BBQ Contest at the Army Chaplain School

Professional? Us.

Hey it's BBQ!!!

Lt. Col. USAF retired here, wish I could volunteer to judge. Sounds like fun.

You competing or just running it?

Russ

Our sections (operations, all two of us) has put together a team 'order up' and are gonna try all four categories.

We'll use my FEC, but darned if I can't get the chicken thighs right. The skin just won't crisp. I tried the bottom shelf on high. Still having problems getting above 360 or so even with manually stoking it. Does mayo on the chicken skin help? Anyway, hopefully I can do some more test runs this weekend, then I've got to get the smoker loaded, that'll be a chore.

Crisping thigh skin on a smoker is nearly impossible...you need a grill with direct heat.

You can achieve bite through skin. Pull the skin back leaving it hinged on one side. Scrape the fat away with a flat edged knife. Trim thighs to shape accordingly. Marinate with Newman's Own Ital Dressing for 4 hrs +/- Pat dry, apply rub and smoke as you normally would. One added trick: foil a FEC rack and place it one slot up from your lower chicken rack. It will help concentrate the heat. Keep an eye on your hi-lo switch....just in case.

Good luck.

Like the other good cooks said.Folks rarely eat the skin,so overfocus to the detriment of the overall cooking process just for skin could be costly.

The FIND at page top should give some threads on hot cooking thighs.

Bill and Nina/Dixie Chicks shared their "overall technique" that could produce crispy skin and made them a top winner on early FECs.

It requires a good bit of attention, and without that-poor results.

We also used their technique with good comp results.

As mentioned,many teams-that really desired crispy skin/grill marks carried small Weber grills.

Here is a current post by a fine comp cook,just on cooking backyard chicken.
Backyard chicken

Doesn't directly answer your question/but does touch on the method I mentioned.

thanks all!!!!!!

Go get 'em cowboy

Well, we finished today about 1pm. We had four categories, Brisket (7 entries), Butt (6 Entries), SL Ribs (8 entries) and Chicken (wings or thighs) (9 entries).

Lots of great cooks there. Our team took First in Chicken and Butt, third in Ribs and GC overall.

Lots of great food and lots of lessons learned. I organized the thing, but because of time constraints had to make all the turn-in times 15 minutes apart, and Serving of all items to the crowd fifteen minutes after the last turn in time. That was stressful. Plus I cooked two 14 pound packers, two 9 pound butts (in at 2pm, out at 5 and 6 am respectfully), 12 racks of ribs in at 6 am. and chicken thighs in at 0930. The T/I times were 1045 (brisket) 1100 (butt); 1115 (ribs) 1130 (chicken). We had the lunch prayer at 1145 followed by the serving line. From 1030-1145 was a very busy period. I purchased all the meat for the competition and issued it out to the teams. We got our briskets at Wal-Mart. The guy marked the packers down to 1.74/LB. Not bad.

Well done Chaplain!! And a great feast for all I'm sure. I can only imagine how much work it was for you yet I'm pretty sure you had a great feeling watching everyone enjoying the great BBQ feast also. Thank you to all the men and women for your sacrifices and protecting our freedom.

Jer

Sounds like a good time had by all.Comps .with the emphasis on timing,really will focus the cooks.

Congrats!!!

A job well done Chaplain!!!

I did want to mention that my FEC 100 received dozens of inquiries while I was using it at the cookoff. I told everyone about cookshack and gave them the website. Thanks again cookshack!!!!