Interview: Rocky Top Smokies

Team: Rocky Top BBQ Co. LLC
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Web Page: http://www.rockytopsmokies.com/

I met Rocky Top Smokies at the Charlotte Blues, Brews & BBQ in 2012 when I was an onsite judge. They cooked a great pork shoulder and the hog looked delectable. Since then I have followed them on Twitter (add link) and Facebook (add link).

They cater in the Charlotte area and have been on the Wilson Show on Fox in the morning sharing the BBQ love. Jonathan and his team are fun to talk to and make a great product.

Interview: Ranucci's Big Butt BBQ

Each month I’m going to try to do a short interview with various BBQ teams, aficionados and purveyors of BBQ equipment. I’ll be looking for some small insights from the teams about their cooking, how they started and maybe get some cooking tips. If you have a team you would like me to interview, shoot me an email and I’ll see if they will be willing to do it.

To kick off the interviews, I asked Ranucci’s Big Butt BBQ be my first interview.

Team: Ranucci's Big Butt BBQ
Location: Belmont, NC
Web Page: www.bigbuttbbq.com

I met them a few years ago cooking at a competition in Shelby, NC when I was competing. I have watched them as they have started to win more and more in the area. Alex and his dad run a great rig and do a great job with help from the rest of his family.

Most recently they won Grand Champion for the Charlotte Q-City BBQ Championship, taking first in ribs and shoulder and second in whole hog.

Grand Champion for the Charlotte Q-City BBQ Championship

Catering for my Cousin

About two months ago my cousin contacted me and asked if I would cook BBQ and baked beans for her wedding. I agreed. She said she would have 100 guests so that's what I planned for. Thankfully there are a couple spread sheets out there that can help calculate how much BBQ will be needed for an event depending on the size of the crowd. I also have the benefit of asking those who cater often, through the BBQ Brethren Forum, about the amount of food needed.

My two biggest worries for the wedding were; 1) not having enough BBQ, 2) not having enough sauce. I had cooked 40 butts for a church fund raiser about two years ago and ran out of sauce.

Swine 'n Dine for Charity

Team Swine 'n Dine: Frank Fields, Rob Ford,
Mike Bonn. Not pictured, Preston Cornett.

I received an email from my friend Gwen Poth who requested I check out and review this BBQ team who use their BBQ to raise money for 24 Hours of Booty in Charlotte. I always love it when other BBQers use their ability for good and to raise awareness for a good cause. After all OTT is a great event I help with, so I’m always happy to spread the word for someone else. Rob, the spokes person for the team, and I exchanged a few emails so I could find out about the team. We set up a time for me to meet the team and try some of their porcine product.

The Team
In the emails we sent back and forth, Rob gave me the history of his team, Swine ‘n Dine. It is made up of four members; Rob Ford, Frank Fields, Preston Cornett, and Mike Bonn. They started to cook at their neighborhood festival and sold sandwiches and pork butts and all the proceeds went back to the neighborhood. They really enjoyed cooking together and decided to cook for the neighbors once again. Their neighbors liked what they were cooking and asked if they would do it again for a third year. The team went from cooking 150lbs of pork to 400lbs per cook.

First Mini Catering Gig

This past weekend one of our friends asked me to cook for their sons b-day. He wanted butts, slaw and potato salad.

I did four butts and a big that's-a-bowl of coleslaw and potato salad. I used a fellow designer's (Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives) coleslaw recipe. It was very good.

Well I was supposed to be up at 3:30 am to get the butts on by 4:00 so they would be done in time for the party. I didn't get up until 5:30. D'OH!!

Well the butts didn't quite get to the temp I wanted (195) but they were done (180-185) and tasted great. The people I was cooking for are all Carolinian's and very particular about their Q, they all loved it.

Here are a couple pictures from the cook.
The cooker


Smoking nicely


The butts about half way through.


Things I learned:
1: Make sure when you set your alarm you turn it on.
2: cooking a little hotter does help get the food done, but it still takes time.
3: smoked hotdogs that roll in the grease from a pork butt are very yummy.