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It was okay. I got nervous and pulled it at 175, just scared of drying it out. Some of the pull near the bone was delicious, some of the slices were good, but overall, it was a bit dry.
Hey All,
So overall I did pretty decent at this last competition with a 10th overall, and my highest score being a 6th in Brisket (as well as $25). My pork didn't come out very good and my box sat for too long before I turned it in, so I know it was cold by the time the judges got it. It was a tough competition though... with the wind, and being right there on the harbor, the temperature was damned near 32°. I hadn't prepared properly and was sitting out there with some track pants and a hoodie... shivered for about 16 hours straight. haha
Met some really good people and the contest itself was a lot of fun. They forced us to vend both on Friday night (chicken wings) and again on Saturday (pork butt) which wasn't so bad, but they started the vending at 1pm right there in the middle of the competition meat turn-in window. It was pretty silly people walking up on my cook site and wanting to try my food as I'm cutting my pork butt and brisket and trying to get it in the competition box.
Tried my hand at a wagyu brisket and I'll never do that again.... no matter what I did to that thing I couldn't get all of that internal fat to render out and the end product was just way too fatty. I even cooked it longer than my CAB Choice brisket and it still was nothing but fat... pretty much threw the entire thing in the garbage... $200 straight into the trash. :-(
It was okay. I got nervous and pulled it at 175, just scared of drying it out. Some of the pull near the bone was delicious, some of the slices were good, but overall, it was a bit dry.
Did the waygu brisket just hit a stall on you?
I see you were cooking in 32° I am in upstate NY and when ever I do a smoke in the winter I have add a half hour for every hour of cook time.
Last NYE I did a brisket and after 18hrs said the hell with it and finished in the oven as the I think it was getting to cold outside and just kept in the stall state.
I LOVE pork belly! I really like cutting the belly in half ; half the belly I cook to about 210° internal so I can pull it, and the other I will cook to about 205° so I can slice it. Chef Tom from All Things BBQ has a really good recipe for this and it's amazing for making some good sandwiches.
Edit: For crispy skin you'll need to do the last half hour or so at something like 350-400° or else it won't crisp up. You could also do the entire cook at 325-350° and that will have a much better chance of crisping up the skin. Scoring it into a cross-hatch pattern and rubbing salt into the crevices will also help and will give that nice crackling that people love. Here's another video showing a guy doing this with a rolled up belly, almost like a porchetta without the loin.
Hey Everybody, looks like this thread has died again. Anyways I'll post an update for shits and giggles : I'm about 3 weeks out from picking up my food trailer and FINALLY getting my BBQ business moving. I spent about 8 months dealing with my county and what they will / will not permit and I found out they WILL NOT permit any mobile food units in the county. The restaurant union is very strong in this county and its influence is apparent because there are no mobile food units in the county that operate. I did happen to find out that the USMC bases (Camp Lejeune, MCAS New River, Camp Johnson, and Stone Bay) don't require a permit by the county as they do their own inspections. They do allow mobile food units on those bases and in fact they're currently looking for a BBQ truck/trailer as the last guy they had moved on about 6 months ago.
So about a month ago I bought a BBQ trailer shell... 20' long trailer with a 14' box, 6' porch, and a vending window. I took that trailer to a fabricator and they are working on installing the wiring, plumbing, cooking equipment, and a nice new smoker on the porch. So once I get the trailer back I can move forward with the inspection on the base and hopefully by June 1st I will FINALLY be serving BBQ. haha
Here's a pic of the trailer :
I'm having the following equipment installed : 3 bay sink, handwash station, fresh/gray water storage, on-demand hot water system, refrigerator, tables, warming cabinet, and a "Carolina hog style smoker" with a wood firebox and propane assist.
looks good.. i can't wait to start smoking meats again... had a hiatus during the winter...
my wife still owes me a new pellet smoker.. i'm looking at a yoder ys640...
https://yodersmokers.com/ys640-pellet-grill.html
Personally I resent and hate Yoder for all the bullshit with their offset smokers (design flaws they ignored for years), but their pellet cookers are pretty high quality. If you want to check out a solid pellet cooker at a more modest price take a look at www.grillagrills.com. Check out the Silverbac or Grilla models and see if they tickle your fancy. Again, that YS640 is a solid piece of equipment and it's amazingly mobile when on the "Competition Cart" that they sell.
yeah.. i've seen those grill grills.. they look like solid equipment... but my wife is the one buying it for me.. so i'll probably go yoder... lol
Yeah, fair enough, it's a good piece of gear and they are very solid with good customer service. I was close to buying an FEC-120 to put inside my trailer because they are NSF rated (restaurant quality) but holy shit are they expensive. This was one of those issues that was holding me back because the county was telling me every single piece of equipment needed to be NSF rated. So a normal 3-bay sink costs $200 but an NSF-rated one is going to cost you upwards of $1k. Same bullshit goes for a shelving rack... about $60 normal and over $300 for NSF rated. Shit like this makes opening a mobile food business prohibitively expensive and that initial debt ruins a lot of businesses.
Initially I was looking at doing a food truck but SO MANY of those fucking things are almost dead before they begin. People are starting out with $100K in debt for a truck / supplies and that's forcing them to do $20-25K in sales per month or they're not going to end up making that loan payment. Crunching those numbers it was shocking how much everything costs and I'm glad I moved over to a trailer and am starting "bare bones."
Just rambling in a response to you, sorry. haha
I went to Myron Mixon's restaurant outside DC a couple weeks ago.
It was all Mexicans working there and the pulled pork tasted like some nasty generic crockpot fare that was only good when drowned in sauce.
Super disappointing, but I imagine it's nothing like the pork he cooks for competition. Also, Myron has pictures of just himself all over the walls of the restaurant. lol, self absorbed can.