Rookie from the Bluegrass......

[WildcatRick]

Greetings from Big Blue Country!! I grew up on Owensboro BBQ mutton from Moonlite and Old Hickory. After I left the military I just never did enough BBQ or smoking to invest in my own equipment, but that is about to change.

I am an Administrator at Wildcat Nation, a fan site for the University of Kentucky, and we have a tailgate party for all UK home games and a few away games. We feed anywhere from 75-250 of our members and UK students before and after each game. We have done this for about 10 years and I am buying a smoker in the next few days to smoke pork butts, brisket, ribs, wings, brats, etc for our fans. Our tailgate menu is not your normal fare as we rarely go the hot dog and burger route. We usually do shrimp boils, Cajun, Tex-Mex, Italian, and a big BBQ week where we have brisket, pulled pork, ribs, and Kentucky burgoo. We have always had our briskets done by an outside source, but I want to remedy that.

One of my buddies that helps with the cooking also visited this site tonight and will join shortly. We are hoping to pick the brains of the aficionados here and post our progress. I have been reading the forums today and came away very impressed with the knowledge of your members and the friendliness of responses.

My experience is limited to pork butts, ribs and wings thus far, but I am hoping to expand on that in the very near future. I did smoke some lamb last year while doing my pork butts to go into my burgoo recipe, which I think is as good as any served in Western Kentucky.

Anyway, thank you guys for such a nice venue to seek help from the gurus here. Look forward to talking to you all and reading more of your forums.

Go Big Blue!

[DarqMan]

Welcome to the forum WildcatRick!!!

[hal4uk]

WELCOME, RICK!

[ArnieM]

Hi WildCatRick and welcome to the forum.  You 'might' find a few UK fans here  ;D - not to mention Hal.

[WildcatRick]

Thanks for the welcome, DarqMan and Arnie!!

Hal, good to see a fellow Cat fan here. Nice avatar.

[DarqMan]

It's a great group of folks around here.  If you've been looking around you already know we like pictures ;D

[hal4uk]

I'm "blue to the bone", Rick!
Originally from Paducah, but I live in Springfield Illinois..

I'm sure "KyNola" will be along soon to welcome you ;-)
(He's in Paducah)...

Now.. about cookin' for 250 people... 
You can cook some awsome Q in a Bradley, but you're gonna need more than one for that kinda cookout.
Of course, you could just go get a monster-sized smoker, but everyone would just think you're crazy  ::)

[WildcatRick]

everyone would just think you're crazy  ::)

Brother, that ship has sailed!! :)

[classicrockgriller]

Greeting WildCatRick!

I don't bleed blue but have some great Forum Bros that do.

We want to help all we can and want to hear and see pics of

some great tailgate party's.

We have been reminded several thousand times

that Hickory is the choice of wood in UK land.

Let us know how we can help.

Now, what is this "Kentucky burgoo"?

PS .... No secrets on the Forum.

[FLBentRider]

W E L C O M E  to the Forum WildcatRick!

[KyNola]

Welcome Rick!  KyNola here in Paducah KY.  Glad to have you on board.  You should come to Paducah Sept 23-25 to the BBQ Festival.  30,000 hungry people and literally tons of meat smoked and all for charity.  Oh, bring Coach Calipari with you too!  ;)

CRG, burgoo is a dish that apparently is not well known by other areas of the US.  It is a stew/chili type dish that has everything, including the kitchen sink in it.  May have 2-3  different types of meats in it.  Originally it would have been wild game.  Also, has different vegetables in it.  Slow cooked.

Good stuff when done correctly.   

[squirtthecat]

Welcome Rick!   As you can probably tell, my buddy Hal is a bit of a UK fanatic.

There are some towns around here that have burgoo festivals...   A bit of a rarity anymore.

[KevinG]

Welcome to the forum WildcatRick!

[WildcatRick]

Thanks all.

CRG, I would be happy to post my burgoo recipe in the proper forum sometime this evening. I actually have the original recipe from Moonlite BBQ in Owensboro, as well as the original recipe from the famous Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, Ky. Over the years at WCN we have come up with our own recipe which I feel is as good as any out there, to which our members agree. I would be glad to post all three for review. Oh, and we do take lots of pictures, so I will post some.

We are in the process of putting out a cookbook of our tailgate recipes. We have used so many rubs and sauces over the years that we have one section just for those. As you can imagine with us being from Kentucky many of the sauces have bourbon among the ingredients. I have yet to put any smoking recipes in, but hope to do so as I come up with my own tried and tested techniques. I look forward to sharing some of those recipes in your forums.

KyNola, I will mark that date in my calendar as I would love to make that trip. I am originally from Western Kentucky and went to school in Murray before going into the military. It has been a long time since I have been to that area, and I have a dear friend in Cadiz that I may talk into going. UK will be on the road that weekend, so I dont see why I couldnt make it. You are also spot on about burgoo, not just anybody can make a good pot of burgoo. I have tried many bad examples over the years. My Dad makes a great pot and the aforementioned do as well.

Thanks again for the warm welcome.

[DarqMan]

Sauces with bourbon in them?  Yep, you'll fit right in here.