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We stuck with what we knew from the other competitions but with various restaurant chefs involved we didnt have a clue how it would be judged and where we would come.
When the individual results were announced we were fairly high in all categories but came first in Chicken, that was a fantastic feeling, only to be topped by us actually becoming Grand Champions soon after! What a Buzz!!!
It was a brilliant weekend and we ended on a massive high.
the best and worst bits of comp bbq...
Apart from the winning at Pengrillie and the 2nd place call at Grillstock other 'best bits' of BBQ Competitions are the atmosphere and the people.
We have gained some truely wonderful friends through being on the competition circuit and you will often hear teams talk about the BBQ Family. It really is.
Yes there are 'worse' bits like the very late nights and some extremely early mornings, lack of sleep and hopefully getting your turn in box completed in time but really the 'best' parts make it all worth while.
To be totally honest with you Sarah and I have never really thought that we could win any competition. Some teams out there really put so much practice in and compete in a huge amount of contests, there is no way we could even contemplate doing any wjere near as many.
Spare time and of course the money are always an issue in our busy lives too.
How our cooking has changed, equipment wise...
I started with the two offset smokers but after that first Grillstock we decided to look for something 'bullet' style as that seemed the weapon of choice for most teams.
Facebook groups and the vast knowledge of their members weren't really about so it was down to google, youtube and various reviews.
Eventually after much investigation and reading up we decided that the ProQ Excel was the one for us, little did we know at the time that searching for one of these smokers would result in a great friendship with Ian and Ty at Macs BBQ who since then have been great in supporting us.
Which Smokers we have at BBQ HQ...
We have a couple Excels and a couple Frontiers and ofcourse our dedicated cold smoking ProQ Ranger Paul. We also have a Monolith and a Cobb as well as the two original Brinkmanns. Last year we purchased our first cabinet smoker in the shape of a ProQ Stretch Reverse Flow.
Our Plans for the future of Riviera BBQ. ..
Well at the time of writing this we are busy packing as we are about to move house. This has stopped a lot of plans so we have put things back 12 months at least.
We are not doing Grillstock this year and it looks like Pengrillie will be our only competition that we enter. Fingers crossed we will also be part of the excellent Powderham Food Festival as we have for the last couple of years.
Other than that the plan was to be going in to Catering and we are still in the throws of doing that but it has taken a back seat until we are in and settled in the new Riviera BBQ HQ.
Once that happens we shall definitely be doing catering of some sorts and have a few other ideas up our sleeves too.