Ingredients I use in Competition BBQ

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Sawdustguy

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Here are the ingredients we use for each catagory when we compete in a KCBS BBQ contest. In some of the threads I have given little bits and pieces of what we do. I don't mind sharing so if you would like to know just shoot me a PM. My thoughts are if you give each cook the exact same cake mix, when done you will have 3 different cakes.


Brisket:

1. Plowboys Bovine Bold Rub
2. Butchers BBQ Injection
3. Ames FAB B injection
4. Charlie Prides Beef Au Jus Mix
5. Sugar
6. Plain Yellow Mustard

Pork:

1. Plowboys Yardbird Rub
2. Head Country BBQ Sauce
3. Stubbs Pork Marinade
4. Injection: 3 1/2 C Water, 3 TBSP Amesphos, 1/4 C Caro Syrup, 1/8 C, Plowboy's Yardbird Rub finely ground, 2 TSP Accent, 1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
5. Plain Yellow Mustard
6. Apple Juice

Ribs:

1. The Slabs Perk up your Pork Rub
2. Obie-Cue Sweet Rub
3. Brown Sugar
4. Parkay
5. The Slabs Amazing Glaze
6. Plain Yellow Mustard
7. Apple Juice

Chicken:

1. Amesphos Injection
2. Chicken Stock
3. Accent
4. Plowboys Yardbird Rub
5. Mayonaise
6. Blues Hog Original BBQ Sauce
7. Parkay
 
So for instance, do you use all of those things on your brisket, or a varying combination of those items?

Thanks!

We use all of them. We start by injecting with the Butchers BBQ Injection. We rub the brisket with the mustard. It acts as a glue for the rub. We add a little sugar to the rub for carmelization to form a good bark. When we foil we add the Aus Jus to tenderize and let the moisture be absorbed by the brisket. The FAB B while an injection is used to make a finishing sauce when mixed with the drippings of the brisket.

We used to make our own rubs and sauces but quickly discovered we were trying to reinvent the wheel when there were companies perfecting their rubs and sauces for years. Most of the big teams do the same. Lots of competition teams use the same or similar ingredients. The better commercial rubs and sauces are so good and inexpensive it makes no sense to make your own. We do however add one or two extra ingredients like the sugar to help us achieve a certain effect. Although taste is very important most teams will agree that perfectly cooked meat wins every time.
 
Guy, I've read most of your BBQ posts, and first let me say thank you for being so willing to share your techniques and ingredients. I think this thread would be a good place to try to consolidate that information in one thread.

I'm building an AB flower pot smoker this weekend and plan to make my first boston butt in it next weekend. (I have a UDS, and even though it holds the temp extremely well, I don't feel like I could walk away and leave it unattended for hours). My AB smoker will use an Auber electric smoker controller to maintain the temp.

I assumed, like Bulldog, that you mix and match the ingredients from the list. Do you both inject and marinate pork with different ingredients at the same time? Would you mind walking me through how you do pork?

Thanks

JTB
 
For Pork Butt we always smoke a Bone-In butt. The bone helps the butt in many ways and if you are not sure when it is done the bone will tell you. First rinse the butt and pat it dry, then wrap it in cellophane. Take a marker and mark the cellophane with a dot on the places you want to inject. I usually make a 1 1/2" grid. Mix up an injection made of the following:

•3 1/2 C Water
•3 TBSP Amesphos
•1/2 C Caro Syrup
•1/8 C Plowboy's Yardbird Rub, finely ground
•2 TSP Accent
•1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar

Now inject the butt at the grid points. Let the butt rest in the refrigerator overnight. Take the butt from the refrigerator and pat it dry. Slather a thin coat of yellow mustard on the butt. Rub the butt with mixture of 2/3 cup Plowboys Yardbird rub and 1/3 cup of sugar. Place the butt in a 225* smoker. We use a combination of apple and cherry to smoke with. We usually add apple juice to a spritzer bottle and give the butt a spritz every 1 1/2 hours. When the butt gets to 160* pull the butt, sauce it thoroughly with Head Country BBQ Sauce and foil the butt. Put it back in the smoker until 180*. At 180* pull the butt from the smoker open the foil and put about an 1/8 of a cup of strained Stubbs Pork Marinade in the foil and fold it back up. Put it back into the smoker until 200*. Remove the butt and open the foil. Rest it for 15 minutes because we do not want it to cook any longer in the foil. Fold the foil back up and wrap it in a towel and rest it in a dry cooler for 1 1/2 hours and you are ready to serve. We usually pull chunks from the butt and glaze with some Head Country BBQ sauce thinned with a little Apple Juice and serve the money muscle as glazed slices.

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This is how we do it. You will see a lot of teams do it differently. You can always substitute you own favorite sauces and injection. Good luck with it.

FYI: We always use a Thermapen but you can always tell when a butt is done by tugging on the bone. It it turns and removes with minimal effort the butt is done.
 
Thank you, Guy! I can't wait to try it! Couple more questions... If you don't mind. I know one wants to cook to temp, but to get a feel for how long it should take, I think I've read somewhere about 1.25 hours per lb. Is that about right?

Also, it looks like the ingredients store is currently out of Amesphos. Have you ever used the phosphate mixes from any of the other makers such as Butcher's or Kosmos?
 
Yes, as a matter of fact on Brisket we use Butchers BBQ Injection. For a while we used FAB P in the pork injection so if they have that it will work also. As you have guessed the whole idea is to get the phospates that were lost when the animal was slaughtered back in to help with tenderness and moisture retention. Some of the phospate injection mixes have flavor enhancers also. That is why we use FAB B mixed with the Aus Jus from the brisket. It makes a dynamite beefy glaze for the brisket presentation.
 
Thank you, Guy! I can't wait to try it! Couple more questions... If you don't mind. I know one wants to cook to temp, but to get a feel for how long it should take, I think I've read somewhere about 1.25 hours per lb. Is that about right?

Also, it looks like the ingredients store is currently out of Amesphos. Have you ever used the phosphate mixes from any of the other makers such as Butcher's or Kosmos?

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. We usually cook 8lbs to 10 lbs bone in butts. We almost end up at 12 hours so if I do the math correctly between 1.25 to 1.5 hours per lbs is about right. If you have any doubts if the butt is done simply turn the bone in the butt. If it turns easily and pulls right out of the butt, you are done and good to go.
 
Good tips, I've never injected my pork butts so now I have to try it. Sawdust, what are your thoughts on brining pork ribs instead of injecting?
 
Excellent! Thank you! Got my smoker built last weekend, so I'll be smoking a butt this coming weekend. I ordered KosmosQ competition pack of injections, so I plan to use that in your recipe in place of the amesphos (need to look at actual ingedients of the Kosmos injection and probably make some adjustments). Basspro is supposed to have plowboys rub, so I'm gonna run by there today to hopefully pick some up.

I forgot about trying to find the Stubbs marinade, so I'll have to see what I do about that.

I figured I'd make up a couple sauces in squeeze bottles and let people decide what sauce and if they want it. I generally like Sweet Baby Ray's as a base, so i'll probably try that thinned w/ applejuice. And then try AB's sauce of pickle juice mixed with mustard and hot sauce.

I'll post pics of the smoker and meat in a separate thread this weekend.
 
Actually we don't inject ribs, only pork butt, chicken and brisket get injected and we do brine our chicken also. We have never had a problem with moisture with ribs so we never have brined them. I don't see why you can't brine ribs though. I guess the reasons people brine is so the meat retains more moisture and to add a little flavor. Because we cook our ribs at about 250* for only 6 hours we have found that the salt in the dry rub is enough to help retain moisture and we really like the flavor that the Slabs Perk Up Your Pork rub imparts on the ribs.
 
Excellent! Thank you! Got my smoker built last weekend, so I'll be smoking a butt this coming weekend. I ordered KosmosQ competition pack of injections, so I plan to use that in your recipe in place of the amesphos (need to look at actual ingedients of the Kosmos injection and probably make some adjustments). Basspro is supposed to have plowboys rub, so I'm gonna run by there today to hopefully pick some up.

I forgot about trying to find the Stubbs marinade, so I'll have to see what I do about that.

I figured I'd make up a couple sauces in squeeze bottles and let people decide what sauce and if they want it. I generally like Sweet Baby Ray's as a base, so i'll probably try that thinned w/ applejuice. And then try AB's sauce of pickle juice mixed with mustard and hot sauce.

I'll post pics of the smoker and meat in a separate thread this weekend.

I can't wait to hear about your results and see the pictures. BTW, Sweet baby Rays is good stuff (it's one of my personal favorite commercial sauces) and I like your idea of thinning it with apple juice. We thin down our sauces the same way. Best of luck, keep us posted.
 
So Sawdustguy, what type of store would you find Amesphos at, or is this an online retail type thing? Making 8 butts this weekend, would like to try this out on one or two.
 
"Ames"? Like the precursor to kmart type store? I thought they went out of business long ago..
 
Love Head Country sauce, been ordering by the case for years. It's a great thin sauce that can be layered on slowly.
 
StuporMan said:
Wow! I'm glad you posted that list. I always figured the pros aways made their own rubs and sauces from scratch.

Me too. I make all my stuff from scratch. That is the fun part.
 
Me too. I make all my stuff from scratch. That is the fun part.

We learned very early that it takes a long time to perfect a rub. There are commercial rubs that have taken years for the manufacturer to perfect. Why reinvent the wheel? Many teams, including ourselves doctor the commercial rubs to get the exact flavor profile we are looking for.
 
Sawdustguy, you mention mixing the Fab-B with the drippings from the brisket. I'm assuming that you place them in shallow pans on the grill grate? Any problem placing brisket directly on the grate, other than not being able to collect drippings?
 
Sawdustguy, you mention mixing the Fab-B with the drippings from the brisket. I'm assuming that you place them in shallow pans on the grill grate? Any problem placing brisket directly on the grate, other than not being able to collect drippings?

When the brisket is done and ready to rest we put the brisket in an aluminum hotel pan and wrap the pan in foil and put in in a well insulated cooler. When it is time to carve the brisket and select out turn in pieces we mix FAB B with the juices in the botton of the pan and dunk each slice of brisket before putting it in the turn-in box.
 
When the brisket is done and ready to rest we put the brisket in an aluminum hotel pan and wrap the pan in foil and put in in a well insulated cooler. When it is time to carve the brisket and select out turn in pieces we mix FAB B with the juices in the botton of the pan and dunk each slice of brisket before putting it in the turn-in box.

Ah. Thanks. One more question; when you use the butchers bbq injection, is it really salty combined with the salt in the rub? I just bought some and dry, it tastes very salty. I make my own rub and was wondering how much too reduce the salt in it.
 
Sawdustguy said:
We learned very early that it takes a long time to perfect a rub. There are commercial rubs that have taken years for the manufacturer to perfect. Why reinvent the wheel? Many teams, including ourselves doctor the commercial rubs to get the exact flavor profile we are looking for.

You really don't have to defend yourself to me. I don't do competitions or anything like that. If I did I would be reinventing the wheel, I want my own signature wheel that no one can figure out. But thats just me.
 
You really don't have to defend yourself to me. I don't do competitions or anything like that. If I did I would be reinventing the wheel, I want my own signature wheel that no one can figure out. But thats just me.

This is very true... at least I thought so for a while. Then I met SWMBO who can deconstruct anything: beer, rubs, marinades, mixed drinks, sauces, jus, etc. to infinity. It's kind of crazy and Ripley's Believe it or Not® style.


But back on topic, Sawdustguy thank you very much for posting this stuff. I heard for some time that competition BBQers rub just about everything in mustard first and wasn't sure what it was for. Is it simply for glue or does some of the flavor remain after cooking?
 
This is very true... at least I thought so for a while. Then I met SWMBO who can deconstruct anything: beer, rubs, marinades, mixed drinks, sauces, jus, etc. to infinity. It's kind of crazy and Ripley's Believe it or Not® style.


But back on topic, Sawdustguy thank you very much for posting this stuff. I heard for some time that competition BBQers rub just about everything in mustard first and wasn't sure what it was for. Is it simply for glue or does some of the flavor remain after cooking?

Yup, it is just a glue to hold the rub on. You will never taste the mustard.
 
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