| February 26th and 27th | Fire on Ice IV Mille Lacs Lake
9th chicken 17th ribs 1st Pork 5th tri tip
3rd Overall | Great time on the Ice. Chicken too salty (will change rub), ribs under seasoned, and tri tip left on too long. |
1. March 19th and 20th
| USA BBQ Championship
Little Rock Arkansas 120th chicken 40th ribs 85th pork 86th brisket 61st/228 overall | Stiff competition, with brisket turning out great - all 8's and 9's on scoring, but still 86th! Going to change chicken cooking style - new rub was very good. Ribs we thought was weakest category but did the best. It was an exciting experience just cooking with a chance at significant pay outs with 100k paid out to all teams. |
| 2. May 14th and 15th | Mn in May
Chicken 6th
Ribs 4th
Pork 21st
Brisket 27th
Overall 10th/53
| Tough outing for the Prairie Oak Smokers. Hot and fast Brisket which we had perfected at home all winter lets us down big time. Back to low and slow.
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| 3. June 4th and 5th | Huron,SD Chicken 10th Ribs 19th Pork 5th Brisket 2nd Overall 6th/28
| Great time with the C-team, Johnnie, Scottie and Big Moe! We welcomed Spitfire and Don and Sharon Will to the C-team. I was so proud of Tristan as he, for the first time, took over the night cook with help from his friend Eddie Stenger. Without a firebox grate we had trouble with our new Ole Hickory keeping temps above 210 degrees so ribs fell behind and didn't catch up. Otherwise a great cook - we feel confident we are back in contention!
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| 4. June 18th and 19th | Sauk Rapids, MN Chicken 2nd Ribs 9th Pork 18th/21 Brisket 1st Overall 3rd
| A wonderful close contest and a new one for Minnesota. We changed technique for pork and brisket to low and slow. The pork turn in results were a puzzle as it looked and tasted great. Makes one think the boxes got mixed up one minute and then the next makes you want to change recipes again. Overall, I think a recipe change is in the works to go along with the change to low and slow pork. I was able to taste the winning pork turn in from Mike Brown and it was fantastic! |
| 5. July 23rd and 24th | Mason City, IA | Having just sold back to John Nilges the stumps trailer we quickly got a plan together for the old standby the klose. Brisket (12th) and Pork (4th) remained with a low and slow cook while chicken (26th) and ribs (26th) were fast and hot. I'm not making much of our finish in ribs and chicken because they both tasted great. The ribs were perhaps a little undercooked and seasoned and the chicken a bit over being a bit dry. With pork we had a breakthrough which will remain a secret to be hopefully tested again in 2 weeks. Our call was definitely the high point of our 13th place finish... |
| 6. August 20th - 21st | Rochester, MN Plan to vend | Tristan vended and we tried a low and slow on the geer. Our guru wires got crimped in the door of the Geer and temps and our control was way off. Funny enough our worst category did the best in the eyes of the judges. Will try again next week...our first contest ever without a call!
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| 7. August 27th - 28th | Albert Lea, MN | Despite our final products being back on track with our old standby, the klose, judging difficulties we experienced last week in Rochester unfortunately followed us to Albert Lea. The best brisket we have ever made scored in at 29th. The other categories except our hot and fast chicken (5th) fared in similar fashion. Totally frustrated by our scores (especially brisket) and with so much time, money, and sweat invested by all of us, this became a season ending contest.
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