Ohhh! I need a Tums - a BIG Tums!

[Caneyscud]

ROADTRIP,  Finally 10/24 is here.  Time for the 21st Annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue held in Lynchburg, TN (population 361) - ground zero for those who are Partial to Tennessee Sippin' Whiskey.  But today, the town swells to close to 100,000 people that includes 63 invited domestic championship barbecue teams and 18 invited international barbecue teams competing in perhaps the most prestigious barbecue contest.  Due to various reasons, I have been unable to attend the last 3 years - so I was looking forward to this outing.  We missed the sampling for the chicken and the ribs, but got to try quite a bit of pulled pork and brisket.  That's the reason for the Tums - we tried lots of BBQ and got stuffed.  Weird thing this year was that many of the domestic teams did not have much participation with the crowd and few samples.  The only ones that really gave out samples was the International teams.  I'm wondering if the USDA has some ruling about giving out samples without catering quality trailers.  All in all, I had one pulled pork that I thought was really good, a couple good, and a few that were frankly not very good to mine and my wife's palate.  The brisket results were not as good - none that I particularly liked, but I must remember that these were briskets cooked, by Germans, Estonians, Polish, Austrians, Belgiums - not hotbeds of brisketdom.  Flavors used that in my opinion do not belong in barbecue.  IMO - too much emphasis on rubs, sauces, and moistness and not enough on smoke and bark.  Smokers used varied quite a bit.  Of course, no Bradleys - their cooking heat is derived from electricity and not by wood or charcoal.  Did not see any of the Fast Eddy smokers, but they were there somewhere.  There were at least 5 of the Jambone smokers in at least a couple of configurations - those are some sharp looking smokers.  Most prevelant was Primos.  I'm wondering if Primo let the International teams use their equipment.  Only a couple of BGE's.  Quite a few Weber verticals were used as well as a surprising number of UDS's (over a dozen).  Traegers in about 4 different sizes were used in some capacity by quite a few teams.  Surprisingly very few used them for the big stuff.  Some used them only as ovens.  Other smokers I notices were Stumps, Backwoods, Ol Hickories, Langs, a Yoder,  Southern Prides, many trailer mounts from large LP tanks, a few built out of sheet metal, one double drum, and 2 or 3 made of old fuel oil tanks.  All in all a good day, even though there was a 2 1/2 mile walk from where we had to park to the contest.  But then remember where we are - a nice cool fall day in a holler in Tennessee that on this particular day is not only home to JD, but also lots of BBQ smoke - talk about a happy nose.  
A few pics.


Lest you forget where this was.  And yes it does smell good around there.  They call it God's share.  


One of the many buildings full of thousands and thousands of barrels of JD Tennessee Sippin' Whiskey just sitting there aging until it's time to meet the ice in your glass.


This shows how close to the Distillery the contest is - and that is indeed another building full of juvenile whiskey.


Tennessee Ballet Dancers


One beautiful smoker - note the smokestacks


Grand Champion of Memphis in May this year.


A Bandera that made the trip all the way from Fairbanks Alaska!


The smokers were not all high tech.  - It doesn't take an expensive smoker to win a contest.


The team that had the best pulled pork we sampled.


End of the judging barn - Just on the other side of that temporary wall they are judging brisket.


Two teams that traveled a long distance to get to Middle Tennessee.


Two brisket turn in boxes.  

[classicrockgriller]

Bet that was a blast. Nice pics. Have seen Boss Hogg on TV before and didn't realize there were from Alaska.

Thanks for sharing Caney

[Hopefull Romantic]

CS thank you for sharing the pictures. They brought back some old memories.

HR

[Wildcat]

Was not aware of the BBQ comp. We took a tour of the JD facility a couple of years ago. Hard to imagine 100,000 people in that extremely remote little community. That place is in the middle of no where and way off the beaten path!  Although it makes very little sense, it is also a dry county.

[joerom]

Looked like fun.I enjoyed the pics,especially seeing the Bandera there.
                                                             Joe.

[Tenpoint5]

Caney,
Yes Primo was letting the international teams use their cookers. The cookers will then be sold as "being at the Jack" specials. Looks like it was a fun time.