Photos from Austin / NBBQA

What a Trip & Class!...

The "Old School vs High Tech" class with Rod Gray & Johnny Trigg was a great one and well worth the time/money IMHO. There were 24 folks in attendance, the class took 13 hours (from 7 AM until 8 PM on Sat), and I came home 26 legal pages full of notes - so it will take me a few days to get my things compiled!

It was like "BBQ Disneyland" at this meeting! Besides meeting and working with Rod Gray and Johnny Trigg, I met Paul Kirk, Mike Mills, and sat next to Lea Ann Whitten at the NBBQA banquet on Friday night. Well, Ed actually sat next to her... I got to "tag along"... And yes, she is every bit as pretty as she is in print or on TV!!. I also saw "Fast Eddy" Mauren, and I had the opportunity to visit with "old friends" Bill & Barbara Milroy (Texas Rib Rangers). I also saw some "sweet" pits - including a brand new candy apple red Jamie Geer pit that "Checkered Pig" (who won last year's RNR in SLC) had come down to Texas to pick up. I truly felt like a "greenhorn" in that crowd - but they were all very nice and "welcoming", even to a novice like me.

The class definitely was not a disappointment. It was wonderful to see different approaches to cooking championship BBQ - and not just from 1 but 2 of the top teams in the US! Much to my surprise, they "showed all/discussed all" - meat selection, prep, the "secret" rubs and sauces, cooking techniques, turn-in boxes, etc. Very few stones were left unturned - and no questions were left unanswered. The class had some pretty decent "heavy hitters" in attendance, too.

We had an actual classroom with a big mirror right over the "work table" so we could see everything (and/or we could walk up and watch from right next to them), and the pits were just right outside the door. So, we were constantly moving back & forth between a classroom setting and the pits themselves. It was "non-stop bop" beginning promptly at 7 AM, we "worked" right through lunch, and wrapped up Q&A at a little after 8 PM. It was a "solid" 13 hours of learning/watching. Ed Roith & I had planned to venture down to the famous/infamous "6th Street" in Austin Saturday night after the class - but I was "brain mush" by that evening and decided not to go (maybe I am just getting old!)

The Que? Well - trust me, there is a reason these 2 teams do as well as they do! Beautiful food, solid presentations - and dang it, it tasted darn great, too!! Overall, I slightly preferred Johnny's BBQ to Rod's - but not by much! Trust me, Rod showed me a "pellet pooper" can certainly compete with the best of stick burners (although it "came out" that Rod also has a Jamie Geer pit, too!)

I will be posting more from the class in a few days.

Off to Austin!!

Well, I am off to Austin, TX., tomorrow (Fri, 2/20) to attend in part the National BBQ Association meeting - and take a competition BBQ class taught by Rod Gray ("Pellet Envy") and Johnny Trigg ("Smokin' Triggers")... Talk about being "stoked!!" I am also looking forward to spending some time with my good friend / Master Judge / KCBS representative Ed Roith (Ed, among other things, has helped oversee the judging at Rock N Ribs for the past 3 years...)

Although I have been aware of the NBBQA for many years, I have to admit I really don't know much about them... And I am only going to get to be there for about 1 1/2 days of the meeting this time around... But after looking over the speakers and events for their annual meeting this year, I definitely want to come back next year to attend a whole lot more of the meeting...

Paul Kirk, Mike Mills, Mike Davis, Lee Ann Whippen, Woody Wood, Eddy Maurin are just a few of the speakers who were at the meeting this year - along with Rod and Johnny, of course! Talk about an "all-star" cast!! And classes on everything from creating a distinctive rub to leveraging your competition success to opening a BBQ restaurant to bottling/marketing your rub or sauce to selecting a competition pit to judging classes - and more!! And if that isn't enough to wet your appetite, they also conduct an all day "tour" early in the week of many of the historic Texas Hill Country BBQ "Shrines" in the Austin area, where you get to tour the kitchens, talk with the owners, and taste samples.

This sounds like the "Super Bowl" of BBQ - or "BBQ Heaven" - to me!!!

Entitled "Old School vs High Tech", the class I am taking features 2 of competition BBQ's best... Johnny Trigg of Smokin' Triggers has cooked almost 600 events and has over 60 Grand Championships and countless category wins. With Alvarado, Texas as his home base, Johnny has logged hundreds of thousands of miles competing, visiting most of the U.S. states, and even competing in Europe. Johnny was awarded the Kansas City Barbeque Society Team of the Year in 2003, has been runner-up twice and has been a KCBS category Team of the Year many times. With victories in 2000 and 2003, Johnny is the only competitor to win the Jack Daniel's World Invitational twice.

Rod Gray has competed in over 200 events all across the country in the last eight years. In that time, Pellet Envy has won forty-five championships and has ended seven straight seasons as a top nationally ranked team. Rod has been invited to the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational five times in his short career. With only nine perfect scores awarded in the last two year, Pellet Envy received three of them and ended the 2007 season as the best rib cooks in the country. Pellet Envy gathered eight Grand Champions and fifteen category wins in 2008 alone, ending the season with more wins than any other team in America.

I have to be quite honest, I truly feel a little in "awe" of being in the presence of these guys. At the same time, though, having met Johnny last year at "Grill on the Hill" up at Snowbird, I also know he is a very cordial, friendly, and "down to earth" guy - and I expect Rod will most likely be the same.

I look forward to "reporting back" next week about my trip, along with photos of my adventure! As I said - talk about being "stoked"!