Flavors, Friendship and FireBoard!

To the uninitiated, BBQ Competitions seem like just a weekend of good food and friendly rivalry. And in many cases, that’s just what they are! However, competition BBQ goes deeper than that. As with many sub-cultures, Competition BBQ is largely about community. 

The first BBQ Competition probably started something like this:

Bob, “that’s some good ribs there Ralph, but mine are better!”.

Ralph, “you wanna bet on that!”

And thus it began.

History shows that community barbecues were a staple of 1800’s society as a way to feed many people at the same time. However, the first true competition is considered to be the Kaiser Foil Cookoff in Hawaii in 1959. What is known as “modern” BBQ Competitions didn’t hit the scene until the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The annual Memphis in May competition started in 1978 followed by the American Royal Barbecue Contest in 1980.

One of oldest and longest running BBQ competitions is the Great Lenexa BBQ Battle. It began in 1982 with just 12 teams. This was 4 years prior to the forming of the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) which helped turn competition BBQ into a more standardized sport. The Lenexa, KS event is a qualifying event for the American Royal Invitational and also a qualifier to be eligible for the Jack Daniels BBQ Competition.

FireBoard attended the most recent Great Lenexa BBQ Battle this past June to follow a couple of teams and also see who is using FireBoard products to deliver championship level food to the judges.

Fairly new to the Competition BBQ scene, Blind Fox BBQ is using the FireBoard 2 to track temps in their word burning smoker and the FireBoard Spark to take instant reads as the cook progresses. Joe Ricklefs and Brandon Rose allowed the FireBoard team to peek behind the curtain to see (and TASTE!) their turn-in flavors (they were missing fellow Blind Fox team member, Adam Burch).

We also caught up with long-time FireBoard users and competitors Jason and Megan Day of Burnt FInger BBQ. They were using a FireBoard 2 Drive and the Drive Blower G3 to control the temps in their gravity fed smoker. And of course, track temps of the meat inside the smoker! And finally, they used the FireBoard Spark for their instant reads which included a salmon turn-in for the miscellaneous category. Their ribs featured a new sauce they have been working on, potentially as a consumer product in the future!

When you get to peek behind that curtain, you see the competition, yes. But, you also see the camaraderie, the encouragement and the family that is competition BBQ. Teams freely share their tools, their seasonings and (to a certain point!) their secrets. Samples are shared back-and-forth and teams are hoping to get “a call” (generally being in the top 10 of a category), but are truly happy when others get a call as well.