Lockharts in bishop arts district. it's a lock.

That chicken made my mouth water

The American Royal is coming up at the end of the month.

Who's going to be there (besides me)?

I'll be there, meat Rushmore, spot 460.

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The chicken turned out great! The breast was perfectly juicy and moist so I was happy with that.

Good luck and have fun to all involved! Post pics!

Is that how the stars are generated on yelp and google?

Yeah the stars are generated from reviews. You leave a written review, it can be short or lengthy and then you make a star rating. They take an average of the star ratings so that's what you see when you pull up a place. It'll have the # of reviews that have been made by it as well. So obviously a 5 star place with 1,000 reviews says more than a 5 star place with 2 reviews.

I've left a handful on yelp, none on google.

Woodshed BBQ, spot 563.

I'll try to stop by.

Aporkalypse Now - #322

2p2 and a brethren... A special breed of awesome.

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BBQ meat ups ITT.

uh huh

goddamn i need to get a legit smoker

Any of you guys playing in the poker tournament on Thursday?

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I've played it before. Not a fan of the structure and the buy-in gets pricey with the add-ons and rebuys.

Oh, they hustle for all the extra money they can get. This will be our 5th yr at the royal, and our group has had representation every year. The structure sucks, but it's a charity poker tournament and I expect nothing more. The fact we have 2 second place finishes in the 4 years probably helps, though.

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American Royal 2016!!!!

This year they held the competition at Kansas Speedway in the infield. 557 teams, down from 606 last year.



Everything was pretty well run. I liked our location better since we were away from the big parties. I thought parking would run better than last year, but I had a couple of groups of friends who gave up on coming out Friday due to long lines of traffic. At least those who made it didn't have to pay like last year.

Friday night is the party night. Like I said, we out on the edge so not a lot of people walking by, but we had a pretty good turn out. I took this at the end of the night after most everyone had left.



I was home most of Saturday and went back to prep meat that night. We must have been near the international section. I heard 11 different countries were there. We were right next to a German team and two spots away from some Australians. Down the road were some Canadian Teams and one from South Africa (the RV on the right).



Sunday morning. I cooked breakfast for the crew. Eggs and bloody marys.



On to the cook. Last year our smoker was running hot and everything cooked ahead of schedule. This year it didn't and our big meats were cooking slowly. Ribs and chicken were OK though.

Chicken:



It was the usual cook for chicken. We turn in boneless thighs and each one is pretty small. Tenderness was good and I am a huge fan of the chicken before we sauce it. But I think we end up over-saucing it. Came in 204th.

Ribs:



Not a fan of our ribs. They were a little overcooked and they didn't seem to have a lot of smoke flavor. 304th

Pork:



I thought the pork was good. We just turned in slices of money muscle and some chunks. We use the same sauce as the chicken which I love, but it sat too long on the heat and it reduced down and made it very thick so I think our chunks were over-sauced. Our best finish though - 118th.

Brisket - forgot to get a pic.

Our briskets were HUGE. I don't know how much they weighed, but after prep they barely fit in a large roaster pan. As I said, they cooked slow. The brisket looked pretty with a nice smoke ring and all, but it was tough. We sliced it up, put it in its au jus and tried to salvage it by cooking it some more. It helped, but not much. 512th. Ugh.

Sausage - no pic.

We did the same thing that won 2 years ago and 22nd last year. Not sure what happened, but dropped down to 143rd this year.

Over all we finished 343rd. Hopefully that finish doesn't deter our potential sponsor for next year. A friend of mine wants us to cook for his corporate party and would pay for everything except our meat for the contest. I'll probably cook with these guys again next year, but I'd really like to try my hand at a contest of my own.

Had a great time out there again this year, as usual. It was nice to meet Jim, and let me tell you - the sausage is legit.

I'll post some pics of my own as soon as I get them from my wife. She's the presentation queen. As for results, we got 400ish in chicken, 83rd in ribs, 345ish in pork (which I really thought was our best product) 325 in brisket. And 337 overall. Oh and 44th in sausage.

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Do the competitors also sell BBQ to the public?

Scoring was weird this year. I should compare this years scores with last years to see if we did more poorly or if everyone else just stepped their game up.

Last year they started allowing competitors to sell their stuff, but you had to get the proper permits. I don't think many did because if the cost involved. Since the contest was in Kansas this year instead of Missouri, I'm not sure what the regulations were.

It would be nice if they did though. I'd like to sample the food of the higher finishers to see what the judges are looking for.

I would be fairly shocked if the vending teams actually sell their competition entries. Having done compete-vend before we always mass produced our sales food in commissary in advance.

Even cooking on site, the two selections would probably get different treatments. You can't put as much love into 300 chicken pieces as you can put into 12.

I get that, but it would still be interesting to taste the other competitors food even if it wasn't the competition stuff.

We had a pretty good time. I'm not totally sold on the Speedway, We were set up next to 3 huge parties which made for a long Friday night.

We finished 107th in the Invitational and 117th in the Open.

Ok, I'm going to do this from my phone from Tapatalk. Hopefully there's no issue with the pics. I'll fix if there is.

Let me start by saying that it was a fantastic time. I always love the royal. I preferred it at arrowhead, but I'm resigned to it being in Kansas for the foreseeable future.

I played the poker tournament on Thursday night, which was held at Children's Mercy Park, where our mls team, sporting kc plays. As a soccer honk and season ticket holder, it felt weird seeing it dark and quiet.



The final table was in the players locker room, and I really wanted to check it out, but it was not to be as I busted in the final 3 tables when the average stack had to be about 5 bbs.

We also got this, in honor of our 5th straight year cooking this comp



This is the entry that the public used. I ended up by it almost on accident on Saturday, and decided to snap a pic



Or 2



My son and niece took part in the kids q on Saturday, and did well, my niece got 4th in the older kids bracket for steak, and my son 12th in the younger kids bracket for hamburger.



Sunday morning at about 430, after I lit the coals



Our cook went pretty well outside of the chicken. It was struggling to get done, and things got a little crazy so I didn't get a pic. They were poor, and scored accordingly with a 153 for 473rd place.

Ribs were a lot better. We felt they were our 2nd best turn in, but they scored the best by far. 83rd place and a score of 171.9



We thought pork would be our best category, but it didn't end up that way. Tasted great, but only scored a 162 for 345th place.



Brisket was good, but burnt ends didn't turn out, meaning we went all slices. 159.9 for 325th.



Our sausage is usually pretty decent, and it got the highest rank out of anything I suppose, scoring 173 for 44th.



Pre awards team pic



Already looking forward to the next comp season. Can't wait to get back out there!

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