It’s Competition Season, and SLABS a’ Smokin is in full swing.
This past weekend, SLABS participated in the Smokin Aces Competition where 40 of the best teams in the country cooked whole hogs, shoulders and ribs. The MBN sanctioned Smokin’ Aces Competition at Harrah’s Tunica is second only to the World Championship BBQ Cooking contest at Memphis in May when it comes to difficulty and prestige. With its $40,000 purse, it draws all of the great teams from not only the mid-south, but as far as Georgia and Florida. Because all teams can participate in all categories (vs. having to choose one category at the World Championship) and the high concentration of excellent teams, some consider this tournament even more difficult to win than Memphis in May.
We came in 11th in shoulder and 3rd Place in Ribs! We finished ahead of teams of the year, world champions, restaurants…you name it. We are SO pumped up with our competition results.
So…let’s keep it going. The biggest competition in St. Louis – and one of the largest BBQ Festivals in the Midwest is next week – the BBQ Bash in Wildwood, MO. At this event, 90+ teams will compete in EIGHT categories across TWO days. It’s absolute insanity. It’s also my favorite weekend of the year in St. Louis.
We’ve had tremendous success at the Bash over the past 2 years and expect to build on it even more this year to keep this hot streak going. But beyond competing at the Bash, we also have the opportunity to vend our delicious BBQ to the public. This is a unique and fantastically fun opportunity for everyone. I love making mass quantities of food and getting feedback from people. And, well, let’s be honest, all of you love eating this food. Where else do you get to try competition quality BBQ? Not at restaurants, I’ll tell you that right now.
So, we will have probably at least 10 people working on our team at any given moment, cooking competition meat, sales meat, serving the public…it’s wonderful chaos. So, if you’re even remotely near the St. Louis metro region next weekend, you MUST come out and experience the Bash. Come by and say hello. And eat some extraordinary bbq.
Now, for this event, I will cook approximately 20 pork butts. Yep. TWENTY. That’s a LOT of pulling apart pork. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy doing it, but even I have my limits. So imagine my happiness when my good friend Ron at The St. Louis BBQ Store offered to let me try his meatrakes to pull apart the pork. I of course said yes and was happy to try out his new product.
They. Are. Cool. Very heavy-duty. They tear through the meat. Now, I’m old school, so I like using my hands to pull meat. I started that way, sliding off the fat cap and pulling out the larger chunks of remaining fat, but then I let the meatrakes do the work. They really made it easy. And slightly more enjoyable!
So, I just HAD to get a pair to give away to a loyal reader. Ron, of course, obliged yet again because he’s the nicest guy ever. So, that’s our giveaway! A brand new pair of awesome meatrakes!
To enter, all you have to do is fill out this VERY short survey. We are trying to get a feel for the type of people reading our blog, so we can better cater to your needs. The only reason we ask for your email is to notify you if you win the giveaway. I promise it will take you less than 2 minutes. We’ll give you until Sunday to do it and then we will pick a winner from the list of people who have completed the survey.
CLICK HERE FOR SURVEY
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