BBQ Products Marketing Co-op:

My wife Linda and I compete in barbecue contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and Florida Barbecue Association.

To assist with funding our competitive cooking efforts, we also market our own original recipe barbecue rub at cook-offs and via our web site about competitive barbecue at TheBBQGuy.com
If you or someone you know also markets a barbecue product and you would like to form a cooperative effort to help both of us potentially increase sales, please contact me at thebbqguy@yahoo.com to discuss it further.

To explain a little more about what I have in mind....

For example, if you have a barbecue sauce (or other barbecue product) to sell and would like to 'trade' me for an equal dollar amount of my original spice rub, I believe we could mutually benefit from this type of arrangement.

Companies like Home Depot, Eddie Bauer, Wrangler, and Wal-Mart have proven that "cooperation" of this type is mutually beneficial and have been doing it for years.

Again, if you have a barbecure or other product that might fit this mold, please contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Briskets and Pork Butts:

4:50 a.m. The alarm sounded at 4 a.m. and I got up to put two pork butts and a CAB brisket on to cook. I started the brisket about 45 minutes ahead of the butts so they will finish at close to the same time.

9:00 a.m. It's getting colder outside and we're beginning to realize that winter weather is right around the corner. I heard it was 85 degree last week in Tennessee. I'd like to have some 85 degree weather today.

10:30 a.m. I just finished wrapping the meat and checking the temperature probes. The butts were at 162 and the brisket at 163.

2:00 p.m. I just took the briskets and butts off the cooker, wrapped them in towels and placed them inside an Igloo cooler to hold until ready to serve tonight around 5:30 p.m.

The Great Chili Quest 2006:

This will be a multi-part post that I will update periodically with my progress. For the past several years as the weather starts turn cooler and the bbq contest season begins to wind down, I tend to gravitate towards finding other forms of competitive cooking challenges to "research". I've know about chili cook-offs for a couple years now and have attended a couple to check them out.

This winter I hope to learn to cook contest chili in the spirit of the International Chili Society

Being a total novice at cooking "chili without beans", it should be interesting and quite comical at times I'm sure. I tend to over analyze most everything I try for the first few times, so this time I've pledged to take one of the chili recipes from the ICS website and work on it over the winter with the goal of entering the Snowflake Regional in Jackson, MI scheduled for 2/12/2006.

I'll post updates from time to time on my progress.

Mustard BBQ Sauce

The BBQ Guy's Mustard BBQ Sauce:

3 cups ketchup

1 cup mustard

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup molasses

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 T garlic powder

1 T onion powder

1 T black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 T Worchester sauce

I mix this together and heat it on the stove top for about 15 minutes to help dissolve the sugar. I heat it to 160 degrees for 1 minute. Higher heat has a tendancy to break down the honey and molasses too much.

Store leftover sauce in the refrigerator.

Everyone needs a Plan B:

I am an avid UT Vols football fan. Even though I grew up in Missouri, I watched the Big Orange whenever the games were televised. I was a big Johnny Majors fan and followed the careers of Andy Kelly, Heath Shuler, Reggie White, Alvin Harper, Carl Pickens and Willie Gault, among many, many others.

I came across an article today about one of the most heralded offensive linemen to play in Knoxville since Phillip Fulmer graduated. The article demonstrates why everyone needs a plan B. I hope you enjoy the article about Michael Munoz as much as I did.

Westpoint Barbecue, Dearborn, MI:

My wife Linda and I stopped in for lunch today at Westpoint Barbeque at 25301 Michigan Avenue in Dearborn, MI. It’s the first time Linda has tried a barbecue restaurant since we moved here from Florida and my second visit to a commercial barbecue restaurant in the Motor City area.

Before I say anything else about our experience, I should offer this disclaimer: Linda and I have cooked in barbecue contests with KCBS and FBA for the past three years. We cook our own barbecue at home and enjoy it a lot. Linda grew up in Tennessee and is southern-style barbecue connoisseur. I grew up in Missouri, but fell in love with Tennessee style pulled pork after I moved to Tennessee after college graduation.

I’ve driven by the Westpoint Barbeque restaurant a lot in my trips to and from work and the place always seems to have a lot of cars in the parking lot.
We stopped in at 11 a.m. for lunch on our way to Greenfield Village. We were ahead of the regular lunch crowd and there were only two or three other groups in the restaurant when we arrived.

We figured that any restaurant that has the word “barbeque” in their name should stand a good chance of serving some pretty good barbecue, so we decided to give it a try.

Our intention was to order pulled pork and spare ribs; that way we could both try some of each.

The waitress brought our menus and we noticed that Westpoint Barbeque serves a lot of other things besides barbecue. The first item that caught my eye when I opened the menu was “pitas”. They must have had three or four different pitas to choose from. They also serve fish, steaks, hamburgers, and a variety of other sandwiches and salads. Linda was disappointed that they didn’t have “pulled pork” on the menu.

I ordered the barbecue ribs (1/2 slab) and Linda chose the “sliced” barbecue pork tenderloin sandwich. The waitress served our drinks quickly and brought silverware to the table with the food arriving within 10 minutes of placing the order. The tables were clean, the waitresses were pleasant and we were greeted and seated within a few seconds of arriving.

The ribs are served with Texas Toast and a choice of fries, broiled potatoes or a baked potato. I chose a side order of cole slaw and the broiled potatoes. At first glance the ribs appeared over cooked. They were very black in color and were slathered in a bright red barbecue sauce. The ribs were pre-cut with notches to make them easier to pull apart, but I was able to separate the ribs easily.

Upon first bite my taste buds were greeted with some flavors and textures that I do not usually associate with barbecue ribs; a “charred” texture to the meat from the top of the ribs and a lack of sweetness to the barbecue sauce. I did not notice any rub on the ribs at all. I can only guess that the ribs were cooked with a lot of sauce, and therefore the cooking process “burned” the sauced onto the ribs causing the charring effect. I prefer barbecue sauce that is sweeter and have grown accustomed to honey or molasses flavors. The sauce seemed to be a derivative of the Cattleman’s sauce that you can buy at Sam’s Club warehouse store. I can also only assume that the ribs were cooked a long time before they were served; perhaps the day before. They had the characteristics of barbecue ribs that I sometimes eat as leftovers. The vinegar slaw and broiled potato wedges were very good.

The barbecue pork tenderloin sandwich was served on Texas Toast with lettuce, tomato and A LOT of barbecue sauce slopped on it. Linda commented that she’d never had barbecue with lettuce and tomato. She promptly removed them. Sauce was oozing out onto the bread from all sides. Linda commented that the meat was dried out and that the spice flavoring did not penetrate the meat through and through. I had a bite of the tenderloin and it didn’t take long to figure out why it was served with so much sauce; it was really dried out.

The waitress offered us refills and presented the check: $21 and change. We left a $4 tip and left.

I’ll be the first to admit that we are pretty critical restaurant guests. We notice things like unswept floors, finger prints on the glass, cigarette smells, and unclean restroom facilities. We found NONE of those characteristics at Westpoint Barbeque. The restaurant was very neat, very organized and very clean throughout the dining room area, the waitresses and bus boys were neatly dressed and pleasant. The restroom was one of the cleanest I’ve seen in a family-style restaurant.

On a scale of 1 through 10, I’d rate the overall dining experience a “7″ and the barbecue as “marginal”.

Baby Back Ribs:

10/8 9:30 p.m. I just finished preparing three slabs of ribs for smoking tomorrow. I sprinkled them front and back with The BBQ Guy's Original Spice Rub and put them back in the refrigerator to let them marinade overnight.

I plan to cook them in my WSM using Royal Oak lump charcoal and a small fist-sized chunk of hickory wood for smoking. I cook them at 230 degrees on the top rack of the cooker. Baby backs take about 4 1/2 hours to cook, so they should be ready by about half time of tomorrow's first round of football games.

10/9 9:30 a.m. I started a 1/2 charcoal chimney full of Royal Oak and added the lit charcoal to the unlit lump in the WSM.

9:50 a.m. The WSM has reached 200 degrees and I add the ribs, two racks on the top rack and one on the bottom rack.

11:50 p.m. I wrapped the ribs in foil, meat side down on a goohy mixture of dark brown sugar and honey. I also added a few ounces of cherry juice. I usually use a grape juice/apple juice mixture, but didn't have any on hand.

1:00 p.m I unwrapped the ribs from the foil and check for doneness. The meat is beginning to pull away from the bone and the bones will separate from the meat with a slight tug by the fingers. I brushed the ribs with honey and sauce and let them continue to cook for another 20 minutes to firm the sauce.

1:20 p.m. I removed the ribs from the smoker. Time to eat!

I planned to post some pictures of the results, but unfortunately, the batteries in the digital camera are dead, but here's a picture of some ribs I cooked at a barbecue contest this past summer. These ribs received 4th place honors.

Your barbecue friend,

Brian Pearcy
"The BBQ Guy"
Phone: 734-658-1874
www.thebbqguy.com
Member Kansas City Barbecue Society
Member Florida Barbecue Association

Chili Recipe:

1 can Light Kidney Beans (drained)
1 can Pinto Beans (drained)
1 can Garbanzo Beans (drained)
2 cans (14.5 oz) diced Red Tomatoes
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 medium white onion (chopped)
1 teaspoon cummin
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons The BBQ Guy's Original Spice Rub
2 lbs hamburger (lightly browned)

Combine the ingredients in a large pot. Cook over medium-low heat for 30-45 minutes and serve. Stir occasionally.

Your barbecue friend,

Brian Pearcy
"The BBQ Guy"
Phone: 734-658-1874
www.thebbqguy.com
Member Kansas City Barbecue Society
Member Florida Barbecue Association

BBQ is Universal:

I did a search on Google tonight for "bbq" and it returned 16,900,000 pertinent pages written in English.

A quick perusing of the search results reveal a huge variety of things bbq--everything from bbq recipes, bbq restaurants, competition bbq cooking teams, bbq equipment, bbq blogs, bbq forums....well, you get the idea.

Entry # 98 is a bbq blog called Texas Cook

Entry # 181 is a web site detailing the BBQ on the Bow a Canadian bbq contest.

Entry # 271 is a press release detailing a review of Peace, Love and BBQ by Mike Mills. BBQ is a family obsession for the Mills family that has grown to include a dozed bbq restaurants in Illinois, New York and Las Vegas.

And I could go on, and on, and on....

So you see, barbecue is past time, a business, a culture, but most of all, it's just plain delicious!

In Home Catering:

Have you ever called an off-site catering company to inquire about rates for an event at your home? Most likely , the prices were shocking. Off-site catering companies have high overhead costs due to the State's requirement for a licensed cooking facility. The BBQ Guy Personal Chef Service can provide food for your private event, within your own home at a fraction of the cost. Specializing in events serving from 2 to 40 guests, The BBQ Guy can work with you to provide a memorable event with the best barbecue and southern-style entres you've ever laid your taste buds on!

E-mail The BBQ Guy for more information.

Plymouth - Canton Outdoor Cooking Club

Do you like to cook outdoors? Do you enjoy cooking with grills, smokers, turkey fryers, and dutch ovens?

Want to join a cooking club?

Here's how the club will work:

We will meet on a monthly basis.
Members will learn about various outdoor cooking styles.
Meals will be cooked outdoors.
We will cook main dishes, sides, desert.
At the end of each meeting we will plan next month's menu.

I hope to hear from you.

E-mail me for more information