Awkward Milestones: Smoke on the Mountain (Galax, VA – July 18-19, 2014)

In Galax, Virginia, the big trophies are musical instruments. They give out customized guitars, mandolins, and fiddles. The awards table was making a couple of pickers like Luke and Leigh Anne drool. Smoke on the Mountain has been holding their competition in the Virginia highlands for 10 years. For the first eight of those years, it was a Memphis BBQ Network event. Last year, they made it a dual-sanctioned event by adding a KCBS competition.

That Memphis BBQ Network thingie . . . that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Competitors not only create blind boxes for judges for pork shoulder, pork ribs, and whole hog, but there are multiple on-site judging sessions as well. For each meat a team turns in, they get three on-site judging visits. Teams have to discuss their cooking process, show off their cooking equipment, and serve the judges. It is a full-fledged pro-duck-shun!!! When you add that in to the standard KCBS competition cook, things get a little wonky. For example, KCBS chicken turn-in was scheduled for 9:25. Brisket wasn’t due until 2:25 p.m.. Cook schedules had to be adjusted, and heaven help those teams who took the bull by the horns and competed in Memphis and KCBS!

Luke and Kim rolled into Galax late on Thursday evening, parking the Old Virginia Creeper next to fellow Dizzy Pig team (and Memphis competitor) Serial Grillers (“Wanted in every state!”). After getting the trailer situated, they turned in for an early evening. Leigh Anne showed up on Friday afternoon, and everyone dug in for meat prep and general set-up. After a deep-fried dinner from the event food court (fried gator, fried frogs legs, fried green tomatoes, and fried pickles), we started the fires and got ready.

At multiple times over the weekend, the team had to check their calendars. After all, cooking in July usually means copious consumption of Gatorade to combat dehydration under an unrelenting sun and downright hostile humidity. Instead, there were sweatshirts, long-pants, and arguments over who got to use the Snuggie as the mercury struggled to stay above 65 degrees. And of course, since we were cooking, there was rain — an inconsistent dripping with occasional sightings of a distant sun.

The cook itself felt great! The extra time between turn-ins started off feeling like a luxury, but it made for a damn long day. Our clean-up and tear down process got boiled down to a science. The Creeper was all packed up and ready to roll in just over an hour after brisket turn-in — that’s a world record, dear readers!!! The team retired to the local Hampton Inn to shower and prepare for awards at 7 p.m.

After listening to two local high school boys flail out a version of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on the respective grand champion awards (banjo for MBN and guitar for KCBS), it was time to get down to business. KCBS awards were first, and we were proud to get three calls — 8th in ribs, 7th in pork, and 3rd in brisket. However, the score sheet showed Old Virginia Smoke its very first DAL (Dead Ass Last) — 30th place in chicken.

It happens. It hurt like hell, but it happens to all of us. Over Mason jars of ‘shine and bottles of cold beer, our friends and fellow competitors have told us war stories about that dreaded ranking. Sometimes it’s how the numbers just add up . . . especially when the numbers are small. We took some risks with our chicken here, and there are no regrets — only opportunities and lessons learned. Moving on . . .

Dave, David, and Richard over at Serial Grillers were amazing neighbors. We hope to find another dual event so we can all hang out again. Much love to the other folks in our little corner of the Virginia mountains — Grillin’Thyme, Cammo’s BBQ, and Contagious Q. Congrats to our ol’ buddy Rock at Rock’s Money Pit on the RGC and Boar’s Night Out on the GC. Victory Lane BBQ — you’re welcome for the butter that you used to beat us in brisket. In hindsight, we should have let you pay us for it. To our new buddy Phil, thanks for all the help cleaning up on Saturday; drive safe back to Cajun country. As always, thank you to Dizzy Pig, BBQ Guru, and our Kickstarter supporters for their continued sponsorship.

As a final note, if you can ever attend a competition where those boys from The Shed BBQ present whole hog, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It is . . . we don’t have the words. Running pig. Pink pinstripe suits. Cooking in a woody wagon. Just . . . holy smokes.

Next — the Southern Maryland Brew & BBQ Music Festival in Leonardtown, MD on August 1-2, 2014.

Improvisation: 3rd Annual Shenandoah Valley BBQ Fest!

Autumnfest is a great way to celebrate the approaching fall season in the Shenandoah Valley. The leaves on the trees are changing, and the forest is filled with ambers, golds, reds, and dusty greens. The clouds hang low over the mountains. Off in the distance, a few hot air balloons add a bit of whimsy to the skyline. It’ almost as if one could not ask for a better setting. Almost. It gets damn cold at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning, even if you are huddled around an improvised fire pit made from bottom of a Weber Smoky Mountain.

Pitmaster Luke shouldered the set-up solo again, as Kim and Leigh Anne arrived on Fridayafternoon and evening, respectively. Forty teams circled the oval track of the Woodstock fairgrounds, and many of our new friends from this season were there. Most of us were closing the season.

Team Old Virginia Smoke would like to introduce our newest addition. A few weeks ago, we purchased a Backwoods Gator from our neighbors from the Richmond Recovery Fest cook. She’s the big dog on our porch, with real estate and heat output to spare. Of course, we brought our Backwoods Party, “Mountain Mama II,” and our original WSM gangsta, the Grillenium Falcon.

Having more than exceeded expectations with this first season, our team approach to this final comp was to stretch our wings and try a few new things. In addition to breaking in our Gator, we mixed some things up with our meat supplier, rubs, and sauces. We put some new steps in our timeline. While ribs remain an area for focused concentration during the off-season, this approach worked well for the three other meats. Our chicken process produced some amazingly succulent, flavorful thighs no matter what the immoral ingrates at table 5 said. Do not get us started on table 5. We are locked down and lasered in on pork and brisket. All in all, it is a nice way to tie up an inaugural season of competition BBQ. We were able to secure a 10th place overall, with a 9th place brisket. Third top 10 in a row.

We’d like to thank Uncle Dave with Pavone Brothers for driving down with us, and in general being there for pretty much anything we need. Such as coffee whilst freezing to death. As always, much love to JD’s Smokin Misfits, Hog-It-Up, Southern Maryland Smokers, Makin’ Bacon, Peppermonkey BBQ, Grand Slam BBQ, and Checkered Flag 500 for being great friends. It was great to meet Ash Kickers and That Guy BBQ. A special thanks to Kit Rudd from DeGuello BBQ for lending us a few secret ingredients when it turned out our larder was a little low. And congrats to Kit on the GC! But damn, that trophy was straight up creepy. El chupacabre.

See you ‘round the circuit next year, y’all.

Victory Lap: Smokin’ on the Track BBQ Festival

Nestled in the foothills of the mighty Shenandoah Mountains is a 3/8 mile oval track, home to Late Model, Bandolero, Mini Cups, and Sportsman racing.  And for one weekend each year, it’s home to a KCBS BBQ competition, cornhole tournament, and classic car show.

We’ve never set up a cooksite in the middle of a racetrack before, but 2013 has been an all-around year for firsts.  Pitmaster Luke did the heavy lifting on Friday, as non-BBQ realities infringed upon Kim and Leigh Anne’s time.  (Editors note:  Lucas set up the entire cooksite. Prepped all the meat. And drank beer and gin buckets with Mike Palmer.  And hung out with the fine young man that runs Deguello BBQ, Senor Kit Rudd.)  Upon our arrival on Friday night, we set to work, making up for lost time until the wee hours o’ the morn.  Of course, with two sets of massive stadium lights glowing, it remained daylight-bright throughout the night.

Speaking of firsts, this event marked our initial entry into a People’s Choice category.  OVS Auxilliary Members Drew Grossman and Arielle Deligdish came by to help serve two different kinds of pulled pork — one with Luke’s super-secret Carolina mustard sauce and one with our sweet red sauce.  Drew and Arielle were busy as bees, and by our count handed out more than 800 samples over the course of a few hours.  We didn’t get the nod for People’s Choice, but we saw a lot of smiling faces and repeat visitors rolling back for second, thirds, and fourths.