B A R B E C U E...

So a video that just made me want to give this a shot.  Sounds a little odd, but was a definitely a fun experiment.  Ended up making some of the best bologna I have ever had.

Here is a video that shows how to make it for yourself:

This past Wednesday was National Hotdog Day.  To honor this day, we held a hotdog eating contest at my office. Here are some of the pictures:

First picture is of me getting off to a great start, second one is a picture of a co-worker making great progress and passing me up real quickly, then finally the third picture is of the winner who quietly beat us all.  This was much tougher then I had ever imagined it to be.  I tried soaking the buns in water, and that almost made me to have a reversal which would have been the last thing I would have wanted to do.  It was definitely a fun experience, but one that I am unsure if I will ever attempt again.

Earlier today, I headed about 45 minutes north to go to a BBQ Festival/Contest in Waterloo, IA.  The goal here was to find someone that was using the smoker I am looking to get in the future, some advice on BBQ contests, and to eat some good BBQ. 

I was there about 5 minutes before I noticed someone with a smoker that in a cover, but shaped like the smoker I am looking at.  I decided to go up to one of the people there and ask them if that was the Cookshack FEC100 smoker, and sure enough it was.  This person was kind enough to give me a lot of information on the smoker, and a little advice on how to do the tournaments. 

After talking to this person for a while, I was getting pretty excited, I decided to grab a beer and some BBQ from one of the vendors there.  The beer mellowed me out a bit after the excitement of finally seeing one of these smokers in person.  I then grabbed a brisket sandwich from one of the vendors.  The brisket was very tender with pretty good flavor.  One of the things I judge brisket on is by how much BBQ sauce the brisket needs.  Ideally I put no BBQ sauce on brisket, but I had to put just a little bit on, to add a bit of flavor.  This brisket was much better then the brisket I had a Cedar Rapid's BBQ Roundup a few weeks ago.  That brisket was no like any other brisket I have ever had, and not in a good way.  The brisket was shredded, which is I have never seen, and was extremely dry and needed an entire bottle of BBQ sauce to make it decent.  The brisket I had today, was sliced perfectly and extremely tender, just missing a little bit of flavor. 

The trip was well worth the 45 minute dry and I was able to accomplish all my goals.