2010 Smokin for Gold State Championship, Placerville, Calif.

 All Sauced Up – GC; Slap Yo Daddy – RC

We win our 4th Reserve Championship for 2010 amid 31 teams at Placerville, about an hour East of Sacramento with 1st Pork, 2nd Ribs, 2nd Chick, and 3rd Brisket.  The big story is that my coworker and former asst. cook Dangerous Dave Malone took GC with 1st Chick, 1st Ribs, 1st Brisket, 8th Pork. Only 4 points between us. Big Congrats to Dave my BBQ brother!

Ding Dong Big-50 Bday Cake

It was great to hang with my BBQ buddies who helped celebrate my Big-50 on Friday.  Dave Malone “made” a Hostess Ding Dong cake which was lit with five candles.  Steve from All Hogs Go To Heaven cooked us some of his great cheeseburgers and shared his very funny stories.  Thanks very much for the dozens of Facebook wishes, emails, cards, and greetings.  I’m very touched have so many families, relatives, friends, co-workers, and BBQ buddies.  If family, friends, and human relationships are analogous to limbs on a tree, then I am blessed with a very big and multi-limbed tree.  I am so grateful for such blessings.

Steve of All Hogs Go to Heaven and Dave from All Sauced Up

It was great to see so many new teams competing.  We managed to meet a few and I’m always amazed by the diversity of smokers from the home-made drum ones to the unusual ones like a Bong smoker I saw.  It’s twin chambered and a Stoker-driven vacuum exhaust draws smoke from the fire chamber through a water bath to fill the meat chamber with heat and smoke.   It reminded me of a bong pipe, so I nicknamed it the Bong Smoker.

Water Bong Smoker!
Pink Pig and Black Steer Traeger Smokers
Homemade Drum Smokers

A BIG congrats go out to all the teams who participated especially the new teams.  A big thanks go to Marta Viola, Kathy Jurgens, and John Marino for organizing the event and acting as our hosts.   The hot shower facilities only 60 feet from us was a very nice touch and so was the Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast.   Thanks to Dave and Lori Lopp for being the KCBS officials and to the judges and helpers for contributing to this awesome event.  We’d like to thank our terrific Sponsors:  Rocks BBQ System for our Stoker temperature control system, T&H Meat and Sausages for our meat products, TheSlabs.com for our rub products, Cajun Bandit for our Weber stainless replacement doors, Smokin Guns for our rubs , Butcher BBQ for our injections, and Snake River Farms for our Wagyu meat products.

We will be back next year!

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