April 29th is coming fast and will be here before I know it. In an attempt to be as prepared as I can for the upcoming season – Allen Iverson cover your ears – I will be practicing each weekend from here until April 29th. For those of you who dont know the Allen Iverson interview you can watch it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHJDRgVwcP8 It is one of my all time favorties and a very clear reason why the euros who may be lucky to have 1-2 guys that can make an NBA team can still beat a team full of NBA all stars. I am a staunch advocate of professional development and I seek out every nugget, pun intended, of info that can help me compete – I also like to practice whenever I get the opportunity. If you would like to try any of my practice meats and offer me your thoughts, drop me a line and I will tell you when a good time is over each weekend to come by and “judge”. This weekend I practiced making comp brisket. Some perspective on my briskie. In four contests last year, I did middle of the road in the first 2 then a 5th and a 6th place finish out of 40ish folks. Some would argue dont change a thing and they are probably right but untill I get a first I must continue to tweak my approach. The tweaks can be either subtle or drastic but there is still room to improve. At first glance I dont do 2 things that most of the top brisket cooks do. For instance I dont wet age and I dont use a prime or a wagyu brisket. Perhaps that is what will move me from the 5-10 range to 1-5 range, then again maybe it wont I dunno. What I do know is that by the end of this year I will have much better perspective on what it takes to win a 1st place brisket. I would like to wet age and use prime or wagyu, if anyone would like to help me with that please fill out the sponsorship form and lets talk as right now its not in the budget – second fridge for wet aging and extra costs for finer cuts of meat take a back seat to a trailer for now. Other school of thought is keep perfecting the process of the current brisket and eventually it will get a 1st place, If I was wiser I would prolly do this but to my detriment I tend to overanalyze everything and it prevents me from taking this approach as “I know there is a better way” What do you all think is the right approach to take 1) keep tweaking or 2) stay the course with last years brisket?
This weekend I used a different cooking technique and was having trouble with my usually very realiable smoker keeping my temps controlled I was fluctuating as far as 40 degrees over my target temp. I also over seasoned with a new marinade and thought the brisket was drier than I would have liked it to be overall I would have been surprised if this weekends brisket would do any better than a middle of the pack outcome. Therefore I will continue to practice as I have some other things I want to try 😉 There is no way I am letting the euros beat me in BBQ.
