We managed to score a free range Wessex Saddleback Boar from a new pig farm in Binalong Bay. In fact, we got three one for us to smoke up and a couple for friends. After rustling the three pigs on to the trailer we took them for a cruise, little did they know they were on their way to the slaughter yard! We left them in the safe hands of the Butcher and returned the next day to collect. Don't know what its live weight was but it was approximately 70kg in the picture below. After getting the beast home and on to the prep table we then set about butterflying it. In order to do this we cut the tail bone out with a rough tooth hand saw - new of course! As I was in a hurry I broke her open by hand, yeah ok I broke a few ribs doing it but hey this was for home consumption, not a comp. We then set about trimming the beast up, removing all of the unsightly blood stained muscles and excess that weren't necessary for the cook. After trimming we injected the beast with a mix of Apple Juice (4 litres), Willie Smiths Apple Cider Vinegar (1 litre) and brown sugar (1kg). The injection was made prior. Heat until all sugar has dissolved, cool and inject. Once we had pumped 5 litres of fluid in to it, we gave it a rub with our custom made pork rub. The same rub that we use in comps and that has seen us win both Pork categories in both Tassie comps this year. Thankfully its been chilly in Tas so we wrapped the pig in foil and let it marinade until the next morning. At 5am the next morning we carried the beast up to the block pit only to find that it was too big for the pit! As you can see from the pic above, the hocks are flanked by a temporary course of concrete blocks. After getting the pig positioned we had to add to the height of the pit so we did some last minute hack mods and fired up the pit. Even though we got the pig on the smoker at around 6am it took until about 7:30 until we got the pit to temp. We used cherry wood only and maintained a target temp of 275f. At 2pm we gave it a sauce and covered it up again. We let the shoulders hit 205f and the legs 180f internal. We did this as we wanted to keep the legs for sliced meat to use in lunches the following week. Just before 5pm we took the pig off the smoker, gave it another saucing, wrapped it up and let it rest for an hour or so. After the rest period Justin & Jimi set about pulling the pig (except for the legs) and we tucked in!! After some good ol Tassie Moonshine, a few Willie Smiths Ciders we woke up to Pete from Tamar Artisan Small Goods frying up some of their hand crafted smoked bacon for breakfast. Now that's what friends are for :)
The dust has settled and my weary old body is slowly recovering from a 40 hour stint at the Beer Blues & BBQ Festival. The event itself went off without a hitch (except for 1 broken trophy) and was arguably one of the highlights of the Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival. Earlier this year we held Tasmania’s first fully sanctioned low and slow BBQ competition in Hobart. This was followed up within months at St Helens with Tasmania’s second, yet richest, low and slow comp, offering prize money in excess of $5500. When consulting with parties that are interested in holding BBQ competitions within Tasmania, the main things that sticks with me are both the initial look on people’s faces when I propose a competition, then the look on their face’s post competition. To give you an idea; Low and Slow BBQ is extremely new down in Tas and the concept of what we do is unbelievable to most. “You do what? You cook in a field, where teams bring their own kit and stay there for 18 hours plus”? To post competition conversation of “We totally didn’t anticipate the reception, we’ve been slammed, we ran out of beer, we ran out of food, oh and we’d love to do this again next year it’s been fantastic”! Most of the time I really want to say, “Yes well, I was trying to tell you this months ago…”, but as Confucius says “a journey of a thousand miles….”. The event saw 8 Tasmanian teams, of which 5 teams returned from the Hobart comp and 3 were new Tassie teams: Creek Freaks, Sausage Smokers and the Student Smokers (St Helens District High School team); having a crack. We also had 3 mainland teams make the journey down which is great even though they took out the comp 😊 The Tassie BBQ scene bump in was nice and relaxed with the highlight being Grant from TSJ getting out of his car and throwing up in the middle of the footy field saying “I think I picked up a bug on the boat” whilst Jimi’s head shook left to right, then whispering to me “I fixed him up good and proper last night”. The newbies pushed a few time frames. The Sausage Smokers were late but made it eventually. The school team’s smoker, which they built in engineering class, needed some tweaks so it was wheeled back into the work shop where the students made some last minute mods. Thankfully we were close to the main shopping strip in St Helens so the local IGA stores were quickly stripped of their parsley and the reject shop was a favourite destination for cleaning supplies. As usual I over committed and agreed to help set up the Hark marquee, get meat for about 5 teams, Parsley for 4 of the teams, Rubs & Sauces for the student team and their teacher Justin Emerton’s team Whalebone Ribs BBQ, and to top it off I had to share my marquee and some basic kit with the Smokeface Grillahs, who I now call the Fartarse Grillahs!! These boys could fuel a smoker on gas alone!! Not long after bump in, around 3pm, we were all cleared to proceed. On this outing, I was joined by one half of “The Shanes” Shayne Lewis. Our good mate Munders aka SOSKING has a knackered back and couldn’t make it this time which is a shame as he’s always good value. The Mrs was busy with the kids and helping out at the Hark marquee so we were a two man team. To be fair though, due to my commitments, I left Shayne to his own devices prepping meat. Thankfully he’s a chef so trimming up the meat wasn’t an issue for him although he did look at me funny when I told him to separate the point from the flat. I clocked on around 8:30pm after I had fulfilled my obligations to the competition and commenced trimming up the Boston Butts and fired up the pit while Shayne finished prepping the lamb and chicken. From there you would think it was smooth sailing, put wood on the smoker and keep it at temp right? Yeah, No! Apparently, I was left in charge when security clocked off – no one told me about that? My wife likes to tell me that BBQ is like womens club for men and you know what? She’s right! After ducking and weaving a few issues, getting the family dinner, a quick stop at the local IGA, the battle between The Smoking Devils and The Sausage Smokers, I eventually settled in to the night shift. Thankfully my team mate Shayne was understanding and had been busy socialising so all was well. As I’m sure most teams know – I’m not really sure what happened between 3 and 7am, other than I tended to the pit and drank coffee. I know this as I was still awake in the morning, the pit was still at temp and it must have been me as Shayne was asleep. For me this is the most boring part of comps as I like to stay busy and other than wrapping & boating proteins there isn’t much else to do. Hand ins for the St Helens comp were every 30 mins and started at 10am with Brisket. We cracked on, got all our entries in, and except for a couple of errors, we were pretty happy with the cook. By this point the wind had picked up and gaffa tape was holding the marquee together – seems to be a regularity for me! Knowing that the marquee wasn’t going to last, we attempted to pack up before it blew away but we were too late and the 6 x 3 ended up in the wheelie bin. When we all lined up for the results the first category to be called was Brisket. 1st place for Beef went to Jeff from Turnspit Dogs and when they called his name he was nowhere to be found. As it turns out he was asleep and Gordo had to ring him. When he turned up to find he had won Brisket he thought we were all having him on. The sleepy bewildered look on his face whilst saying “really, na, you’re shitting me, really, c’mon did I really win”? was hilarious! Our best result was 1st place in Pork which is back-to-back 1st places in Pork for us. Pretty happy with that as our Pork rub and Pork sauce are proving to be the difference. Unfortunately, the mainland teams wiped all the Tassie teams, pretty sure that’s because we use “natural” methods in Tas but that’s a story for another post 😊 Irrelevant of who won the competition the biggest winner was the Tasmanian BBQ scene. The whole community came together to make this event a success and the feedback from the public was overwhelming. Teams were on call to help the student team with Abel from Cleanheat being the mainstay. Hunters Cleaning Products Tasmania sponsored the $250 entry fee for the students and supplied them with their cleaning equipment. James Elphick sorted out Boston Butts from Scottsdale Pork and in conjunction with Trevor from Robbins Island who provided MB9+ Wagyu Briskets, I'm glad to say that this great Tassie meat took 1st places in their respective categories. We are especially thankful to the event sponsors Cleanheat Charcoal, Hark Australia, East Coast Village Provedore, Rupertswood farm, Tamar Artisan Small Goods, Lean to Kitchen and of course to our team sponsors Great Water Filters Australia, Robbins Island Wagyu, Walkabout 4WD, Maka’s Leather Goods, Tasmanian Hotel & Catering Supplies and Misty Gully. Finally we would like to say thank you to Heidi Howe for giving us the opportunity to hold a competition as part of the Winter Arts Festival. We recently caught up with Sam and Peter from Tamar Artisan Small Goods who are sponsoring the Pork category at the inaugural Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival's Beer, Blues & BBQ competition on June 10th. I was fortunate enough to sample all 4 flavours of their artisanal Bacon and even managed to get a cheeky sample of the new English treacle Bacon, and all 5 were supremely tasty! Fair to say they know what they're doing. Where is Tamar Artisan Smallgoods based? Beauty Point Tasmania How long have you been running for? We started playing around with Bacon recipes roughly 5 years ago and eventually our friends and family started saying “Damn that Bacon is pretty good you should sell that!” So, 2 years ago I quit my job and spent 6 months setting the business up then we went full time. What did you do before you made Bacon? I was a safety manager in the Construction Industry and before that pretty much exclusively in the Commercial Fishing Industry. Where do you source your Pork from? We buy all our Pork from Scottsdale Pork as they are extremely ecofriendly. Their pigs are paddock reared the Sows spend their days in the paddock, while the weaners are free to run around up until about 6-10 weeks before they are processed. Then they are moved to straw floored eco-barn. Explain the process of how you make your Bacon. All our Bacon is dry cured naturally for 14 to 18 days depending on the size of the cut, then we rinse the cure off and let the bacon sit for between two and seven days, if I have the time I like to let it sit for the whole 7 days, there are no numbered ingredients or preservatives in our cure. After this the bacon is hot smoked for around about 2 hours. We’ve played with shorter and longer smoking times but we think 2 hours is best. After its smoked we like to let it sit for a further 7 days. Its approximately 20 -30 days from pork belly to bacon. What are your core products? 4 flavours of Bacon. The Classic which is just your classic flavour is salty and bacony. The Maple Bacon is a very different product it has a unique quality which is hard to explain unless you’ve tried it, the salt and the sweetness of the maple balance perfectly which gives you a beautiful robust flavour. Chilli Bacon, it does what it says, we use fresh Tasmanian chillies when available and dried when not as we want the Chilli Bacon to appeal to a Chilli lover not necessarily just the broader audience, to do that we are working on boosting the spiciness a bit more. The Garlic Bacon was a wild idea that we thought we’d try and funnily enough it really works! Up until recently we were using our own home grown purple garlic that is until we ran out and we are now sourcing Tasmanian Garlic through a local supplier. It’s a simple process as we don’t do anything to it all we do is tear the core out of the garlic slice it up and add it to the cure. Our latest Bacon that we are working on is English Black Treacle Bacon which was an experiment that seems to have turned out really well and it’s something we will probably go on with….. SIDE NOTE – I managed to get a sample of this Bacon and it was absolutely amazing!!! Very well rounded with deep sweet notes – I really liked it…. We noticed after it was smoked it had a deep brown colour to it but it was something about the way that the treacle interacted with the smoke that gave it a unique flavour. What products are available from your market stalls? We sell 100 gram packets of all 4 flavours of Bacon. We also sell take away Bacon and Egg rolls and maple bacon doughnuts at Evandale markets (but not at Harvest) – all we do is warm up the doughnuts on the BBQ and add a few slices of the Bacon topped with maple syrup. We will be selling packets of Bacon and takeaway food at the St Helens Artisans market. What type of smoker do you use? It’s a custom built standard flow smoker that was built for me by a friend. It’s a 200-litre hot water cylinder with an lpg gas tank off a car set about 2 feet lower than the base of it then it’s just piped up to about a foot from the bottom with a gas burner inside then there’s a series of wires where we hang the bacon to be smoked which allows me to do about 20 kilograms at a time. What kind of wood do you use? Pretty much exclusively apple and cherry from the local growers around the Tamar. But just recently I was lucky enough to get some 100-year-old pear wood from Lees orchards. When we process our smoking wood we like to let it sit in the yard for about a year just in case there are any nasties left over on the bark. Where can people find you? We at the Launceston Harvest Market every fortnight and at the Evandale Sunday market weekly, weather permitting. We only sell packets at Harvest but at Evandale we do bacon and egg rolls, featuring Trevallyn Gourmet Bakery rolls and Mt Rowland Free Range Eggs. We also do a hot bacon donut topped with maple syrup that is very popular. We’re really excited to be bringing our Bacon to market so we’re keen to get to as many markets as possible which is why we’re super excited to be attending the Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival Artisans market in conjunction with the BBQ competition as we feel it’s the perfect fit for our products. Have a look at their Facebook page and give them a like :) https://www.facebook.com/TamarArtisan or have a look a their web site... http://www.tasg.com.au To be fair though it would appear this sentiment is slowly being lost with the increasing amount of competitions and prize money on offer and the spread of said competitions across the nation. I recently did a podcast for Ben from Smoking Hot confessions and he asked me what my favourite competition to date was, granted I was given the questions in advance but when I thought about it, my favourite competition was our first back in 2015. The reason was, that everyone was so friendly, it was like we were all in the same boat and yeah there were more than a few egos but the comradery was there. These days’ comps seem extremely cut throat – for example at our last comp I had several competitors whom I regard as friends tentatively walk in to our marquee and say “do you mind if I come in”? My instant reply was “why would I mind”? And all of their responses were about shigging – BBQ term for copying or stealing trade secrets. How things have changed in just over a year.
Anyway, back to the drunken conversation and in answer to my mate’s question…… I explained that most BBQ competitions in Australia were sanctioned by the ABA which would be the equivalent to the UFC and there was a couple KCBS competitions in this case the MMA equivalent to Bellator. As far as there being a Connor MacGregor I was at a loss on that one – well at least being from Tasmania I wasn’t aware of anyone who talked as much shit as MacGregor and actually backed it up. No doubt I could easily name several shit talkers in comp land but as far as them backing it up, that’s where the comparison ends. Still dumbfounded and reaching for another beer my mate said “You’re not helping your cause” with a look on his face that clearly inferred I was an idiot. At this stage I realised that the analogy was of more interest to me in that I was clarifying to myself the transitional phase that competition BBQ was currently in. Not wanting to be selfish and exclude him from what was incredibly interesting to me yet completely alien to him I verbalised my realisation whilst trying to stay on topic making it relate to MMA. I asked “So would you agree Connor MacGregor has effectively revolutionised the way fighters not only promote themselves but also dictate the amount they get paid and subsequently negotiate contracts?” “For sure” he replied. “And would you agree this is because of the UFC’s overall success – Connor wouldn’t have been able to do that 10 years ago, right?” “Probably not” he said. “Well that’s where we’re at with competition BBQ in Australia. At some point, we will get there but for now we are still in the Tito Ortiz phase. I would rather be a seasoned veteran who’s respected within the community when we get to that stage than a ‘Noob’ trying to break in to an established scene.” From here on in the conversation became drivel due to the alcohol and he kept giving me shit calling me Tito so the relevance of the drunken analogy ended. In saying that, it did make me question what is the objective of competition BBQ in Australia. Granted low and slow BBQ in a competition format is derived from the USA where it is massive and teams can effectively compete full time year-round and if successful make a living from it. In Australia however we are nowhere near that stage; as explained we are still very much in an evolutionary phase and as a result we have to accept the short comings of the competitions themselves, whether that be the inexperience of judges, or conversely the lack of availability of experienced judges; or the format and structure of events, where for example teams are being effectively used as a spectacle to attract the public who are paying to attend what are coined as “BBQ Festivals”. We are also now increasingly seeing events where teams submit entries over two days, arguably so as to give the general public something to watch on festivals that are held over two days. Even the teams themselves can be questioned. Is it all becoming about winning to the point where you have to ask someone you consider a friend for permission to enter their marquee? I would like to think that to date the points I have raised are yet to tarnish my love for BBQ in any format. The BBQ is a staple of the good old Aussie summer which has always been a central theme to families and more so communities. I’ve travelled the world and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people from all over the world say “Throw another shrimp on the barby”. But it does make me wonder: is the competition component of competitive BBQ killing what is an Australian way of life? All I can say is I hope not and I hope we forge our own path and keep the creativity, fun and comradery in BBQ and not make the Aussie way of life just another money-making mechanism to be exploited. In the early stages of UFC competitions, prize money was minimal and the sponsorship endorsements for both the event itself and the fighters were also minimal. This was likely due to the small following the sport had in the early days. Arguably, you could say the same about competition BBQ in Australia at present. For example, we (our team) have approximately 7 sponsors who help us with products only – we get no money at all to help us compete. To get sponsors for our team was hard work and we continue to work hard to help them promote their respective businesses. We have also lost three sponsors as they haven’t seen “the worth” in backing us, so it’s swings and roundabouts. Also in comparison, low and slow in Tasmania is definitely not main stream and throughout Australia the movement is still in its infancy so the following from the public is still relatively small. As I’m not a promoter I can’t really comment but from what I gather, sponsors for events in Australia are hard to acquire as well. To a certain degree, it’s up to the competitors to market themselves. Popular competitors, whether it be in BBQ or UFC are always more “bankable”. Promoters will always want the big names at their events – just look at how much money Connor Macgregor has made the UFC to date and what Rhonda Rousey has done for womens MMA. For those of you who don’t know who these people are – put simply they’ve helped bring a spotlight to the sport of MMA.
Again, with regards to sponsorship, the UFC recently implemented a marketing strategy where Reebok are the key sponsor for fighter’s apparel. Previously, fighters could have their own sponsors for apparel, allowing them to make extra income on top of their fight purse. Since the appointment of Reebok, the extra income is now usurped by the promotion. Similarly this has and continues to be a bone in contention in Aussie competition BBQ with some team sponsorship deals clashing (not literally) with event sponsorship deals resulting in teams being unable to promote their sponsors at specific events. It’s fair to say, that in any competition format where there are promoters, competitors, sponsorship deals and most importantly money, there will always be somewhat of a discord. A promoter’s job within this format is to promote the event - nothing more nothing less - they make money from the event and the bigger the event the more money they make, it’s simple. If you ever hear a promoter say that they’re not making money from an event, the likelihood is they are incredibly bad at their jobs. I mean, let’s not be under any illusions here, promotion is marketing designed to make you buy a product and in this case the product is the event. To give you another UFC example one of the biggest UFC stars in the early days was a guy called Tito Ortiz. Tito was constantly falling out with management as he wasn’t getting paid well but he was pulling in huge crowds making millions for the promoters. Unfortunately, as the UFC was the only viable promotion at the time, there was nothing he could do about it. If he wanted to fight he had no choice but to do so under the banner of the UFC which effectively minimalised his negotiating position when it came to being reimbursed. But this is what happens when monopolies become too powerful. A good friend said to me recently “Without competition, monopolies can easily become dictatorial”. Of late a lot of teams have put it to me that they feel as if they are being used as "sideshows" or "spectacles" to bolster public attendance at what are commonly being known as BBQ Festivals. So yeah, ok these might seem like shitty terms to the lay person but I live in an optimistic bubble and would like to think that people are intelligent enough to work out for themselves that in essence we are in one way or another, tiny cogs in a huge capitalist machine. Not to mention we’re all adults we all make our own decisions in life and we’re not being forced against our wills to compete. We are all responsible for our decisions. Not to mention, nearly everything in this day and age is about money, everything that is, except for most competition BBQ’ers. Most teams I know don’t compete for the money which is a good thing, trust me if you compete in competition BBQ in Australia to make money, you should get a day job or you’ll end up broke! continued..........
For example; arguably without the UFC, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in its current guise wouldn’t exist. To give you an idea, MMA is essentially a fighting discipline which requires knowledge of grappling - generally wrestling or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and striking - generally boxing or kick boxing, essentially the ability to strike with both hands and feet. This mix came about due to the early format being martial artists from different styles pitting themselves against each other to decide who had the best style i.e Karate or Kung Fu – Kick Boxing or Jui Jistu and so on. Over the years and with the broad set of rules, fighters found that no one style was dominant and in order to win, fighters needed to utilise a mix of martial art styles. Hence, over the years the style of mixed martial arts evolved and has now become a basic necessity to fight and win within the UFC. How does this apply to competition BBQ in Australia? I would like to think that even though low and slow style methods and flavour profiles have their roots in America, we should be adapting these to create an Australian style and forge our own path. Therefore, similarly to the UFC, within the current format of Australian competition BBQ where seafood, lamb and categories such as chef’s selection, and even desserts are cooked low and slow, and on top of that include the non-specific cut restrictions in most categories, it is logical to conclude that similar to the UFC a new style will immerge. More importantly, an Australian style. Ok, so at this point I’d like to make it clear this is only a rough analogy and we’re about 4 tins deep – so it’s probably loose in detail and is in no way intended to liken to any real entities or individuals. Never the less, by now my mate is hooked, hanging on to every comparison I make. He’s now thinking Australian competition BBQ is gladiatorial!! “So can you make good money if you’re winning” he asked. To be honest I’m surprised this wasn’t his first question as this is usually the first thing I’m asked, but I guess I distracted him with the UFC analogy. I explained “I wouldn’t say make money. The total cost for the team to compete at our last comp was around $3000, and who knows how much has been spent on smokers, wood, charcoal, rubs, spices and practise meats? But if you win at big comps you get free BBQs”. “What do you want another BBQ for?” he asked. Good point as I have around 15 at last count and most of my BBQ friends have a similar number. “Most teams sell them” I told him. “If you win how are you going to bring it back to Tassie?” he asked. Another good point as usually the dual cab ute is overloaded. At this stage I wondered if BBQs were a viable prize – I mean would I rather say $2500 cash or a $4000 smoker? I must say, probably the cash as I have enough smokers but selling smokers won as prizes may suit other teams and be a good way to maximise winnings. At this point I lost him. Not being a BBQ fanatic he couldn’t come to terms with the combination of expense and effort in comparison to the rewards of competing. Put simply he thought I was crazy, and to a certain degree pretty crap as I’d only had average results. With a look of confusion on his face he asked “So do you have like a Connor Macgregor and a Dana White?” I laughed at him – what sort of a question was this? Not wanting to go into irrelevant detail which I know would only disinterest him further I said “C’mon mate, in any competition format there will be polarizing characters who people will love or hate and somewhere in the middle there’ll be the Uriah Faber” UFC Joke. In hindsight, though, this question potentially had more relevance than I had first considered. This is the part 1 of a four part blog post on the state of competition BBQ and the evolution of the "sport" as it stands at present. part 1 |