ

BBQ Commercial with an R&B vibe

A little something for your Thursda before lunch. Wish there was a Mr. Spriggs BBQ around here… it’s got me thinking about ribs right now.

Jack Daniel’s Neighborhood BBQ

Video from the last neighborhood BBQ

Just got this one from a BBQ friend, Nichola (pronounced like the Ricola commercial):

The QuickSilverEdition Mission is hosting another neighborhood BBQ this weekend. The last one sounds like it was a good time had by all… food, music and Jack Daniels as part of the prize. For more information on how to get on the list visit their website and click on the “get on the list link. Then, let me know how the event was.

Saturday, July August 4th
Baby Blues BBQ on Lincoln faces off against Glencrest BBQ down on A.K.
Also in the mix are the Matt Logan and the Tequila Team,
Jamal Northington, and Two Smokin dogs with his lady-friends.
Jason Stroh from Stroh’s Gourmet will be serving up delicious sides and salads.

Saturday August 25th
Final Showdown and crowning of the Venice Beach Jack Daniel’s BBQ champions

BBQ thermometer, my new best friend

I was a little envious at previous BBQ competitions when I noticed that a couple of the BBQ teams were using Dual probe thermometers. I guess you could say it was gadget envy. This was especially the case in the last competition when I had forgotten my meat thermometer/timer at home. Up until this point I had only seen them at the store and wondered if they were actually useful or were they just for lazy folks.
I use a single probe meat thermometer and a separate gauge-style smoker thermometer which I have had for quite sometime… they have served me well over the years and give me all of the information that I need. Who could ask for more? While I was at Barbecues Galore picking up some hickory wood chunk I saw that dual probe thermometer staring me in the face. I couldn’t resist… after all, everyone else is using it… right? So I dropped the extra $50 ($49.95) and got myself a handy dandy dual probe Redi Chek BBQ thermometer and I couldn’t wait to use it.
There I was unpacking it and as my wife looked over shaking her head as I try to justify the purchase. Fortunately she likes BBQ and didn’t challenge my decision-making abilities… this time. One added bonus that I hadn’t noticed, or didn’t bother to notice, was that it was a remote thermometer. I have a remote thermometer, that I have never used, that I picked up at one of those end of season sales a while back. It was under ten bucks and I couldn’t say no. These things always seemed like a gimmick to me, kinda like the BBQ set that has that fork with an instant-read thermometer built into it. Remote thermometers have one more piece than your standard probe thermometer. Thats in my book one more piece that can get broken, lost, or just run out of battery juice. Well, what the heck, lets give it go anyways.
The learning curve was a little steep, but if it gave me both temperatures it would be worth it. After all, that what I really wanted. As I sit programming this thing i notice that it also lets me set an alarm for high and low temperatures for both probes. Sweet, so I go ahead and do that put my butts in the smoker and go. And there they were, the temperatures for both my smoker and my meat.
The beauty of the remote BBQ thermometer was made apparent once I went inside and started, surfing the web, watching TV, cleaning the kitchen, and just doing my thing. I could just take a look at my thermometer and have peace of mind that my temps are all good. It was amazing, just like magic. All of these year I have been going outside and checking my smoker and meat temps. Now I can do that from indoors. Yay! It’s just like using WiFi for the first time, you wonder how you ever lived without it.
Overall, I’m very pleased with my purchase except for steep learning curve required to use this thermometer. I have to make sure that I keep the instructions in a safe place. I wonder if other brands are easier to use? I love what it does, gives me smoker and meat temperatures from the comfort of my living room, just wish it was a little easier to use.

Cookouts are always fun.

Swift loves BBQ.

Mmmmmm, pork butt.

Barbecuing for friends and family is always fun especially when you have your trusty dog and he is willing to help you with any scraps. The mid-week festivities threw me for a loop where I had to pre-cook all of my meat the weekend prior to the Fourth. The pulled pork sandwiches were the hands-down winner. I also made a batch for the peeps at work and they seemed to enjoy as well. There were even a couple of vegetarians who crossed over, just for the day. The ribs were good, but didn’t fare nearly as well as the pulled pork. Those butts are pretty indestructible.

One thing that I did notice is that we cooked way too much food. Perhaps we’ll plan better next year, but BBQ is one of those things where you can’t just put one rack of ribs in the smoker. Might as well fill the thing if you’re going to cook anything at all.

I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked to have taken. But you can check out my photo set by clicking here.

4th of July BBQ

This year the 4th falls on a Wednesday, which sucks because I only get one day off for the holiday. I like having an extra day before to prepare and start to cook my BBQ. Our menu will usually consist of BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. These are great because I cook the pork overnight in my smoker and they are ready to eat as people arrive. The ribs I like to do the day of so that guests can enjoy them with the rest of the meal.
This year things are a little different and I had to pre-cook all of my meat. This is a pain because I like cooking on that day, but BBQ takes time and this year I have none. It also means that I am going to have to reheat all of my meat, hopefully it wont be overcooked.
I would like to hear about what is on your menu for the Fourth, post a comment and let me know.