A barbecue adventure, the saga unfolds.

Craig said:
Here's a question for the group on sauce. Dr has me cut out all non-naturally occurring sodium for a long time period. Anyone have a recipe for a sweeter sauce that has no sodium, or very little in it? The commercial sauces I tend to prefer are Bulleye Original and their Hickory smoke. Can't stand a vinegar based sauce or one with a lot of pepper or any jalapenos in it. Wife is trying to find alternates or homemade versions of a lot of things and it's a bit difficult to get tastes balanced between the commercial stuff and her mixtures. She's trying hard and I don't get upset when things don't taste good. It's difficult to switch to a no sodium cooking style and is going to take a bit of time to make it all work.
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What’s your upper limit on mg Sodium?

Some sweet sauces I personally like say 380+/- mg per serving.
 
Matthew said:
What’s your upper limit on mg Sodium?

Some sweet sauces I personally like say 380+/- mg per serving.
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No hard limit, his guidance was " Cut out all processed foods, anything with added sodium". Followup lab work in a few weeks to check various numbers. Haven't been able to do it totally yet, but in general, the wife has been trying to keep things averaging around 750 mg a day right now. It's hard, as a number of things that I really like, need salt....pinto beans, lima beans, bacon sandwiches, fried rice and so on. It's an adventure trying to get away from things with the added sodium.
 
Craig said:
Here's a question for the group on sauce. Dr has me cut out all non-naturally occurring sodium for a long time period. Anyone have a recipe for a sweeter sauce that has no sodium, or very little in it? The commercial sauces I tend to prefer are Bulleye Original and their Hickory smoke. Can't stand a vinegar based sauce or one with a lot of pepper or any jalapenos in it. Wife is trying to find alternates or homemade versions of a lot of things and it's a bit difficult to get tastes balanced between the commercial stuff and her mixtures. She's trying hard and I don't get upset when things don't taste good. It's difficult to switch to a no sodium cooking style and is going to take a bit of time to make it all work.
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The rib sauce in my post 1198, above, had no added salt. It does have some habanero, but two diced and simmered in an 18 ounce jar of raspberry jam didn't add much heat at all. They did balance the sweetness, though the recipe I was working from used JUST raspberry jam for the glaze. I thought that might be too sweet, but if you want to avoid both added salt and any peppers, it's worth a shot. Probably still good on ribs, pork tenderloin, maybe pulled pork or chicken. Probably awful on beef or lamb.
 
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Tri tip and chicken. Used a Basque marinade this time. I used it before and it didn't have much taste, but this time I let everything marinate overnight. I was going to do a Teriyaki marinade but the store doesn't appear to carry liquid Teriyaki sauce anymore, just the thick semi-gel stuff that I don't care much for. It was pretty good - I would use it again.
 
@Matthew talk to me about the public experience at the Royal. Our son’s at Leavenworth for the year and the timing works for us to make it up there this year.

What’s there for the public to do? What day offers the most activities for the public?

My reference point is local contests “open” to the public but not designed for the public. If attending, it’s usually a stroll past the teams, some who will occasionally engage with the public, but nothing else much (music, attractions, etc.).

Would a guy be able to bring a family and nit get bored in 30 minutes?
 
TCABM said:
@Matthew talk to me about the public experience at the Royal. Our son’s at Leavenworth for the year and the timing works for us to make it up there this year.

What’s there for the public to do? What day offers the most activities for the public?

My reference point is local contests “open” to the public but not designed for the public. If attending, it’s usually a stroll past the teams, some who will occasionally engage with the public, but nothing else much (music, attractions, etc.).

Would a guy be able to bring a family and nit get bored in 30 minutes?
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Ok…

The Royal has two contests on the same weekend. The Invitational is on Saturday, so that “party night” will be Friday. The Open
is on Sunday, so that party night is Saturday.

It’s as massive a party as you will ever see. Any teams having a party will normally not be open to the public, they will be private parties. Some might have a commercial sponsor and let you in if they feel like it. But many will also have a live band playing, so you can go around and listen. This actually stunned me the first time I stopped by on a party night.

There will be sponsor tents with beer, other drinks, and plenty of food. So don’t worry about feeling left out. There’s also a stage with live music.

On contest days it’s normally just business. Teams are in it to win it, so Saturday (daytime) and Sunday are pretty quiet. If you visit on Saturday or Sunday morning, teams will be busy cooking and getting ready for turn in. If you visit Sat afternoon, teams will be either packing up to leave or getting set up for the Sunday contest. Some teams cook in both.

But…

In past years (10?) the contest has been held on the infield of the Kansas Speedway.

The American Royal is a big KC agricultural institution. Besides the livestock show, rodeo, and a few other things, it puts on the BBQ contest.

The AR is building new headquarters and offices next to the Speedway and the contest will now be on their property. This will be the first year at the new location. It will be next to the Speedway, not IN the Speedway. Renting that facility is massively expensive. Because of construction and other logistics, they are limiting the number of teams this year. So instead of 600-ish, they are still working out details but for the next couple of years they will have a limit of 350-400 teams.

Because of the limited space this year there might not be as large an entertainment area and stage this year. I will keep a lookout for more info.

I already got my confirmation email about judging the Open, I haven’t heard about the Invitational.

It’s also been moved up to the first weekend of October from the first weekend of November.

It’s definitely a thing to do for bragging rights. You get to hang out with many thousands of your closest friends.

PS - Leavenworth is where I went to high school.
 
Matthew said:
PS - Leavenworth is where I went to high school.
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Half Fast said:
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So, Leavenworth…

That’s the Federal Penitentiary, right on the edge between Leavenworth and Ft. Leavenworth. I used to live on the back side of that place, in Ft Leavenworth (Army brat). The Fort has the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), the military prison.

Just south of town is Lansing, KS, home of the State Pen. It’s where Hickock and Smith were executed in 1965. My youngest daughter used to live just a couple miles away from the old Clutter house. There was a book and movie about that.

Leavenworth was…interesting. Escapes from the Federal Penitentiary were usually no big deal, those guys usually just wanted to leave, so a stolen car was about the worst thing to worry about. FBI seemed to usually head over to the mom’s house and wait for the guy to show up.

There was a particular escape from the USDB when I was at school. I don’t remember how I heard about it, and when I got home I asked my mom if she had seen anything unusual. Our house was up on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, and there was a set of railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. Mom had been working in the garden when a helicopter flew by. “They were the nicest guys! They were right at eye level when they flew by and waved at me, so I waved back!”

“Mom! Were the side doors open?”

“Yes.”

“Were they sitting on the floor with their legs hanging out?”

“Yes.”

“Did they have rifles?”

“Yes.”

“Were they waving at you like ‘How’s it going?’ or like ‘Get back in the house, you crazy lady!’?”

“Well, now that I think about it…”
 
Chuck eye steak is such an underrated cut. Tender, tasty, and forgiving on the heat. It’s good rare to medium.
 
Matthew said:
Ok…

The American Royal is a big KC agricultural institution. Besides the livestock show, rodeo, and a few other things, it puts on the BBQ contest….
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That gives me context to what I saw on the website, thanks. If we come, my guess is Saturday morning is when we’d be there.

I’ve been TDY to the fort as part of exercises and we usually stayed over by the speedway/Legends, so I think I’m somewhat familiar with the general area.

I’ll let you know if we’re going to make it as we get closer.
 
TCABM said:
That gives me context to what I saw on the website, thanks. If we come, my guess is Saturday morning is when we’d be there.

I’ve been TDY to the fort as part of exercises and we usually stayed over by the speedway/Legends, so I think I’m somewhat familiar with the general area.

I’ll let you know if we’re going to make it as we get closer.
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Sunday AM is when I would be there for judging. Sat AM will likely be quiet since it’s serious money and pride at stake. At 9:22a there are the traditional shots, you might even get a sample. I’ve been in the competition world for over 30 years and have no idea how that started. Sat will be the Invitational, so you’ll see the top teams in the world getting ready for judging.

I’m still waiting to see if I get selected to judge on Sat. There aren’t as many teams so they don’t need as many judges. I’m somewhere on the waiting list.
 
Too much to list here, but I’m done with grocery ribs; the quality around here just sucks so bad. If I’m going to do pork ribs anymore I’ll be buying SRF, I guess.

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No, a Flank Steak. But I did do a Chuck eye (not to be confused with standard Chuck.
 
Someone wanted appetizers for Saturday. I figure pork belly burnt ends will go over pretty well. Extended forecast for Saturday looks like good smoker weather.
 
Just put the pork belly chunks on the smoker, now it’s beer:30 for the rest of the day.
 
Beef ribs! Finally have a source in North Idaho. This was a 5.6 lb, 3 rib plate, injected and marinated with Blues Hog Beef Marinade dissolved in beef broth. I used a coat of Krystal hot sauce as a binder, then a liberal coat of Kinders SPG and some additional coarse ground pepper. 5.5 hours at 285F over hickory smoke and they probed tender. Yum!
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Spent ~24hrs in Leavenworth and managed to get try out Q39, @Matthew. Had the brisket & burnt ends and added a chipotle sausage. Yesterday I learned they smoke pork sausage, which caught me off guard; we do beef down here.

Overall, it was good. Not my preferred flavor profile, but it worked surprisingly well considering sauce was involved. The non-traditional sides were tasty.

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TCABM said:
Spent ~24hrs in Leavenworth and managed to get try out Q39, @Matthew. Had the brisket & burnt ends and added a chipotle sausage. Yesterday I learned they smoke pork sausage, which caught me off guard; we do beef down here.

Overall, it was good. Not my preferred flavor profile, but it worked surprisingly well considering sauce was involved. The non-traditional sides were tasty.

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Q39 is one of the highest rated BBQ restaurants around here. But, some snobs don’t like it because it’s not a “joint”. I got to meet their executive chef, he was hired after the founder/owner died. The new guy and I sat next to each other judging a contest. It was his first. Interesting guy, he’s English, but he knows how not to mess with a good thing.

Yes, sausage around here will be pork.
 
Matthew said:
Q39 is one of the highest rated BBQ restaurants around here. But, some snobs don’t like it because it’s not a “joint”. I got to meet their executive chef, he was hired after the founder/owner died. The new guy and I sat next to each other judging a contest. It was his first. Interesting guy, he’s English, but he knows how not to mess with a good thing.

Yes, sausage around here will be pork.
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Good to know, we hit the midtown location and did have a good time. Were supposed to try Scotty’s(?) at MKC, but couldn’t get there before close.

Passed a Jack’s Stack this morning driving out. Somewhere around Olathe, I think. Maybe as far south as Lenexa. That leaves some undone and I’ve been to Arthur Bryant’s before. We also learned FLV is joint use, so that makes bringing the 182 up almost a no brainer. We can get up there quicker in that that doing the Airlines from SAT.
 
TCABM said:
Good to know, we hit the midtown location and did have a good time. Were supposed to try Scotty’s(?) at MKC, but couldn’t get there before close.

Passed a Jack’s Stack this morning driving out. Somewhere around Olathe, I think. Maybe as far south as Lenexa. That leaves some undone and I’ve been to Arthur Bryant’s before. We also learned FLV is joint use, so that makes bringing the 182 up almost a no brainer. We can get up there quicker in that that doing the Airlines from SAT.
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I’ve still never been in or out of FLV. When I lived there back in HS there was a big airborne drop over FLV. I think it was advertised as the largest exercise since WW II. 82nd Airborne did the job. For a day or two prior, if you had a good eye and looked at the right place at the right time you’d catch a dot in the sky, then a parachute would pop open, very low, and a couple of steep corkscrew turns later it would be gone. HALO, I guess, I saw that a couple times and never did see the aircraft.

JackStack is good BBQ. They can be another place that some people don’t like because it isn’t a “joint”. I haven’t been to all their locations so I can’t say if they all use cloth napkins or not.

Joe’s is worth a stop.

Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”) is from KC and wears a shirt on the show that combines some of the famous places.

Joe’s
Arthur Bryant’s
Gates
JackStack


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