Latest / BBQ Therapy / High on the Hog BBQ: Chasing Wins

Transcript

High on the Hog BBQ: Chasing Wins · BBQ Therapy

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barbecue on. Get your barbecue on.
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Welcome to the BBQ Therapy podcast.
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My name is Tavis Bryant of Yago Ham BBQ.
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Have you ever stood around a smoker or a grill, felt the
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world fade away? And that has BBQ Therapy?
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Joining us for a therapy session today is High on the Hog BBQ.
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Today on BBQ Therapy, we're shining the spotlight on the
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rising crew in the comp BBQ scene.
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High on the Hog This team may be new to the circuit, but they're
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already bringing big energy, bold flavors, and passion that's
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impossible to ignore. Whether you're a seasoned
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pitmaster or just thinking about dipping your toes in your first
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comp, their story is 1 you'll want to hear.
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We're diving into what is like being a new team on the block,
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how they're navigating the learning curve, and what fuels
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their fire, literally and figuratively.
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All right, we're going to get started.
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I got one rule. Make yourself at home.
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Speak freely. I have no sponsors so you can
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say what you want. I appreciate you having me on
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all. Right, no problem.
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First question I have is what's the story behind the name high
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on the whole? OK, high on the hog, good start.
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So basically we were workshop in a ton of different names.
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We had two sauce to pork that was top running blind squirrel
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BBQ because every blind squirrels got to find a nut
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every once in a while. So we're just trying to be that
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blind squirrel gone hogging me and the wife's didn't like that
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one too much so that got scrapped.
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One of the guys that we BBQ with a lot basically said, man, you
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guys got all the nice stuff. He goes, you're living high on
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that hog and it just stuck. It's what we do.
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If there's something nice out there that's going to help us,
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we're going to buy it. And the name proceeds high on
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the hogs. And honestly, it works good with
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social media. I didn't think anybody would
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want to sponsor 2 sauce to pork. That's the other reason.
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Definitely, I got to tell you when I saw you in class.
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If y'all don't know, I met them in Chris Shaffer's Tell All
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class and I when I saw the logo I just love.
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Y'all logo is one of the best ones out there.
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I love bread getting basted. I love this logo and some of the
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best logos out there. I love the logos and the thought
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that comes into it and that's what draw me to y'all.
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How did y'all team come together and when did y'all decide to
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jump in the camp BBQ? So I guess this is more of like
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our origin story and it's a quick, it's a quick one.
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So me and my teammate Rich Alexander, we've been friends
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forever. We worked at the same company.
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We were both electricians in the field for 20 years.
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Now we're project managers. We would we would just hang out
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and we'd BBQ Every time we'd hang out, we go to the lake, we
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BBQ, we, we go to his house, we BBQ, we're barbecuing.
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Rich reached out to me and said, do you want to maybe take in the
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Saint Louis Barbecue Society judging class?
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And I said, yeah, an excuse to go eat free barbecue and go hang
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out at festivals. Yeah, let's do it.
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So we we took the Saint Louis Barbecue Society judging class,
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sitting in class basically eating BBQ that others have made
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to us. We look at each other and we're
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like, I think we could do this. I was like, I think we could do
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this. Let's judge for a year and see
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what happens and basically go from there.
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So we judged our first competition.
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We took the class basically in August of last year.
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Our first judge was in October. So we went there, judge a
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competition. We got done with that and said,
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oh, we can definitely do this. Was the top meets really good?
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Yeah. But we thought we might be
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somewhere in the middle and what we are currently doing.
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So they had a backyard competition they were pushing
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out there and in November and we're like, all right, let's do
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that. I didn't want to do it Rich.
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Kind of like, hey, I think we could do this.
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We both, I purchased my first ever drum like a month before
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our BBQ class, so I've never cooked on a drum before in my
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entire life, but I saw that most of these competitors were
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cooking on drums. We also purchased and that's
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going to be one of my keys. Is it social media and basically
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all the content out there? We signed up for the BBQ leagues
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as best $100 I've ever spent in my life.
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I've watched the videos probably four or five, some of the videos
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probably 30 times already. And so I think, I think that
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kind of got us ready for that first quote UN quote backyard
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competition in that backyard competition was in November.
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So we went from taking the judges class somewhere around
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September, August, September to cooking our first backyard
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competition in November of last year.
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And we did well. We, we RG seated and that's when
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the hook got set. It was on from then and our
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wives knew it. They basically go man, I hope
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you guys don't do good in this competition because we know it's
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kind of it's going to be a downhill after this.
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And as soon as we RGC that it was OK Now what?
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Oh, let's buy two more pits. Let's let's buy a trailer.
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Let's we go in 100%. And that's me to a fault.
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Actually, I, if I'm going to do something, I, I go all out.
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I put almost 100% of all of my effort into something.
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If I'm going to do it, I want to do it right.
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So that's how we got into it. Like I said, it's a it's not a
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long, drawn out over the years kind of story.
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It was just quick, very quick. Yeah, like I said, the judging
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class, because I'm a judge for I'm in Georgia, so I'm a judge
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with the GBA, the Georgia BBQ Association.
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And it definitely shows you what other people doing and it tells
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you if you can hang or not. And while I'm sitting there
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trying to stuff and I'm like this, I thought this was going
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to blow my mind. And some of them is just, OK,
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get it. Boost your confidence up.
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OK, I can hang with these folks. It's and it's the flavor
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profile, to be honest with you, that I'm not going to say that I
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don't like what we cook because I do like what we cook, but it's
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more sweet. KCBSSLBS.
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It's a sweeter BBQ than I I generally personally like.
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If I'm cooking at home, I'm more savory, I'm more of a dry rub.
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I'm not sauced. I'd actually never liked BBQ
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sauce. It it just I want the meat to
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shine. And what the judges are looking
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for in this is 1 bite of like the best thing you've ever had.
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And it's usually sweet and like, you eat a whole rack of our
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ribs, you're going to be sick. So yeah, that's, I recommend
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anybody to take a judge's class to see what those guys are
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looking for, to be honest with you.
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Exactly. So did y'all move up to the
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pros? Are y'all still doing backyard
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or? So we moved up to the pros.
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I was looking forward to cooking Backyard so bad.
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It was like, oh, chicken and ribs, man, my chickens on.
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My chickens always been on. Even before I even took
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Schaeffer's class, I thought my chicken was on ribs needed some
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work but I was like oh this is easy 2 meats perfect.
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I barely even cooked a brisket before and one of our good
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friends in BBQ, his name's Dan Wright, he's with the take it
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easy BBQ. He was one of the guys cooking
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in that judging class and he cooked the ribs.
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And as nice as of a guy as he is, I reached out on Facebook
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instant messenger and he literally answers every single
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question that I ever had. And I bet you I had about 150
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questions in the first two weeks.
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What do you do here? How do you do it?
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And he's like an open book. He's really helped us along a
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lot. And one of the questions I asked
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him, I was like, how do I get into this backyard thing?
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And he immediately says you don't want to do backyard.
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I said, why is that? He goes, there's not enough
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competition. He's there's a bore year that he
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knows of like in this area. He goes, unless you want to
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travel out there, He's it's just not there.
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He goes just GoPro and I was like, what can you just GoPro?
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Is that a, is that something that you just decide you want to
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do? Hey, I'm a pro now.
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It's like I thought there would be some kind of like test or
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like some kind. Of hey, you have to.
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Win. You have to win so many
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competitions to GoPro, but he said no, you just sign up.
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He convinced us to, to GoPro and that's what we've done this
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year. I'm trying to think, think we've
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done 5 pro competitions this year, 11 KCBS and, and actually,
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yeah, 41 KCBS, 3 Saint Louis barbecue societies.
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And then we did a backyard for Clinton County BBQ Society.
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They're they're based out of Illinois.
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And that one was cool because they provide the meats, but in
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the same sense, it's meats that they give you.
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Quality. You know, the biggest battle of
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BBQ is obviously having good meat and get stuck with what
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they give you, which puts you on a level playing field.
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But somebody might get a nice rack of ribs and you got crap.
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I don't think we'll be doing any more of those just because the
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flavor profiles are so different from KCBS and SLBS.
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Oh, OK. And what was the your first pro
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competition? What was that competition like?
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Our first pro competition was they called it Freeze Queue and
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that was in February and crazy enough the weather was great.
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We had just driven to Florida for a cruise and on our way
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there we paid for our trailer and on our way back picked up
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our trailer. And that next week was our
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first, our first pro competition and it was wild, really wild.
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We hadn't yet taken the Schaefer's class, so we were
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kind of using our skills that we've learned off of the BBQ
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league. And that man, I'll tell you
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what, everybody is just so nice. That's what blew me away at our
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first competition is people were coming up to us and asking who
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we were and how did we get into this and if we needed any help,
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just reach out. And I'm like, man, it's a
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competition and these people couldn't be friendlier.
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Schaefer was there at Freeze queue.
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And that's, I'm going to get into it, but that's one of my
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highlights. And I said this in his classes.
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What's your highlights so far? And when he took his class, it
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was beating him in the ancillary.
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We cooked a Thor, we cooked a Thor's Hammer and we won first
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place. He got second.
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That was great. But he came up to us and
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introduced himself and talked to us and we told him we were
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taking his class. We had already signed up for it
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and we just hit it off with them, to be honest with you.
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And we loved it. The other meat categories,
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What's crazy about BBQ competitions is the ancillary
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was called first. We knew it was good.
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It's turned in the night before, so it's turned in on on that
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Saturday night and then the competition's on Sunday.
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So you're sitting for awards. We thought we had a pretty
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decent cook and ancillaries called and we get first place.
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So in my head, I'm like, we just won this whole thing.
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We're winning the whole competition.
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I just, we just took down the ancillary competition and I'm
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waiting to hear my name called first on, on every single meet.
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And, and as they were going through, it's one of the worst
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feelings in the world is, is you're here in 3rd and you're
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like, Oh my gosh, oh, you're hearing second.
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You're oh man, we won. And then you don't hear your
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name. And you're like, OK, we didn't
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get top 10 on that. And then then off to the next
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one and then the next one and then the next one.
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And by the time we didn't hear our name.
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And in the three meets, we get the brisket and I risk it's the
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toughest one for us, always has been.
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And I was like, OK, that was humbling.
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You sit there and you think about your, your life choices on
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the way home from that BBQ competition.
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You're like, why are we doing this?
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How much money have I invested into this?
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Is this something that I want to do?
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And then, then, then the next day you're like, OK, I'm OK.
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I, I didn't win my first ever pro competition.
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I think I'll be all right. But I'm highly competitive.
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So it's, it's a fault, but I think it helps us too.
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But yeah, that first one, it was fun.
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I was nice meeting new friends. It was just, it was an eye
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opening experience to say the least.
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And yeah. And then I think it was 2 weeks
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later is when we took Schaefer's class and the holy cow, you want
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to talk about eye opening? That kind of set the way for us
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for the rest of this season. Yeah, it was an excellent class.
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What's one thing that you didn't expect about competition BBQ
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until you actually experienced it out there?
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One thing I did not expect was the camaraderie, the
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friendships, the just. I just thought it was going to
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be cutthroat. I thought we would show up and
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this brand spanking new trailer. People are going to go, who are
14:17
these guys? They don't belong here.
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I don't know these guys. And it was the complete
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opposite. It was literally no one had
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anything negative to say to us. No one said, hey, I'm going to
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whip whip up on you today or anything like that.
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It's just everybody trying to help out.
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And that was that was just a complete surprise to me,
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honestly, just because I figured people would keep closed off,
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don't look in my trailer, don't see what sauces I'm using, don't
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see what seasonings I'm using. But it was like the complete
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opposite. And the people were even like,
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Hey, you want to see what I'm using on this?
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So that that blew me away. And it's honestly what kind of
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kept us going after that first competition is this is great.
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I'm enjoying a beer usually the night before because night
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before is prep. We're making kale boxes or we're
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injecting or doing our rubs. And that's about all you have to
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do except for hang out and drink beer.
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So I got to hang out with like minded people drinking beer
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night before a competition. I even messaged my wife and I
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was like, this is awesome. I was like, I'm having so much
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fun right now. And I was like, that's yeah, I
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did not expect that. It's almost like what me and
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Rich would be doing on a normal weekend is just hanging out in a
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lawn chair drinking beer and smoking meat.
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And now I get to do it in like a competition setting.
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And if I'm lucky enough, I might get a medal or some money, so.
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Yeah, the atmosphere is just different.
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It's crazy. It's crazy and I love it.
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Like it's. I would have never expected
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that. Yeah, 'cause I'm probably going
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to start competing towards the end of the year once my daughter
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get up in age. But all I do is go walk around
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them, the competitions and stuff like that and people friendly
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talking to you like Memphis and May.
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I've been to 2023 and 20, the one that just passed 2025 when
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and you just even just walking around and it's a serious
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competition, but folks are friendly.
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I'm all inside people tense talking to them and you sitting
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around like me and my wife looking like they don't even
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know it's like that. And they we are, I mean, they
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all friendly and actually do you want water?
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Do you want food or anything like that?
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And we like wow. And I'm like, I told her this.
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That's why I'm addicted to barbecue because of the people.
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All the classes I went to, people are so friendly, they'll
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drop you anything to come help you.
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Hey, you need anything, let me know.
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And I was like, that's the atmosphere and the people I want
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to be around. Some of those are more friendly
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than the people that you see every day.
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So it's wow A. Hundred.
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A hundred percent, 100%. So I was like, hey, I'm into
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this. I haven't even cooked yet.
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I'm addicted to it. Oh man.
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So. I can't wait for you, man.
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I'll be honest with you, I can't wait for you.
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Yeah, so to get my fix now until I can compete, that's like I
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started this podcast to help other folks get tips and
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techniques and just to talk BBQ because I'm addicted to it.
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So that's why I'm here. It's an expensive addiction,
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I'll tell you that right now. Oh, yeah.
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Oh yeah. #2's wisely because I still got no keys.
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But you said you got the drone smokers.
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What was the learning curve on the drone smokers and how long
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did it take you to master? Well, I still don't think we've
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mastered it. I tell you what, we jumped right
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in. Like my buddy Rich, he's on
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pretty much every Creole. He's got like a he's got a
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Camano Joe. He had messed with a drum
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smoker, not a gateway before down at the lake we grill on and
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offsets Weber kettles we've grilled on.
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So I don't think the learning curve was too bad because like I
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said, the content out there, you watch Brad Lineger, Tim Shear
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basically build a basket of charcoal and you're like, oh,
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OK. And, and you watch people dial
18:19
it in and literally when you set those two vents on the side and
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you leave the top wide open, that thing just sits there at
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300 and it's just amazing. There was not too much of A
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learning curve. It was, it was just trying to
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figure out how long it takes to cook your meat.
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And honestly, most of everybody out there goes by colour before
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they wrap. That was the biggest learning
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curve. But man, those gateway drums, I
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can't say enough good things about them.
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Don't know anything really about the other brands like your
18:49
Hunsakers or anything like that. I just know that some of the
18:53
best in BBQ are cooking on a Gateway drum.
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It was designed by a BBQ guy and not a scientist or whoever, and
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it's just been amazing for us. And we get crap because
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everybody sees how nice our drums are and brand spanking
19:09
new, but we take care of our stuff.
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Like we deep, we literally deep clean our trailer and Polish the
19:15
outside of our drums after every single competition.
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So we're going to try to keep them looking nice.
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But yeah, you see some of these guys drums and you're like,
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that's a gateway that is a pile of rust, it looks like.
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But yet you beat me in ribs. So cool.
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Yeah, I have one, but it's still sitting brand new because when I
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got it for Christmas they had a bundle and then my wife was
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pregnant and it's been sitting in the corner for 15 months now.
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I didn't got the logo to put on it and everything else, but it's
19:45
still sitting over there in the corner.
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Do y'all got your logo put on there?
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Oh yeah, we so two of them we did.
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The two that we bought before that before we thought we were
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going to get this far was just your regular black, matte black.
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And then we're like, oh, let's do logo, let's do the let's do
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the HH and let's do let's do the pig on another one.
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So we went gloss black with that and it looks awesome.
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And I can't believe you. Haven't you messed with yours
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yet? That's called, that's called
20:11
willpower right there. I think the second I brought
20:13
mine home I was like. Man, do I even have anything to
20:17
cook tonight? It was like I think I got to go
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to the market and put something on there.
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I don't even care what it is, let's cook some hot dogs on that
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thing. I just want to fire it up.
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Yeah, Since I've been there with my daughter, most of the time I
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don't have four or five hours to play around because if I come
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down here, I'm my wife, don't see me most of the day when I'm
20:34
grilling until the afternoon. I was like, I don't want to
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disappear and get in trouble for that so.
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Exactly. But when I got my, I got the red
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one. But then I decided to change my
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team colors because I'm a different Bronco fan.
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So that's when I changed the colors.
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So now I got a red one, but now I got to get blue.
20:55
I think you'd probably get that thing re powder coated I would
20:57
imagine maybe in some orange. Yeah, yeah, because my old logo
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is burgundy and black. Let me revamp.
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But when you're all out there, do y'all use the rubs from
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somebody else? Do you make your own rubs or in
21:15
the sauce? We as we took Schaefer's class,
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so we are we are pretty much on on his recipes.
21:26
We want to make stuff our own a little bit.
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And Chris will be the first one to tell you don't do that
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because I've given you guys, I've given you guys the keys to
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the city right now. I'm a world champion BBQ guy.
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This is what I use. I know he'd let me do it, but if
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I end up not winning or if I end up not placing, yes, because
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you're not, you're not doing my stuff.
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So we for the most part, run his recipe with a couple of tweaks
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here and there, add our own flavor to it.
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But yeah, we are sponsored by Heavy Smoke.
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So we are running, we are running black and white label
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and a ton of white label. So he said he wanted to put his
22:04
kids through college. So you know that white labels,
22:09
about white labels on pretty much everything.
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And it's been doing really good for us, to be honest.
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It's just he's such a proven entity like that.
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Why wouldn't I use what he has? And a lot of his sauces are your
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blue hog. So we run, we run his stuff.
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I tried in the beginning making my own stuff and it's what I
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like. It's not what the judges like.
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So yeah, we went back. We went back to just using what
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we learned in that class. And that's what I like
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especially about him, that even though you're new, he said, hey,
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I'm a sponsor. You, you don't have to be a
22:49
veteran. He'll take that chance and
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sponsor you despite you being new, which is and.
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I'll tell you what that was you want to talk about the most.
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The biggest moment so far in our very short BBQ career is because
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after class, I would, I'd message him and I'd ask him, Oh,
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hey, on your timeline, it said this, what about this?
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Hey, on this, it said this. Oh, hey, what about the he's
23:13
hey, come to my shop. He lives or his BBQ shop is
23:18
maybe 15 minutes from my house. So he's come to my shop.
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He's I'll show you again. You know how I trim my pork And
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like he I think he saw in us as in is what he said he saw that
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he goes, you're you guys are going to be good.
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And for somebody who barely knows us, but has seen us cook
23:43
is seeing our trailer, has seen the passion that we put into
23:47
this for somebody like him to say, watch out for these guys.
23:53
I think even said in class these guys are going to be something,
23:55
these guys are going to be good and that's ultimately why he
24:00
said he decided to sponsor us is he could see in us that we're
24:06
going to be good someday. And I hope he's right.
24:08
I know we got some trophies back here.
24:11
I don't have a giant trophy wall, but we're only doing four
24:15
or five pro competitions. I think we're doing good.
24:18
Not as good as I'd like to GC something, but I'm sitting here
24:22
as a rookie team saying I'm upset because I haven't GC Ed
24:25
anything yet and I'm five competitions in I've cooked on a
24:29
drum less than a year. So that's that's like I said,
24:32
that's my fault, but I'm super, super competitive.
24:36
They. Say most people don't win their
24:38
first 140 to 60 contest. So.
24:42
Oh. Gosh, I hope it doesn't take
24:44
that long hour. Crazy thing, I was talking to
24:49
Christy Vanover. I looked at a BBQ dad and she
24:52
didn't cook 42 contests, Yeah, 4 GCS and ARGCI was like what in
25:00
the world? Yeah, man, I feel like we're, I
25:05
mean, I don't know, I hate to jinx myself, but I feel like
25:08
we're tapping on that door with the SLBS.
25:11
To be honest with you. The first competition that we
25:13
cooked after Stay First class was Q Lathe in Olathe, KS and
25:19
that was a big one. There were 72 KCBS teams and I'm
25:23
talking heavy hitters like Slaps BBQ was there.
25:26
Meet Rushmore our good friends. Meet me in Saint Louis who
25:30
actually just won a world championship.
25:33
Who's on our heavy smoke team? Nicest guys you've ever met in
25:36
BBQ too? They were in the class.
25:38
But. Oh, my gosh, some of the best
25:41
prime rib I've ever had in my life.
25:43
I messaged Brian, Brian Payton is his name with meet me in
25:46
Saint Louis. I messaged him like the next
25:49
day. I'm like, you need to tell me
25:50
exactly how you made that, because I that was some of the
25:54
best prime rib I've ever had in my life.
25:57
Yeah. I mean, that Q life, we're
25:58
sitting there. We're not expecting anything at
26:01
all. It's our first comp.
26:03
We cooked after Chris's class using basically what Chris
26:06
taught us. And we're sitting there in
26:08
awards and chicken gets called and they get to, I believe it
26:13
was 8th place and we took eighth and chicken.
26:16
I was like, OK, holy cow. Be like, Oh my gosh, if I don't
26:19
get anything else, like I'm happy.
26:22
I was hoping to finish like 30th or 35th in a field that strong.
26:26
And then it comes to ribs and and we get like a 8th place call
26:31
or in ribs and I'm sitting looking at rich and I'm going,
26:34
are you kidding me right now? Like what what's happening?
26:38
And I was like, all right, here comes pork.
26:40
I was like, man, if we do pork, we got a shot this thing and I
26:43
didn't hear my name for pork. We're back to where we were
26:45
didn't hear our name and brisket.
26:47
We go to collect our score sheets at the end.
26:49
We we didn't finish top ten and we end up getting 11th and pork
26:54
and I go, do you realize, and this is the stuff that screws
26:59
with you once you get into competition BBQ, like once you
27:02
get into like actually cooking, like the way judging's done
27:06
because you're sitting there and you're like, OK, I got a 6th, I
27:09
got a eighth. OK, I got 11th.
27:11
We're sitting there with the brisket calls.
27:14
If we would have not literally shit the bed and brisket because
27:20
we got 53rd and brisket, we would have got middle of the
27:23
road, we would have got third place overall in that
27:25
competition. If we would have placed anywhere
27:28
near the top ten, we would have G seed, our first ever KCBS
27:33
competition. And you sit there and you're
27:36
really happy about I believe we got 17th place out of 72 teams
27:42
and you're happy. But then you're like, oh man, if
27:47
my brisket was just a little bit better, if if this was just a
27:51
little. And I immediately message
27:52
Shaffer that day. I was like, hey, this is what we
27:56
did. And he goes, are you cooking
27:58
that trash brisket that you were telling me about that you got
28:01
from Costco? Costco Business Centers was
28:05
selling Wagyu briskets and I was like for a hundred 110 bucks.
28:10
And I was like, yeah, yeah, I have been cooking.
28:13
I have been cooking that trash brisket.
28:16
I was like, he goes, why? I said cost, man.
28:21
I said, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to save a penny.
28:23
Here he goes. What if I told you that you
28:27
could pay me $500 and you would have GC that competition?
28:31
Would you do it? And I said in a heartbeat, In a
28:34
heartbeat, he goes, why are you not buying Snake River Farms
28:37
briskets? I said, OK, that second I got on
28:40
Snake River Farm and I ordered 22 briskets off of Snake River
28:44
Farms because that's the truth. Like, I'm sitting here trying to
28:47
scrape pennies by, but I would have paid any amount of money to
28:51
hear our name even in the top three.
28:54
So it's crazy. It's just crazy what different
28:58
meats will do or how you cook them.
29:00
Or this guy knows what he's talking about.
29:01
He cooks two of these Snake River Farm briskets every
29:04
competition. I said I'm not there yet.
29:07
I'm not there yet. I want to.
29:08
I want to not get a divorce anytime soon so.
29:11
That's right, 5 rolls of meat. Yeah. $500.00 of competition,
29:19
it's already, I think I did the math and I didn't believe
29:23
somebody when they said it. Just to show up at a pro comp
29:26
competition, 900 to $1000 every single time.
29:32
Every single time we pull in. But you got your entry fees
29:34
around 250 bucks, your briskets around 240 bucks.
29:38
You know, you got ribs, you got chicken, you got your sauces,
29:43
you got your charcoal, We're bougie.
29:44
I don't sleep in my trailer. I have to have a shower and a
29:49
toilet. So we will stay in a hotel room
29:52
and that's 150 bucks a night probably.
29:55
Could I save the money and sleep on an air mattress in our
29:58
trailer? Yeah, I don't want to.
30:00
I don't want to do that. I'm going to spend that extra
30:02
150. So yeah, it is expensive.
30:04
Like people here. Oh man, you guys did really
30:06
good. You want a couple categories?
30:08
You got some cash like yeah, that almost paid for our entry
30:13
fee and a meet. It's like, I'm not, I guess I'm
30:17
not into this to to make money. I guess if you're really good,
30:21
you could end up making money and then may, I guess the
30:24
ultimate goal would be to start your own restaurant.
30:26
Not my goal ever, but I have a job.
30:29
I have a job, I have a pension. I'm going to continue to work at
30:33
my job. I'm not going to open my own BBQ
30:35
restaurant. So it's crazy.
30:38
Yeah, it is a it's a labor of love.
30:40
It's and it is an expensive one at that.
30:43
And I've had a couple arguments already with the wife about it.
30:49
I look forward to it. Yeah, yeah.
30:52
Good luck. So you say you got a teammate,
30:55
how do y'all switch the duties of who cooking what inside the
30:58
truck during comp? So the teammate aspect of things
31:03
is amazing and we've been friends for so long.
31:09
Like I said, we're in similar roles.
31:11
We worked at the same company. He works at a different company
31:14
now, but our jobs right now is we manage jobs, I manage people.
31:20
So when we work together, it's I don't want to say it's like a
31:24
Symphony, but it's like the right hand knows what the left
31:27
hand is doing. Like people think it's weird.
31:29
Our wives think it's weird. We'll be in a trailer together
31:33
and we don't even, we're not even talking to each other
31:36
because he knows what's next. I know what he's going to do
31:41
next, and vice versa. Like, well, he knows the whole
31:44
process. I know the whole process.
31:46
Now, do we have our own duties? Yeah.
31:48
It's adapted that way. He will set the fires for the
31:51
drums. He'll get everything up to temp.
31:54
He'll. He's the guy that puts the wood
31:56
on. He is.
31:57
He's setting timers. I'm in there.
32:00
I'm seasoning the meat. I am injecting.
32:04
I will, I will put the sauce on. I do our boxes for turn in or at
32:09
least I do the slicing. I'll slice our brisket, I slice
32:11
the ribs. We both combine on boxes.
32:13
But it just it worked out really well, better than we expected
32:19
that we both just fall into a roll and we know what each other
32:23
is doing. And I think that's key and
32:25
that's one of my keys to anybody looking to do this because
32:31
there's guys out there that are doing it by themselves and more
32:35
power to them. Like I said, one of our one of
32:37
our mentors that take it easy BBQ Dan, right?
32:40
He does it by himself. And I don't know how they do it.
32:45
Like it's enough work for both of us by the end of a
32:49
competition to where our backs hurt, our knees hurt.
32:52
Like, how are these guys doing it by themselves?
32:56
And another point of this is financially, I've got a partner.
33:00
I've got a partner that splits half the cost with me right now.
33:04
So yeah, you want to talk about how expensive this is?
33:06
Yeah, it's $1000 to roll by competition.
33:08
That's only 500 for me. It's 500 for him.
33:11
It's we split the cost equally. We split the duties equally.
33:15
Like I said, he knows what I'm doing.
33:16
I'm knowing what he's doing. Like I said, more power to these
33:19
guys that do it by themself. But man, if you want to start a
33:22
team, I suggest highly to have a partner and somebody you have
33:28
been friends with and shares the same passion.
33:31
Because I have seen it, I have seen it go the wrong way too for
33:35
some of these teams to where they end up splitting up and now
33:39
they're not friends. And that's because you got 2
33:42
alphas trying to be head of the team and it just doesn't work
33:46
like that. Like Rich.
33:48
Rich is This is why I'm on this podcast and Rich isn't here.
33:52
I'm social I to a fault. I will talk to anybody and I
33:56
will talk to somebody for hours on in and I'm a long storyteller
34:01
and that is not rich. That is not rich at all.
34:04
And he just hangs back. So our dynamic seems to work
34:07
really well together and it's turned out to be great.
34:10
That's excellent, Everything goes well because it can go
34:13
sideways quick. I know.
34:15
So what advice would you give to other new teams thinking about
34:18
jumping into a competition BBQ? So advice, like I said, for sure
34:26
find out what where you're going to cook at, like whether it's
34:30
KCBS, whether it's Saint Louis Barbecue Society, whatever other
34:35
BBQ societies are in your local area, if that's where you're
34:39
going to cook, go be a judge or go take the judge's class,
34:44
figure out what they're looking for so that that helps you out
34:47
on your cook. On that judge's class.
34:49
If you would have told me that it's a nine for some of the
34:52
stuff I was tasting, I was like, oh, OK, this is what you're
34:55
looking for. I got it.
34:56
OK. So I'd say for sure become a
35:00
judge. For sure take a class and take a
35:05
class on what you're going to end up cooking on.
35:08
Like you go and you take an offset class and you end up
35:12
cooking on a drum. Your timelines are going to be
35:15
different and maybe you can take a look at what they're doing for
35:18
seasoning and injecting and their finishes, but it's not
35:23
going to help you on your cook. That's ultimately why we took
35:25
Shaffer's classes. One, I love his restaurant.
35:30
I love his personality. We knew about him through the
35:32
BBQ league and and I know that he cooks on gateway drums.
35:36
So it was pretty perfect in that aspect.
35:40
I would say definitely join the BBQ league or anything similar
35:45
that post content, but like I said, $100.
35:48
I think it's somewhere around $100 for a yearly membership and
35:51
they just have so much content. You want to watch Bill Purvis do
35:55
a pork tell all with chicken fried BBQ, It's on there.
35:59
You want to watch the most winning man in BBQ, Brad
36:03
Lindiger give you his rib tell all, give you his pork tell all.
36:07
It's on there. There's chicken tell all.
36:09
It's like, Oh my gosh, I've I they lost money on me and rich
36:15
for sure because I've watched so many countless hours of their
36:19
video, enough to where my wife probably knows some of these
36:23
videos because she can hear it in the background.
36:25
So I'd say definitely those things and then make sure you
36:31
know what you're getting into. To be honest with you, this is
36:34
expensive. It's pricey.
36:36
If you want to do 3 or 4 backyard competitions with a pop
36:39
up 10 by 10, it's not bad. You can do that.
36:45
It's not going to cost you that much.
36:46
You probably already have pits or whatever you're cooking on.
36:49
But if you really want to get into competition barbecue and
36:53
we're doing, we're looking to do one a month.
36:56
I know we're doing a back-to-back here in next week
37:00
in the following week, but that's all we're wanting to do.
37:03
One a month, maybe 2 at the most.
37:06
But you trailer, a trailer is a must for us.
37:10
It was a game changer to be honest with you.
37:13
Not having to cook out of a 10 by 10.
37:15
If it's raining, I'm covered. My pets are covered inside that
37:18
trailer. It's just crazy.
37:20
So I'd say make sure you're financially ready for this.
37:24
It's probably one of the bigger ones because like I said, nobody
37:27
wants to their wife yelling at them about how much money
37:30
they're spending on BBQ that she doesn't even get to eat.
37:33
So. That's true.
37:35
You're feeding somebody else. Exactly 1 bite too, and then
37:39
they pitch it. Yeah, or take it to the dog or
37:42
something. Yeah, exactly.
37:45
All right, we're going. That's the end of the interview,
37:48
but we're going to switch over to something fun.
37:50
What I came up with and college basketball, they have the
37:52
brackets so I made a 16 grilled meat bracket and I did them
37:59
randomly and you pick whatever 1 you prefer to eat and we'll see
38:04
which one is the winner. Oh, that's cool.
38:07
Great. Bracket #1 is hot dog versus
38:10
smoked Bologna. Hot dog versus smoked Bologna.
38:14
I'm hot dog. It's about the same thing, but
38:16
yeah, I'm going hot dog. All right, match up two is
38:20
smoked ham versus hamburger. Hamburger.
38:27
OK. Next matchup is beef ribs versus
38:30
lamb. Oh, beef ribs.
38:33
I do love lamb, but beef ribs all day.
38:37
All right, we got smoked Turkey versus steak.
38:41
Oh and man if that was any other matchup because I do like a
38:45
smoked Turkey but I am a steak fanatic.
38:47
Steak for sure. OK.
38:50
Next matchup we got brisket versus pork ribs.
38:55
Brisket versus pork ribs. Oh man.
38:58
And this is what this is what I like, right?
39:00
This is what I like to eat. Let's go pork ribs.
39:03
OK, next we got smoked chicken versus burnt ends.
39:13
Now smoked chicken, does that count like my my competition
39:18
thighs? Is that considered smoked
39:19
chicken? Yeah, any smoked chicken, man.
39:23
I love my chicken, so I'm gonna go smoke chicken.
39:27
OK, next matchup, pork chops versus BBQ shrimp.
39:34
Let's go, let's go pork chops. I prefer my shrimp to be the
39:38
scampi variety. OK, And next matchup, sausage
39:43
versus pork belly. Oh.
39:46
Man. Yeah, the thing.
39:47
That's a go. That's a good one.
39:50
Oh man, sausage versus pork belly.
39:55
I eat way more sausage than pork belly, but man, when you get a
39:59
good pork belly or ain't nothing better, so I'm gonna say pork
40:02
belly. OK.
40:05
All right. We got a hot dog versus
40:07
hamburger. Oh my gosh, hot dog versus
40:12
hamburger. This could be the toughest
40:16
matchup of the entire thing. Hot dogs nostalgic to me, man.
40:21
It's I'm a giant Saint Louis Cardinals fan, so it's like.
40:25
You too. I am.
40:26
Too. Oh, are you really OK?
40:28
Hey, good year so far. We've beat the Dodgers two games
40:32
in a row. Looking for the sweep today,
40:33
man, There's just it's just the nostalgia of a hot dog.
40:36
Like having a hot dog in a ballpark.
40:38
Like every time I have a hot dog, I think it's summertime and
40:42
it's and I'm at the ballpark, man.
40:45
But I do love a hamburger. You know what?
40:47
It's going to be weird, but let's go hot dog all.
40:49
Right next we got beef ribs versus steak.
40:55
Wow, I'm going to say steak. They're not too far off, but I
40:59
have steak way more often than when I say way more often.
41:03
Almost every week, so I'll say steak.
41:05
All right, next matchup, pork ribs versus smoked chicken.
41:11
Let's go pork ribs. All right, next matchup, pork
41:16
chops versus pork belly. Pork belly.
41:24
All right, Final four, hot dog versus steak.
41:33
Man, hot dog versus stay. Oh, man, I'm a huge North
41:38
Carolina college basketball fan too, so that'd be like a North
41:42
Carolina versus Akron or something.
41:44
Let's go steak. I'm going to go steak.
41:46
No upset here. Pork rib versus pork belly.
41:54
I like a good rib. Let's go, let's go, pork.
41:56
Rib. All right, Final two, steak
42:01
versus pork rib. Steak taking, taking down the
42:05
net, man. Cutting the Nets down.
42:07
Let's go steak. All right, steak is the winner.
42:11
We had a lot of ones I did already.
42:13
Beef reels just come out champion a lot of times so.
42:18
And we just, and we just did beef ribs on the offset at the
42:22
lake like 3 weeks ago and they were fantastic.
42:28
Like they are man when they're right but it's just few and far
42:33
between is when we have beef ribs.
42:35
I mean steak. I consider my safe self a steak
42:38
connoisseur. Give me a dry aged steak at a
42:40
nice restaurant and that's I'm in love.
42:43
If your therapy session is over and if you got anybody to
42:46
promote or shout out, you can do that now.
42:49
Yeah, I'd actually like to thank our sponsors.
42:52
And I know I didn't touch on this earlier, but that's another
42:55
thing I would recommend. If you can get sponsors to kind
42:58
of lighten the load of this financial burden, I would
43:02
definitely do that. We are sponsored by One Realty
43:06
Trifecta Group, Mandy Reid, State Farm Insurance, Legacy
43:11
Exteriors. We are also sponsored by Heavy
43:16
Smoke. We're sponsored by our newest.
43:20
I'm trying to think of our newest sponsor.
43:22
I'm sorry did they just They literally just started
43:24
sponsoring me yesterday. Hygienics is our newest sponsor
43:29
and and Panda motor works. Though I am all over the board.
43:34
I will take money from whoever wants to give it to me to to get
43:38
shout outs on BBQ. But it does help us out.
43:41
And I want to shout out to Summit cargo trailers.
43:44
They are who got us our cargo trailer.
43:46
And we couldn't be doing this with anything.
43:49
And honestly, I couldn't be doing this without Chris
43:51
Shaffer. I couldn't be doing this without
43:54
you, honestly. Like, your passion for this is
43:57
amazing. And this was just like a couple
44:00
guys shooting it for a little while.
44:02
And I hope we get to cook together someday at a
44:04
competition. I think that would be really
44:06
cool. But yeah, it's been a blast.
44:10
All right. I appreciate you coming on and
44:11
like I said, anytime you want to come back on, you got the link.
44:14
So we appreciate you and we see everybody next episode.
44:18
Thank you for joining us on another episode of the BBQ
44:21
Therapy Podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant.
44:24
Please tune in to YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, in any
44:29
streaming platform near you. Please pay the secretary on your
44:33
way out and we'll see you next episode.