I'm a little behind on posting my BBQ Pitmaster updates...GAH!!! with work and whatnot. I'll get caught up quickly, but this is actually a summary of the episode from two weeks ago...
It's sometimes difficult to resist making meat and bone jokes when writing about BBQ Pitmasters. It's so difficult, in fact, that I don't even try. Why fight failure, man, why fight it? Well, either I'm rubbing off (hahaha) on the judges or they, like me, are actually 7, despite looking much older. This week, the narrator (or balladeer, RIP Waylon) announced that the contest was set in "Texas Hill Country." This after weeks of being "just outside Austin." What are they hiding? TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE! Maybe they are setting up an elaborate contest of some kind, where they'll drop little clues here-and-there and we'll try to figure out where Myron and the boys are hiding for cash and prizes. It could be like "Million Dollar Mystery," which is arguably the worst thing ever recorded to film. A 95-minute long trash bag commercial starring Tom Bosley...HOW COULD IT NOT BE A HIT! Anyway, I digress... This all-star edition of BBQ Pitmasters was actually a three-way rematch from a semi-final round last year. Competing were Junior Urias of Midland, Texas, John Coon from Alabama and defending Pitmasters champ Robbie Royal of Rescue Smokers from Sycamore, Georgia. All three seem to be very good pitmasters who turn out good food...but boy howdy, does Robbie Royal think highly of Robbie Royal. He also yells a lot. I have tinnitus...please stop yelling Robbie. "Not to say they won't win here and there," the high priest of smoke and rub said of Urias and Coon "but they're not going to win here today." Coon promised to bring "full-figured flavor" to the competition. Isn't "full-figured" a nice way of describing a large lady? I'm just asking... The day's meat offerings were then unveiled to reveal that the boys would be cooking beef clod and baby back ribs. Baby backs are pretty common BBQ fare, beef clods notsomuch. Judge Tuffy Stone explained that a beef clod basically comes off "the front arms of the cow." It's kind of a beef shoulder, I guess, and the ones the competitors would be charged with cooking weighed 20 pounds. None of the three had ever cooked one before. Before going to their pits, Royal and Urias exchanged some smack talk. Urias called Royal a chicken, Royal called him a chihuahua, Urias said chihuahuas bite, Royal said he could bite him (hahaha) on the ankle as he walked to the stage as the winner, Urias said "yo mama," Royal said "yo greasy, greasy granny"...I kind of lost track at a certain point. Royal decided that he was going to cook his beef clod whole. He'd put his standard rub on it and smoke it at 300 degrees for three hours, then put it in a pan full of au jus and put it back in for another three hours. Coon didn't think he had enough time to cook a 20-pound hunk of meat, so he started cutting it up. "I wish you luck," the grand beef oracle pronounced from on high. "I don't think it's gonna work for you." So Royal, who has never cooked a beef clod, suddenly knows how to properly cook a beef clod. Alrighty. Urias said he was going to try to get a steak out of the meat, so he cut it way down, put it in a marinade and tossed it in the cooler. He said he'd bring it out when it "talked to" him. Your dog doesn't talk to you, does it Junior? Do you put peyote in your spice rub or something? "What's he gonna do, just cook steaks?" mused the pork poobah of Sycamore. "That's not what a true pitmaster would do." Coon's assistant said he wished he had a bucket of water to throw on Royal. I was thinking of something denser and darker in color. Truthfully, it helps to have a villain on these types of shows. You need someone to root for or root against, so Royal kinda fills that void. Coon injected his beef clod pieces with a mix of worcestershire sauce and apple cider vinegar. He said his technique and that of Royal were similar, so it was all a matter of "putting the right piece of meat in the right place." And I laughed. Tuffy wasn't sure about Coon's plan to serve various parts of the clod. He said it contained four different muscles and how it would be hard to get them all done just right. "He's gonna dry it out," remarked Meaty McKnowsitall. "Huge mistake." Urias finished third when the three men met previously. He was told his ribs lacked "pop." He vowed not to let that happen again. He marinated his ribs, but that prompted a visit from Myron. These baby backs were uncommonly small. "I've marinated ribs before, but not ones that small. Will it overpower the taste of the rib?" Myron asked. Royal used the same run on his ribs as on his shoulder clod, which seemed odd to me. Like Urias and Coon, the small ribs seemed to vex him. He said he'd take two hours off the normal cook time. At that point the fellows were interrupted by Myron, who announced it was time for the Kingsford One-Bite Challenge. The winner, of course, gets to decide the turn-in order. "Under this here cloth is your third meat," said Myron...who is very obviously Georgian. He pulled away this here cloth and revealed a bunch of sausages. They had mild, sweet, venison, bison and buffalo. Then, came my favorite moment in the history of the series. "Some people say a BBQ contest is a sausage fest anyway and today we're embracing that!" Myron said. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I'M 7!! Not only did he make that joke, he also talked about embracing sausage. WOO HOO HOO. I'm not even 7. Royal took the casings off of his sausages (hahahaha) and mashed them all up, other than the bison. That sausage was just too dense for him, he said. And I snickered. The judges weren't a fan of that technique. Myron said it might end up tasting "like cat food and what, Tuffy?" "Ass," Tuffy said. Seriously, are they reading this blog or something? Royal mixed in bacon, eggs and cheese to make a breakfast slider. Urias decided on a Texas twister. He put his sausage in a jalapeno pepper, which had to burn (if the judges can go there, so can I) with cheddar and cream cheeses. Coon just started cooking all of them to see which he liked best. He started cutting up some peppers and other things to go with the sausage. "There's no reason to do that," announced the Sultan of Sausage. "It's got plenty of flavor already. I think it's a mistake." Royal needs to quit casting judgement on everyone else and concentrate on his own sausage (it's just too easy, man, I can't help it). Coon ended up liking the Bison best, so he put it on a toasted baguette with a slaw. It won on presentation by a long way. Royal had his sliders and Urias his Texas twisters. The judges liked the appearance of Coon's dish, but said the sausage got lost with the bread and slaw...how do you lose your sausage? Ditto for Urias. They found Royal's dish "boring" but Myron said he could "find the sausage up in here." Not touching that one. Anyway, Royal won and naturally said he wanted to have his meat (hehehe) presented first. Coon would be second and Urias third. When they went back to cooking, I guess Urias heard his steaks calling him from the cooler. He brought them out, rubbed them with mustard (which was an interesting move), applied his dry rub and smoked them low for two hours. He would ultimately throw them on a hot grill and finish them off with a sauce and some agave. He would pull them off and cut them at the absolute last minute. "That's sweet, with a little heat," Urias' assistant said upon tasting the sauce. "That's what my wife says!" Urias bragged. Everybody is in on the fun today. Royal brought his ribs out and found them nowhere near ready. He had to jack up the temp and put them back and bemoaned the fact that he should be saucing them already. But, how could the great and powerful meat wizard have miscalculated? HOW? He seemed to be happy with his beef clod as he started cutting it. "I'm looking for the tender parts," he said. Aren't we all HEY YO!!! Coon said his ribs were close to overdone but would be fine. He decided to make a sort of burnt end-type cube, slices and chunks of the beef clod. Everybody turned their meat in for the judges. Royal went first. The judges liked the color and the presentation in the rib box. They complimented Royal on the flavor but said he they were tough. Moe didn't like the flavor of the beef clod. Myron and Tuffy did, but Myron did note that it was pushing it on being overdone. The judges liked Coon's sauce, seasoning and thought his ribs were tender. Myron did point out that they'd gotten a little dark. They thought his clod slices had a tug, mostly in a good way. They said it was steak-like. Moe said he shouldn't have put the cubes in the box, not liking the flavor or tenderness. The judges liked Urias' ribs in terms of flavor but said they were a tad underdone. Myron deemed his beef clod to be "a good bite." Moe didn't like the presentation, saying it looked "just thrown in there" but said his gamble on cutting the clod into steaks and using some unusual ingredients paid off. He said "he nailed it" in terms of flavor. The judges then sent the competitors away for further deliberation. They then called them back and told Coon he was third. He said, as lots of people do on the show, that he wouldn't have done anything different if given the chance again, which seems odd when you lost. "I loathe winning!" he seems to say. That left Urias and Royal and I just knew Royal was going to win. They'd shown one of his trademark hollers from his title win last season a dozen or so times and made sure to show all his judgement calls on how the other guys were doing things. The villain makes it interesting...the villain keeps you watching...BUT THE VILLAIN LOST! Urias was named the winner. He moves onto the next round and a near tearful Royal called the loss one of the worst experiences of his life. Hey Robbie, at least they were fans of your sausage (buh dum bump ching!) I'll have another review up ASAP. In the meantime, for more information on BBQ Pitmasters, go right here.
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