What is BBQ?

I grill and I BBQ. Aren’t they the same thing? No. Don’t you fire up the BBQ for burgers and hot dogs? No. Grilling and BBQ are two different animals. Both are good and give you great results. But, they are very different.

Grilling and BBQ both use fire to cook your meat on a cooker of some sort. It can use gas (though that doesn’t make great BBQ, IMHO), charcoal or wood. You get a fire going and throw the meat on until it is done. That’s about it for similarities.

Grilling is hot and fast. You can fire up your grill and be ready to go in a few minutes. You put your meat on it for 10 minutes to 2 hours, depending on what you’re grilling. Usually your cook temps are around 300° F. It creates a hot, quick cook. I love to grill burgers, hotdogs, steaks and chicken.

BBQ is low and slow. You fire up your grill, usually charcoal or wood, and bring it up to about 230°F and your cook time can be anywhere from 3 hours to 18 hours depending on the meat and the weight of it. BBQ usually imparts smoke to the meat and breaks down the connective tissue slowly giving you an awesome tender piece of meat as a finished product. Pork, Chicken, turkey, beef, ribs all work great for a low and slow cook.


So when I’m talking about BBQ, I’m talking low and slow. As I continue to blog I will be adding some BBQ recipes and some grilling recipes. But the main focus will be on BBQ.

Judging Q

This past weekend I became a Certified BBQ Judge (CBJ) for the Kansas City BBQ Society (KCBS). My friend Ken and I went down to Kennesaw, GA for the training.

Overall, it is not a hard thing to do and is fun. You get to taste six different cooks BBQ in four categories - chicken, pork, ribs and brisket. The hardest part is deciding how good you think the entries are and not comparing them to each other. I can now go to BBQ competitions and judge them.

As a team we are hoping to improve our scores at competitions by knowing what the judges are looking for. We now have a good idea of what the judges want so hopefully we can improve our overall scores. In a couple weeks we go to a cooking class to push our Q to the next level.

Welcome

Welcome to Q 4 Fun.

I live in South Carolina, the land flowing with vinegar and mustard. About two years ago I started smoking meat for fun. I loved it and am now on Catchafire For Q team and regularly smoke pork, chicken and turkey.

I don't promise regular updates to this blog, but will try to keep it up-to-date with what our team is doing and what I am experimenting with at home.

It should be a fun and interesting year as I am becoming a certified KCBS judge, attending a BBQ cooking class and competing in 10 cook offs in North Carolina, South Carolina and Gerogia.

I look forward to your comments and input on what we are doing and hopefully meeting some of you at various competitions.

May your smoke always be blue and your fire constant.