Shane's Rib Shack

Linda and I had lunch at Shane's Rib Shack yesterday. We ordered the large sampler platter, which included a 1/3 rack of ribs, about a 1/2 pound of chopped pork, and 6 fried chicken fingers. The large platter also comes with a choice of two side orders. We chose the fried okra and baked beans for our lunch.

Before I describe our impressions of the meal, I'd like to give you some background on Shane's. According to the website, Shane is a real person that used to have a corporate job. He took an old family recipe for bbq sauce and created a chain of bbq restaurants that is spreading it's influence across the country.

Getting back to our lunch yesterday...it was dissapointing.

The bbq sauce was good, but the ribs weren't much more than luke warm. They were charred with some type of black substance that reminded me of steaks that I used to cook on the grill when I was about 13 years old. The ribs were on the dry side and absent of any smoke flavor or smoke ring. The chopped pork wasn't warm at all--actually c0ld--but it did have a nice hint of vinegar flavor. The chicken fingers don't belong on the menu at a bbq restaurant, but I realize that kids like chicken so that probably explains why they are included on the "bbq sampler" platter. When I was a kid, I'd have rather eaten bbq, but I realize most kids like chicken tenders. The fried okra and baked beans were the best part of our lunch. I recommend the fried okra. It wasn't as good as home cooked, but it was close.

I realize that my experience is based upon one single restaurant on one single day, so I'll probably give them another chance sometime, but our lunch experience yesterday was a huge dissapointment.

Famous Dave's Barbecue

CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch featured Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Dave's, on tonight's program. His company has expanded from one restaurant in a town of 1,800 people and today it's expanded across the country and reported sales of $400,000 million last year.

The decor reminds me a lot of Logan's Road House and even Cracker Barrel in certain aspects, but it's hard to argue with Mr. Anderson's success in the bbq world.

BBQ Smoker Surprise

A man purchased a second hand bbq smoker and found a human leg inside. This article explains the details regarding the unusual discovery.

Backwoods Smoker

I spent some time visiting the Backwoods Smoker website today.

The Backwoods Smoker "Party" was my first real smoker. I paid $700 for it five-years ago. They've added some newer models in the last few years including the Jr. Pro, Piglet, Chubby and Fat Boy. The Party has been reformulated to include the previously optional upgraded stainless steel door and upgraded charcoal grate as standard options.

The web site has been redesigned too and now includes an owners gallery.

Virginia Barbecue, in Florida?

While riding my motorcycle near Ellenton, FL this afternoon I drove by Hickory Hollow BBQ on Highway 301 and couldn't help but notice the description on the sign proclaiming something about serving authentic Virgina barbecue. I'm not familar with exactly what makes bbq in Virginia different than bbq in other states, but I couldn't wait to get home and "google it" to see if I could figure it out.

A search for Virginia BBQ returned information about a Virginia bbq restaurant franchise opportunity. For a $20,000 franchise fee they will sell you a franchise for their bbq concept. The Washington Post wrote an article about one of the first franchisees recently.

I found web sites about authentic Virginia hams from the Edwards family and a link to Alicia's Recipes, which has a recipe specifically for West Virginia barbeque. I've got to tell you that if Virginia bbq is like the western variety talked about at Alicia's, I'm not sure I want any because Alicia likes to cover her bbq meat with water, bring it to a boil, and simmer it until tender. Par boiling isn't my idea of authentic anything.

I also discovered the online home for the Silver Pig Barbeque, which has an interesting logo on their web page that reminds me of life on the family pig farm dating back about 25 years.

I tried and tried, but apparently Google hasn't discovered authentic Virginia barbecue yet, because after 30 minutes of searching, I did not find the essence of what makes Virginia so much different than Florida bar-be-que.

I think the folks at Hickory Hollow Barbecue need to review their marketing techniques. I wonder how many others like me don't really know Virginia bbq from any other 'ole bbq sold on the side of the road. Other than the owner being from Virginia, I haven't the slightest idea what it really means.

Can you help a BBQ guy out, and help me understand?

Barbecue Charcoal Trivia

Henry Ford invented charcoal briquettes as a by-product of the automobile manufacturing process. Ford created the briquette from wood scraps and sawdust at his car factory. E.G. Kingsford bought the invention and put the charcoal briquette into commercial production.

Henry Ford is also credited as the inventor of the automotive assembly line as we know it today.

If you ever visit Detroit, MI, take the time to visit the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. You'll be glad you made the trip.

Stuffed BBQ Pork Loin

I cooked a stuffed pork loin today based on the Pork Loin Mexicana recipe printed in the Smoke & Spice book by Cheryl and Bill Jamison.

I started with a 3 lb. pork loin. Then I added a sweet spice rub and stuffed the loin with chorizo sausage.

I cooked the pork loin on the Weber Smokey Mountain for 2 hours at 225 degrees and mopped with the Mexican Mop at 30 minute intervals.

At that point I wrapped the pork loin in aluminum foil and let the cooker temperature rise to 300 degrees. I added the fruit salsa topping and cooked the loin for another 45 minutes to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

If you're looking for new way to cook your next pork loin, try the Pork Loin Mexicana recipe.

Why I compete in barbecue contests

There have been some discussions this week on some of the bbq forum message boards about the primary reasons why competitors participate in sanctioned bbq contests. Answers to that question have ranged from learning to cook better, spending time with family and friends, for business opportunities, and to earn prize money. After considering these discussions for a couple of days I have reached some conclusions of my own.

1) Learning to cook better: My quest to learn how to cook southern style barbecue started on the internet almost 7-years ago after a visit to Smokey Hale's barbecuen.com website. I used my kettle grill, Kingsford charcoal briquettes, and an aluminum pie pan filled with water to cook some pretty good pork roasts. I still like a good pork roast with a mustard based bbq sauce. Cooking in contests have helped me flatten the learning curve and focus my efforts to improve the final product. My bbq has improved dramatically.

2) Spending time with family and friends: I cook in bbq contests with my wife, Linda. She's been there with me from the beginning. She has been there for all the Saturday and Sunday afternoon practice cooks. She has been there for all the contests we've cooked and she has been there as we have spent a large portion of our discretionary entertainment budget on bbq supplies, equipment, and tools for these past five or six years.

I've met some great friends at bbq contests. Weapons of Mass Barbecuing, ZZ Que, Pork of the North, All Day Smoke, HomeBBQ.com, and Kick the Tire Light the Fire immediately come to mind.

My familly has also been supportive of my efforts. Besides my brothers and mother who have helped me market The BBQ Guy's spice rubs my dad has also spent a lot of time helping me convert a run of the mill cargo trailer into a rolling bbq contest kitchen.

3) Business opportunties: My contest efforts are coupled with promotion of TheBBQGuy.com and my bbq blog. I continue to be surprised at the ability of the internet to cross social barriers and territorial boundries to promote bbq to thousands of people across the country and even around the world through my websites. There are many websites about bbq. I'm just happy to have two of them that are somewhat successful. I attribute their success to my participation in bbq contests.

4) Earning prize money: Let's face it, bbq contests are very expensive for the average competitors. The typical team will spend at least $250 on meat, $200 in entry fees, $200-500 on transportation, food, lodging, and supplies to attend an event. These figures can vary a little by region of the country and distance traveled, but they are typical based on my own experience and research. Without the ability to earn prize money and recoup some of these expensives, participation in bbq contests would be cost prohibitive for me and many others. As long as there are entry fees, travel costs, and meat expenses, I believe there has to be prize money. If I don't win some money, I simply cannot afford to compete as much.

Churrasco - Brazilian Barbecue

I made some great tasting churrasco (pronounced shoe-hoss-koo) for Labor Day. It was the best tasting steak I've ever eaten and very simple to make.

According to Wikipedia, a churrasco is a Brazilian term for barbecue and this traditional style of preparing beef appears to be popular in Argentina also. The kind of meat varies and the methods of preparation have slight variations, but churrasco is also widely known throughout Latin America.

The basic gaucho recipe consists of salt, garlic, and water used to baste steak filets. In some countries skirt steak, flank steak, and tenderloin beef are used. The meat is skewered and cooked directly over fire and is turned periodically to prevent burning. After the meat starts to brown it's basted with the salt and garlic mixture. This is typically at least a two hour process.

It's difficult to prepare real churrasco on a kettle grill because the meat is placed too close to the fire. A churrasqueira is a purpose built grill that is often used to prepare churrasco in the back yard. For those a little more ambitious and who want to prepare large quantitites of churrasco for a restaurant or catering operation, JR Manufacturing has a large model that looks promising and HickoryBBQ.com has some nice pictures too.

For personal use Fogazzo offers a smaller model that is perfect for backyard use. By the way, Fogazzo also offers some nice looking pre-cast materials that will help you build your own outdoor oven, even if you're not a brick mason.

BBQ Ribs

Here's some ribs from a test cook we did on Saturday. The ribs were made with two different types of rubs and two types of bbq sauces.

Our favorite included Ole Ray's Apple and Cinnamon sauce with Blues Hog bbq rub. The sweetness of the Ole Ray's sauce combines nicely with the Blues Hog rub.

The ribs were cooked for 3 hours meat side up, wrapped in a honey and dark brown sugar mixture with a little apple juice and then foiled for an hour. I unfoiled and applied finishing sauce for the last 15 minutes. They came out tender and juicy just like I like them.

BBQ Pork Ribs and Boston Butts

For stock car racing fans there are very few NASCAR races that compare to the night race at Bristol and for southern bbq fanatics there isn't anything that comes close to good old fashioned bbq pulled pork and ribs. And when you combine the two....you had better watch out because things just might get out of hand! I'm in the middle of preparing some pulled pork and bbq ribs for tonight's festivities.

It's also a good time to test some new competition recipes and validate some of the old standbys. We'll be eating well this week. Ummm...leftovers!

Electronic Temperature Controllers

I have mixed feelings about electronic temperature controllers used in conjunction with bbq cookers. I do not currently own any type of thermostat control device used in conjunction with any of my smokers, but I do understand why some folks like them.

I personally know someone that owns a Backwoods Smoker, a WSM, an original FE pellet cooker, a Dominizer, a Stumps, and a Caldera knock down design "box" smoker. All are good smokers and all cook excellent bbq, but some are newer designs than others and some have more little tricks and gadgets involved than others.

I tried to convince myself that I need to give in and purchase an electronic temperature controller too, but reached the conclusion that it's something I just don't need. My cookers will hold a steady temperature for hours and hours on end without a thermostat to control them.

As far as I can tell, there are only three reasons you absolutely have to buy a thermostat controller for your bbq cooker.

1. You like to play with the newest and most trendy "gadget" available.
2. You have a lot of extra money burning a hole in your blue jeans.
2. You own a bbq cooker that is so poorly designed it won't hold a steady temperature without an electronic thermostat.

Competition BBQ Secrets

Citrus BBQ Sauce

Since we live in Florida and for a little something different, I made a citrus bbq sauce recipe based on the recipe located on the back of the Dixie Crystals dark brown sugar box.

Tangy Orange Barbecue Sauce

1 regular can orange juice concentrate

1 small can tomato sauce

1 small can tomato paste

1 cup dark brown sugar

6 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp brown mustard

2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup chicken stock

2 tsp hot sauce

2 tsp salt

4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 cloves crushed garlic

Simmer in covered sauce pan for 20 minutes. Be careful not to scorch.

(The basic recipe comes from R. and D. Herring in Richmond, TX, but I did not follow it exactly as written.)

Where to buy knives

For a bbq afficianado, high quality knives are a necessity. They are safer to use and stay sharper for longer time periods. As an example, the last thing you want when slicing St. Louis spareribs is for the handle to break, or a slip that causes unnecessary injury.

The Knife Merchant online is an excellent source for your next knife purchase.

They carry a wide variety of knives including Global, Kyocera, Wusthof, Forschner, Messermeister, Shun, and many others.

I recently did a search for standard meat cleavers on their web site. Click here to read the results.

BBQ Tri Tip Bottom Sirloin Beef Roast

I decided to barbecue something different yesterday and since I've never cooked Tri Tip Beef before, I picked up a 2 1/2 pound Tri Tip Beef Roast at the local meat market. Tri Tip is also known as "Bottom Sirloin".

Santa Maria Tri Tip is really more a particular style of grilling than an exact recipe, but if you do a quick Google search for Tri Tip Recipes, you'll find at least a hundred web sites that detail the Santa Maria style for cooking this particular cut of beef. Most recipes recommend using a a bbq grill with an adjustable grate and oak wood for flavor. I decided to use my Weber Smokey Mountain.

I prepared a simple beef rub and liberally seasoned the meat.

Tri Tip Rub

2 tbsp Kosher salt

2 tbsp garlic salt

2 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp black pepper

I prepared a 225 degree fire and added some apple chunks for seasoning.

I placed the tri tip roast on the lower grate in the WSM. The tri tip was cooked for 15 minutes on either side to help seal the juices. I inserted a temperature probe and cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees, which took about 45 minutes.

BBQ Tip: Tri tips are not a well marbled as a brisket or pork butt, so you'll get better results if you cook this cut quicker than you would typically cook using the WSM. I opened the bottom air vents and let the cooker temperature rise to 300 degrees.

If you want a medium rare tri tip, you may want to pull the meat off the grill a little earlier because the meat continued to cook while resting. By the time I sliced it open, the tri tip was closer to medium well than medium rare, which is what I actually wanted anyway.

I sauced my tri tip with Ole Ray's Apple Cinnamon Barbecue Sauce.

If you try this recipe, you'll want to flip the meat periodically to ensure it doesn't burn on either side. I flipped it about every 20 minutes in the WSM and it came out perfectly.

National BBQ Rankings

I don't know about you, but I always enjoyed reading the box scores for sporting events. I like seeing who did what...who is hot and who is not...etc. I love statistics and trying to find the hidden meaning in them.

I've always wondered why the Team of the Year standings weren't published at KCBS.us for sanctioned barbecue events. The Florida Barbeque Association has provided event by event scores and Team of the Year standings on their web site for years. In fact, they usually have them posted within 24-48 hours of the event conclusion.

Some loyal barbecue fans over at the National BBQ Rankings web site have started a valuable service for bbq fans. NationalBBQRankings.com launched recently to provide an online source for KCBS Team of the Year standings on a week by week basis. I applaud the effort. Now we'll be able to follow along throughout the year and see what teams are on the rise and which ones are on the decline for KCBS Team of the Year.

Peck's Chicken

Linda and I ate lunch at a restuarant called Peck's Flame Broiled Chicken yesterday for lunch. It's a nice looking "bbq style" restaurant near our house. They have seating outside for about 15 people and inside seating accomodates up to 30 people. I had ribs and Linda had chicken.

While there, I noticed a brochure advertising a "ground floor" opportunity to start a Peck's Fame Broiled Chicken restaurant. The brochure advertised a "variety of investment options" including "management/ownership and geography territory exclusive right packages".

The restuarant near our house is apparently the 2nd location in existence, so this is truly a ground floor / start-up opportunity.

For anyone looking for a restaurant start-up opportunity, you might want to learn more about Peck's Flame Broiled Chicken.

Griller Grouper Sandwich

While this definitely fits more in the "grilling" category than the type of traditional hard core barbecue that I usually cook, I do enjoy a grilled grouper sandwich from time to time. As luck would have it though, when I order a grouper sandwich at a local restaurant I might not always be getting the "real" deal.

It seems that some restaurants who were charging premium prices for grouper were actually serving a fake grouper. But, that may have been a blessing in disguise because some published reports claim that due to the level of mercury contamination in grouper, it's not healthy to eat it more than a couple times per month.

To read more about the "great grouper controversy", visit the St. Petersburg Times newspaper.

It turns out all this fake grouper has improved the overall quantity of "real" grouper stocks at your favorite fishing spots.

BBQ Blues

Hey bbq friends and neighbors. I'm sitting out on my patio this a.m. surfing the web on my new Dell Latitude D830 laptop (like it a lot). I had a medical procedure a while back and I'm still not up to cooking barbecue this weekend.

I've been visiting my usual bbq favorite sites including The BBQ Forum, White Trash BBQ, Florida Barbeque Association, and Kansas City Barbeque Society and thought I'd listen to a little blues music. I ran across an online radio station I wanted to share call Blues Man . In the past few minutes I've listened to classic by blues heavy weights like Billie Holiday, John Lee Hooker, and Johnny Winter. They throw in some little known/unknown artists too like Big Mike Welch (not too bad at that).

If that's not you particular flavor for blues, then here's another option....Pandora Radio . I typed in Stevie Ray Vaughn in the search box and it searched for stations that play that type of music. Within seconds I was listening to Lonnie Mack singing "From Nashville to Memphis" and next Albert Lee playing "That's Alright Mama: From Country Fever to Black Crow". I really like this service from Pandora Radio. I guarantee I'll be a regular user.

Do you have some favorite bbq music online stations you'd like to share?

Cheaters, Cheaters Everywhere

Point shaving in college basketball. Unethical NBA referees. Steroids in Major League baseball, track and field, the Tour de France, Boston Marathon, triathlons, and on and on and on. Cheaters are everywhere these days.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned compeition? You know....the kind where the best team wins.

Recently I was asked if I've ever witnessed cheating at bbq contests.

I don't necessarily think it's common place, but I'm sure it does occur. I've seen some things that are questionable at several contests ranging from a team using a crock pot to heat their bbq sauce before dipping their chicken in it a few minutes before turn-in to a team showing up to a KCBS sanctioned event at 6 a.m., cooking all four categories and finishing in the top-5 overall.

I've also witnessed some questionable meat inspectors who didn't actually inspect the meat being cooked before it was prepped. I've seen meat sitting out at room temperature from 10 p.m. at night, when the team went back to their motel to sleep, until they returned to put it on the cooker at 5 a.m. (they were awarded Reserve Grand Champion at the event).

The bottom line.....whether it's bbq, baseball, basketball, football, cycling, track and field, or whatever; some people will go to great lengths to win-at-all-costs. My take on it....if you need the money that bad, you can have it. I prefer to win the old fashioned way...as a result of my own personal efforts and dedication.

But the biggest thing that irks me in particular at a bbq contest are quiet hours violations. At one contest the team next to us stayed up all night playing their loud music and drinking so much they were too drunk to cook. Just before their wives came the next morning they started being real nice to Linda (hoping she wouldn't mention it to their wives).