If the ultimate goal of participating is to have fun and enjoy yourself, then this preparation becomes very simple. You take beer, coal, smokers, meats and their seasonings.
When it comes time at Wally BBQ to prepare for a professional BBQ competition, with our ultimate goal being to win those honors, that preparation becomes strategic, thought out, considered, complex, exaggerated, insane and borderline Machiavellian. Why all that effort and planning? Our past experiences in competition have in some way modeled our planning today, and that preparation is constantly evolving.
Preparations for a competition begin very early, in order to hope for great honors: every point counts. We must be hyper-foresighted: some will say that we cannot control the unexpected, we will answer that we must dominate the uncontrollable to achieve our goals.
Here we will free you from the economic and logistical burden of such an expedition, because we obviously have to get ourselves free from work but also raise the funds necessary for each of the competitions of the year, and this begins the day after the last competition of the previous season. Now that we are free and everything is paid, we announce it on social media! From now on, there is no turning back.
The first step is planning the route. “Easy Wally, GPS on the cell!”; if you knew, ha ha! When you arrive at night in the event village and there is no cell signal, you learn. We always plan our route on the truck GPS and on the backup GPS, we also print out trajectory maps with Google Maps. Then we study the chosen route and we look for the location of quality American butchers along our route with their addresses and opening hours in case our meats do not pass customs, and yes, it happens. So, we synchronize with Olivier from Boucherie Auclair to confirm our needs, and the date and time of our collection of premium meat.
The second step is planning the seasonings. We take a lot of notes during our various competitions, and this remains the key to our meteoric rise. So we look at our past results and develop our opportunities. We have to adjust our flavor profiles regionally. To do this, we rely on what worked well and what didn't work so well in the past in order to improve. Going to eat at local BBQ restaurants is also a good indicator. If we just look at the sauces, is it mustard, tomato, vinegar, molasses, sweet, sour, spicy, mild, smoked...? This year, Stefan Jacob's arrival as sous chef is not just a whim: among other things, he will have the mandate to adjust our different sauce bases to the local taste in order to thrill the taste buds of those pesky local judges!
The third step is planning the cooking. When you cook a brisket at home, it is always juicy and flavorful at the right time, because it is ready when it is ready. In competition, it must have the same characteristics but at a specific time, included in a 10-minute window at the same time as you cook chicken, ribs, and pork. This is why we always practice according to the four meats to be served. Sometimes we have to decide to smoke at a different temperature than usual in order to free up a smoker at a specific time to receive another meat. We look at the weather forecast for the location and choose our cooking time grid. The cooking time is analogous to the ambient climate, and for this, we have 3 time grids adjusted to the seasons. Our time grids are defined in minutes, and we follow them religiously in order to deliver meats that are always perfect. To do this, we must always adjust (trim) our different pieces of meat to the same thickness and weight.
The fourth step is loading. People who have helped me in the past will agree on this: why do we bring so much equipment? So that we don't miss anything! We have a comprehensive list of things to bring with a little check box in front of each item. This list is made in two columns on three pages. It is divided by location and by bin number. This list includes everything we need for the doubles competition. As an example, we use two pellet smokers Yoder YS640 (including a complete smokehouse in spare parts in the event of a breakdown) requiring electricity. Despite the electricity sometimes included during events, if there is a breakdown, we are in trouble. We therefore use the electricity provided to recharge a dry battery which will provide us with our electricity via an inverter. If there is a power outage, we have an autonomy of 10 hours. This same system is also recharged by a solar panel, which when the sun is not there is powered by a generator which itself has its own backup generator… overkill?
Imagine your meat thermometer stops working in the middle of the competition. So we have batteries of all the necessary models, and also a second emergency thermometer. We are intense, I let you imagine the rest. We take a small starting photo that we post on Facebook, and off we go!Dany Tremblay
Pitmaster at Wally BBQ