Kansas City Barbeque Society Contest

We cooked this weekend in Madison, MS. We broke a long-standing Ubon's rule: Don't cook when it's hot. On Saturday evening I got in the car and it was 115 degrees. We cooked the 4 KCBS categories: chicken, beef, pork and ribs. We spent hours on chicken. My daddy has been cooking chicken my whole life. His daddy cooked chicken daddy's whole life. Sheesh! We experimented and tried and played and sampled. We looked at sample boxes, we played with how to place the chicken. In the end, we had 5 people sweating and threatening and spiting and cussing over some damn chicken! We didn't do too bad. We got an 8th place with the chicken we turned in.

Ultimately we borrowed a recipe from our friends over at Hebrew Hogs.
We marinated the chicken thighs over night in an acidic orange marinade:

5 cups of Ubon's BBQ sauce (OR 1 cup ketchup, 1 cup cider vinegar, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup hot sauce) and 2 cans of mandarin oranges, 1/2 cup of your favorite seasoning pureed in a food processor. Before smoking, we injected with an apple juice seasoning solution. We smoked our chicken for about 40 minutes and then finished on a charcoal fire. We used our rib sauce but any super sweet sauce that is warm from the grill will work. It's best if it isn't a super thick sauce. Dip the chicken into the sauce and return to the grill. repeat about 20 times.

Grillin for Life was a great contest. It was as hot as the very 3rd floor of hell, but we enjoyed the process. We finished up with 8th place chicken, 4th place brisket, 2nd place pork and 1st place ribs. Oh, and GRAND CHAMPION! So we're qualified for the draw for Jack Daniels in 2009. We had a great sponsor and look forward to working again with Smithfield. Our ribs were perfect. We're excited to be working with such an amazing product!

Next post: the X MAN movie!