Another Grand Champion

Bill! I just thought I’d drop you a note to let you know (as if there were any mystery…) that your secrets work! Thank you for your excellent eBook! I bought it a year ago for a local unsanctioned event in Shoreline, Wa. @ Central Market. Some 2008 pics here if you’re interested. This years should be up soon.

I was mostly interested in your brisket recipe since I had never done one before. I used it to the T last year and bombed! Not your fault tho! Not all of the brisket was as done as we wanted and we quickly found ourselves in dire straights after we had “sampled” all of the best parts of the brisket… WE LITERALLY ATE OUR TROPHY!!!! By the time we realized what we had done, it was too late and there was not enough done brisket to turn in to claim our prize. We would have taken Grand Champion too since we placed 1st on Salmon, and 3rd on Ribs… 4th place overall wit 26 teams competing. Only 9 points separated us from 1st overall… truly a sad day.

This year we came back with a vengeance! Grand Champion! 1st Ribs, 1st Brisket & 2nd Salmon (by 1 stinking point!) $1200 in money and prizes (including a new Hathorn pit!)

I have to tell you, I’m not in love with my injection juice, tastes great before injection but after cooking you’d have a tough time telling I’d done anything but use a rub, so I’ll probably play with it a bit more. What helped us take 1st in brisket was your brilliant “cheat” of using an Au Jus to re-hydrate the brisket before plating. And then! – I applied a very light shake of the rub to the backside of each slice so that the flavor absolutely exploded in your mouth! I tasted all of the top briskets last year and this year an there was nothing even close!!

SO! even though I didn’t follow your recipe to the letter this time around, without your help with BBQ theory, there’s no way we would have knocked this one out of the park like we did. And knock it out of the park we did! Remember that I mentioned that only 9pts separated us @ 4th place from 1st? This year there was 30pts between us and 2nd! Man that feels good! =)

I’m entering the PNWBA sanctioned “Smokin’ in the Root” event in SW Montana next month and I’ll be using your goodies there too!

Thanks for all of your help!

Ryan Garnache
Knucklhed BBQ
Kalispell, MT.