Slinging Meat

A few days late on the post, but better late than never! This past weekend, we made the trip up to Clemson, SC, to compete in the 5th Annual Grillin’ at the Grove at the Clemson RV Park at The Grove. This is an event that is circled each year for many reasons. It is one of the best venues on the schedule, and it is also the event that got us started doing competition BBQ four years ago.

We prepped everything early and got an early start to get there in plenty of time. While everything was going smoothly, about 45 minutes away from the venue, the universe said, “hold my beer and watch this.” Both wheels came off the right side of the trailer, causing a bit of a mess and stranding us on the side of the interstate. (Note: Potential legal issues regarding the assignment of liability, etc., prevent us from going into more detail at this time.) Luckily, a friend and fellow competitor, John N Michelle Stone of Stone Services, LLC, and S*M BBQ, owns a towing service, and after assistance from the SC Highway Patrol and SCDOT, and a great deal of work, they were able to deliver the now severely crippled rig to the BBQ venue. Yes, we still went to cook in the competition. Everyone there was more than willing to help get us set up and even helped track down parts needed to repair the trailer well enough to make it back home. I can’t express how thankful I am for everyone who lent a hand.

After a several-hour delay, tons of stress, and sunburn, we were able to get set up and get the cook going. Despite all that happened, we were able to have a pretty successful cook. Out of a stacked field of 20, we were able to come away with a 6th place in ribs, a 3rd place pork box (paying out $800), and a 3rd place overall. We also received a 16+ Club score in pork. Overall, it was a great finish considering the hurdles we had to clear to even get the smokers rolling. Congratulations to Rusty Waters with Smoke til You’re Broke on the 1st place pork and grand champion overall, and Gene Culbertson with Backwoods Bar-B-Que on the 1st in ribs and the RGC, and everyone else who got calls. Big thanks to Heath Riles BBQ – very lucky to be an ambassador representing this group and amazing products. We will see you all again in Florence next week for the annual Youth Mentors of the P*e Dee BBQ Competition.

Slinging Meat made the voyage down to Port Royal, SC to start the BBQ season off with the annual Bands Brews & BBQ festival. We ran into some issues early when arriving and things had fallen and broken in the trailer from the trip down. After getting all of that cleaned up we were back on track to provide the masses with some amazing BBQ.

There was a nice crowd both Friday for the chicken wings contest as well as for the pork on Saturday. After using the very best rubs and sauces from Heath Riles BBQ many people from the crowd told us that we had the best chicken wings they have ever eaten (apologies to all of the other teams that competed). We were able to pull out a 3rd place finish with those chicken wings getting us a call, a trophy and some money as well. The team that won 1st (Tail-Gater Hater BBQ Sauce) is also a Heath Riles BBQ team.

We ran into a couple of other hiccups with our pork and ribs just before turn in so we were unable to get calls in those categories this weekend. We know what we did wrong and have learned from it so hopefully we won’t have those issues moving forward. We also had the same issue on the return trip so trailer repairs are at the top of the list before we head back out. I’m confident that will get us taken care of, though. It is just the beginning of a long season and we are ready to give it another shot in just a couple of weeks. Congrats to Phillip Miles and Dennis Carraway of Tailgater Hater for winning all three categories and getting Grand Champion for the weekend. Congrats also to John and Ronald of S*M BBQ on the Reserved Grand Champion. We hope to see you all again in Union in a couple of weeks!