Whole Hog for the Fourth

This 4th of July, Chris decided to cook a whole hog for the party he hosted at his place. It was a great time and everyone enjoyed some damn fine BBQ.

Chris picked up this 82lb pig at Steve's Meat Market in De Soto, Kansas. This was the third hog that we've cooked (Chris did the work cooking this one) - the first two being at the BBQlossal contest in Des Moines in June and our practice pig getting for that event a few weeks before. Both of those were much smaller projects in the 45-50lb range.

I came over around 5:30 in the morning and togehter we seasoned and injected the hog, then put him on Chris's 48" H&S Smoker, which he already had heated up with smoke rolling for a while by the time I got there. We loaded the pig for a long cook and I took off, leaving Chris to tend the fire and get ready for the party.

I returned home to start a cooking session of my own...

Earlier in the week I got a call to provide some food for another party on the fourth. The menu included sliced brisket & burnt ends, chicken thighs, legs and whole leg quarters, beans and cheesy corn. I got home and got started on the brisket and later threw on the chicken, corn and beans. We wrapped up around 4pm and my Dad (in town visiting for the holiday) helped me deliver the food to the party around 4:30.

We then made our way out to Chris' place just in time to pull the hog out of the cooker. We capped off the day with some pretty good BBQ, beer and some fireworks. These guys didn't even head inside to eat any of the other food - they just picked the remaining meat off of the cooked carcass.

Next week we are finally back on the competition trail. We'll be heading to Shannon, IL for the Illinois State BBQ Championship and the Butt to Butt Invational. We are really looking forward to it and should be a great time!

Dodge County Purple Porker Power Ranking

The guys from the team The Pickled Pig have a pretty cool website with lots of good info and some neat features that track KCBS contest results and standings. One of the very cool things they feature on their site is a Do-It-Yourself ranking feature and their very own Power Rankings feature. They have also developed a very cool option that allows teams to display their Power Rankings on their site by way of a "widget" that updates itself everytime new data is entered into the Pickled Pig Power Ranking Data.

We have displayed the ranking for Dodge County Smokers in the right hand column of this page for several weeks. It's a very cool way to track our progress throughout the year. A few days ago I wondered what the rankings for our Dodge County Purple Porker team would look like - especially since we only entered one contest under that name. Well, here is the result:



What you see there is the result of one contest. It's probably not a great representation of the Power Rankings, or our finish in the contest for that matter. Two of the categories listed didn't even apply to that contest...brisket and chicken were replaced with whole hog and pork loin. But seeing as this is only contest where those two categories count toward the grand champion for the competition, it wouldn't make sense to keep track of them.

Our 4th place overall finish does count for something though. As of June 24th at 9:40am, it ranks our performance as 213 of 525. It will be interesting to see the numbers change as the summer goes on and the contest season hits full stride.

The Great Pork BarbeQlossal!

It was a multiple team effort last weekend in Des Moines, Iowa as Chris and I traveled north to compete in the Great Pork BarbeQlossal at the World Pork Expo, held on the Iowa State Fair Grounds. The Dodge County Smokers were to team up with Jerrod Caton and his Pork Me Purple squad for this unique all-pork BBQ competition. Our team is collectively known as the Dodge County Purple Porkers.

As chronicled here a few weeks back, we did a practice run in the drive way to cook our pig along with loins, pork butt and ribs. Things went smoothly and it seemed that we had it all down. We made supply lists, plans for cooking and our tested recipes. We were really looking forward this one.

But early last week Jerrod learned that he would not be able make the trip to Iowa with us. Family comes first and when Jerrod and his wife, Abbey, learned that their surgeon in Oklahoma could get her in to tend to some serious back problems that she has been experiencing, they hit the road for Tulsa. But before he left town, Jerrod equipped us with the supplies, ingredients, and a few cooking tips that might help us out. He also arranged for his father-in-law to lend us an extra set of hands...and we were sure glad he was there!

When the smoke cleared Saturday afternoon, the Dodge County Purple Porker team claimed 2nd place in the Whole Hog category, 3rd in Pork Shoulder and 4th place overall - just edging out another team who capitalized on a combo effort as BBQ legends Ray Lampe (aka Dr. BBQ) and Fast Eddy Maurin teamed up under the name Sugar in the Raw and scored 5th place, just .0005 of a point behind us.

We were very lucky to have the services of Jerrod’s Father-in-Law, John Riley, all weekend long. John lives in Des Moines, so this was a home game for him…and he was integral in the success of the team, doing everything from building turn-in boxes to selecting which cuts of pork we would turn in to the judges. John was a tremendous help all weekend (as was his wife, Joanne) and we were very fortunate to have him on our side.

Jerrod was in constant contact with us all weekend. Between text messages and phone calls, he was in the loop every step of the way from the set up...to our prep...to the cook itself and the turn-ins and awards that followed. Chris and I were joking that Jerrod would be mad that he missed out on all the fun - but when we spoke to him, he was happy and relieved that we scored a few calls and we didn’t make a trip for nothing.

While we always feel like we have a chance to do well when we show up at a contest, we are also always surprised (and excited) when we get a call. The biggest surprise of the day was our 2nd place call in the whole hog category. We cooked a 49lb pig that we purchased from Mike Lake (of Rock River BBQ and Lynch Livestock). Chris, John and I went to work prepping the pig Friday afternoon and he went in to the cooker Friday night along with our pork butts, which turned out to be another award winning entry for us. We cooked 2 butts the Pork Me Purple way and 2 the Dodge County way. In the end it was a true team effort as we used elements from both styles to snag 3rd place. Every year the folks from the QLossal select a state and recognize the top scoring team that hails from that state. We didn't know it, but this year the selected state was Kansas. So it was another very cool surprise as we were singled out, being the top scoring team from the Sunflower State.

In addition to the contest, there was so much more going on. We saw a 123 lb pork burger, watched fellow teams compete in the Big Green Egg Scramble and mingled with pork producers and industry folks from all over the world attending the Pork Expo. I can see why this contest is so highly regarded among KCBS competitors. Organizer Anne Rehnstrom does a fantastic job. I don't know how she does it, but I am happy to say that we were a part of it!

SKUNKED! at the GAB

After a little less than a month off, Chris and I were really looking forward to the Great American Barbecue contest in Kansas City, KS.

This was the third time that we have had the chance to cook in an invitation-only contest, meaning a team must have won a grand championship at some point during the year leading up to the contest to get in. The invitational was followed by the open, meaning it was "open" for anyone to enter and compete. These double contest weekends are extremely tiring. And couple that with the addition of the World Brisket Open to the line up of contest categories at the GAB and you have one heck of a busy weekend.

Weather-wise, we saw it all. It started off cool, then the winds came (wind sucks), then rain (and lots of it - see the pic above of a bucket catching run off in to our tent) all followed by heat and humidity.

I wish I could blame the weather on our poor finishes in the invitational and open. We got beat up pretty bad by the judges. We didn't even sniff a top-twenty finish. The hardest part to accept is that I wouldn't have hesitated to turn anything we cooked into judges at any other contest. I thought most of it was good enough to score something.

We did have on semi-bright spot in that our brisket fisnished in the top 30 among 125 or so entries in the World Brisket Open. This was our first go-round in the brisket-only side competition. I liked it and I think we'll try it again.

Overall, we did have fun but the weekend was dissapointing in the end. We are already looking forward to jumping back on the horse and cooking again.

Next up...The Dodge County Purple Porkers team invades Des Moines, Iowa in just a week and a half. We are all looking forward to this pork-only event. The competition will be tough, but we are looking forward to the challenge!

This Little Piggy went to My House...

In preparation of entering the Great Pork BarbeQLossal in June, The Dodge County Purple Porkers got together last Saturday to cook a whole hog - one of the requirements for the Des Moines, Iowa contest.

Actually our weekend project would not be considered a hog, but rather a pig. An oinker "on the hoof" under 180lbs is a pig...over 180, a hog. Our piggy weighed in at 48lbs. The minimum weight that we can cook in the contest is 45. That would put our new pet somewhere in the neighborhood of 75lbs before being butchered.

Jerrod and Chris came over to the Dunker house early Saturday Morning. We got the pig out of my cooler, where it had been chilling out since I had picked it up from Bichelmeyer Meats the day before. Then we got to work cleaning it up and getting it ready to hit the heat. I can say that I pretty much sat back and let Chris do the cutting. He is dangerous with the blade and had the swine ready to cook it in no time.

In order to fit it the cooker, we had to trim a little here and there. Four hooves and a head later, we laid down a little seasoning, injected the shoulders and hams to keep it moist and wrapped it up in chicken wire to help us handle it a little easier. After much discussion, research and a few morning beers, we decided to cook Porky belly down, rather than on its back.

Our purpose for cooking this pig was three fold... First, we had never done one before, so it was practice. Second, we needed to make sure that we could cook all four QLossal categories (pork butt, ribs, loin and hog) on one cooker. And finally, Jerrod's father-in-law is throwing a little get-together and this will be the main course.

Twelve hours after going in to the cooker, we pulled out our test pig. We didn't expect much...maybe that's why I liked it so much. It was surely some good eatin'!

I am really looking forward to heading up and cooking in the QLossal. It will be a great time and something totally new for us. But we before we go we have another pretty big competition here in KC.

Next up for Chris and I will be the Great American BBQ this weekend. We did well at this one last year. We just hope we can keep it up and hear our name called at the awards. But even if we don't, I'll sleep OK. The worst day cookin' is still better than a good day at work!

Teaming up for the QLossal!

For the past couple of years Chris and I have thrown around the idea of going to the Great Pork BarbeQLossal in Des Moines, IA. The QLossal happens every June and it's a contest that is unique in that it is the only Kansas City Barbecue Society sanctioned contest where cooks only deal with pork. No beef. No chicken. No other ancilaries. Just pork.

Pork butt. Pork ribs. Pork lion. And the big one...whole hog. The last one is the category that has scared us off until now. We have never cooked a hog and it seems like a pretty big undertaking.

So while we considered it, we never really considered it. That is until we started kicking the idea around again early this year when a friend of ours, Jerrod Caton of the team Pork Me Purple, brought it up. Jerrod talked us into it and now we're teaming up to cook this exciting event.

We are actually quite lucky to have Jerrod on our side. He's put in over a decade in the pork industry and took first place in pork at the 2007 American Royal Invitational.

Our first order of business: team name. We decided that we'll combine our names for this contest. So, for the first weekend in June, the Dodge County Smokers and Pork Me Purple will be known collectively as the Dodge County Purple Porkers.

We're hoping that our combined success in the two regular KCBS categories of pork butt and ribs thrown in with a little luck in loin and that whole pig will result in a successful day for us all.

Oh, and about that whole hog that has scared us off before. Well...we'll be doing our practice run on a small pig this weekend. Official QLossal rules state that we must cook a pig with a minimum weight of 45lbs. Given the small size, we're hoping we can manage it and we're looking forward to the challenge. Win or lose, it should be fun weekend and learning experience for sure!

Lansing, Kansas: Grand Champs!

Behind the strength of two first place calls and two more top tens, we are proud to report another successful Dodge County Smokers finish this weekend with a Grand Championship in Lansing, KS!

Back in January Chris won a free entry to the Brew, Blues & BarBQ event in Lansing at the KCBS awards banquet. It worked out well, as Chris, Jenny and Emily had just bought a new home and moved to an acreage about 5 miles south of town. In addition to being close to home, it was going to be nice cooking in a contest with mild spring weather. Well, we didn't get the weather we had hoped for.

Our tent was up for all of about 5 minutes when a gust of wind whipped up and snapped a leg. We didn't even have sidewalls up, coolers unloaded or anything else unpacked. Chris and I spent much of the next 2 hours or so standing around debating how to set up our tent, where to put the cooker and how to anchor everything down. I felt like we were at our first contest again...not knowing what to do or how to do it.

After we finally got everything unloaded, set up and situated, it felt like we were working from behind the rest of the night. We eventually got caught up on everything and the wind died down around 8 or 9pm. I thought it was going to be an OK night. After the family left Friday night we decided to take a walk and spent a few minutes at the Squeal of Approval camp. Around midnight it was time to head back to home base and just as we made our way into our crippled temporary abode, a gust of wind hit almost as if it was set on a timer for 12 am...and it kept blowing through the night and into Saturday morning with out a break.

I hate the wind. I can deal with rain, the cold and even excessive heat...but wind just turns an otherwise good day into a real drag. Wind sucks. Or blows...whatever.

So other than the damn wind, we had a great time. Turn ins went well and we really only pushed it to the time limit on our last box. Our brisket slices were too wide to fit in the box...adjustments were made, last minute touches applied and Chris hit the road with what turned out to be our second top call of the day and the entry that propelled us into the #1 spot overall for the day.

Over the years I *may* have developed just a few little quirks when it comes to our routine. If something works...why mess with it? I guess I just thought maybe no one would notice. Well, my dirty little secret was thrust into the open by Chris's wife, Jenny. In addition to being just a tad embarrassed (but not really...), I was more afraid that the mystical powers that are somehow harnessed by my tendencies would be erased if and when I acknowledged them. As my sister's boyfriend, "Braq," pointed out, they all knew...but you don't talk to the pitcher in the middle of a no hitter.

So when we sat down at the awards and Jenny

invited Jackson to leave my lap and come sit with her...I had to refuse. Hey...that kid has brought me a lot of luck over the past year! So there it was...and Jenny called me out on it! Right in the middle of the awards, no less! But in the end, it all ended up the way we wanted...Though Jenny may have opened up a can of worms...she's going to have to bust my chops at every awards ceremony now. Something tells me that won't be a problem!

The Great American BBQ Invitational and Open are up next. Memorial Day Weekend. Should be a blast!