Viejas 2008 - 0600 - Wakey Wakey - time to get breakfast ready for the big day.

Our new friend returns at 0600 with enough booze to kill a horse. Luckily, Aaron was there to stop that from happening.
































Ken and Aaron prep breakfast - smoked quiche.

Real men discussing the finer points of smoking quiche (with bloody mary in hand).

Breakfast is served.

Side note - all the Viejas 2008 posts were added 9 months after the fact because we are all delinquent.

Viejas 2008 Pictures

Noe and the Meat Police - inspecting our meat.








Joe - are you awake?













Ryan - lookin for meat!

















Ken - working hard as usual.

The Pit Master - lovingly taking care of his babies.

200F - perfect bed time temp for my meats.


















Brisket - sleeping in the smoke.










Pork turn in.


















Chicken turn in.


















Rib turn in.














Brisket turn in.



















Side note - all Viejas 2008 posts were posted 9 months late because the Meat, Inc. Team is dinq.

Viejas 2008

This is the Fourth Annual Competition for the Viejas "Smokin' in the Park" event. With $17,500 in Prize Money at stake, this is one of the biggest competitions in the State of California!!

This event is KCBS and CBBQA Sanctioned with KCBS Rules and Reps

Date: Oct. 17th & 18th 2008

Location: Viejas Outlet Center5005 Willows Road, Alpine, CA 91901

For the complete official results:

http://www.cbbqa.org/wiki/index.php?title=Viejas_Smokin

Meat, Inc. didn't do as well this year as we have in the past. The normal crew of Dean, Aaron, Ryan and Greg couldn't make it so Aaron bribed, enlisted, begged, and forced some others to participate. Ryan did eventually make it but took the judges class and judged the competition. This actually turned out to be a pretty good idea. Even though Dean and Aaron were already qualified KCBS Certified Judges, neither had actually judged a competition. Ryan had some really good insight after it was all over which should help us to get our scores up in the future.

The team that Meat, Inc. fielded is as follows: Aaron, Noe, Ken, and Joe.

Here's how Meat, Inc. placed in this one:

Overall: 47 / 52

Chicken: 36 / 52

Ribs: 48 / 52

Pork: 48 / 52

Brisket: 36 / 52

Some of the difference in 15 spots in the score card were tenths of a point but that kind of sounds like and excuse.

The main problem we had at this competition was the presentation. There were lots of 4's and 5's in presentation. Most of the other scores were in the 7's - 8's and some 9's mixed in. The presentation basically killed the scores. See the pictures attached to this post.

We did have fun and might have had one or two too many beers. We also met some really cool people coming out of the casino at 2am. They promised to be back at 6am for some BBQ school and breakfast. We went to bed thinking that will never happen - sure enough - 0600 with a milk crate full of vodka and bloody mary fixins - we fired the party back up. I'm almost positive that the event staff will place our team in the farthest reaches possible from now on as we have proved that we have a hard time following the noise rules (4 years in a row now). No one has actually said anything to us but you can see the look of recognition from the event staff and Meat Police after about 30 seconds of talking to us (and looking at our meat).

Ryan will properly school us on presentation and we should compete a lot better in 2009.