The Swine-O-Mite BBQ Team

TN Funfest - 2009

Dave — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:45:12 +0000

We spent a very hot weekend out at the Agricenter last weekend competing in the TN Funfest. Swine-O-Mite had a disappointing finish in ribs at 24/55. Competition was tough!

We did finish 3rd in the Margarita ancillary contest, and 6th in Beef.

As usual, it was great fun. Pictures can be found here.

Next contests…Convington, Arlington, Battle of the Bones….

Tags: TN Funfest

Tennessee Funfest - 2008 The annual Tennessee Funfest was held this past weekend at the Memphis Agricenter. It’s was three hot days of cooking some great BBQ along with a bunch of the ancillary contests. It’s our favorite contest of the year for several reasons: It’s centrally located to most of the team members It’s held on a campground, so it’s easy to get into and out of, and it has water and electricity on site. It has a huge number of ancillary contests It’s well organized compared to most other contests We competed in pork shoulders, pork ribs, tomato sauce, vinegar sauce, chili, margaritas, bloody mary’s, beef, poultry, seafood, dessert, and ice cream. Aside from a nasty sauce spill right before the rib judging, everything went off without a hitch and got turned in on time. Competition wise, we didn’t finish too well relative to the other teams in the pork categories. Both the shoulders (17/31) and pork (24/51) were right in the middle, but it did help to know that the teams that beat us are the ones that win and compete every weekend. The shoulders turned out better than ever, and our ribs were great too. We did however come home with some “hardware” for a second place finish in the seafood competition. Krista’s cillantro flavored shrimp placed and made the weekend worthwhile. Our $75 check was donated to the Altheimer’s Foundation, which is the charity of choice for the entire TN Funfest organization. Tags: TN Funfest ...

Bacon Flavored Jello Shots

Dave — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:07:13 +0000

Bacon Flavored Jello Shots

Tags: bacon, jello shot

Bacon Flavored Vodka Here’s a new product I just ran across…bacon-flavored vodka!! Check it out at http://bakonvodka.com. (Note that bacon is spelled differently, which begs the question, was baconvodka.com already taken?) You can also follow them on Twitter…@baconvodka. Looks like it will only be available in the northwest starting in April, so it may be a while before a Swine-O-Mite member is able to do a formal review, but it definitely looks interesting. Maybe we could serve it to our on-site judges at the next contest?? Tags: bacon, jello shot ...
Skittles Flavored Vodka For some reason, it seems that nearly every grill or smoker needs some form of alcohol in order to produce some good tasting meat. At least, that’s our experience. Personally, I usually stick to the cold beer, some like wine, but others like to experiment a little with the liquor and come up with some strange concoctions. The folks over at Mix That Drink have a nice tutorial on making a very colorful and flavorful beverage…Skittle flavored vodka. The recipe certainly looks pretty easy and produces what appears to be a very potent drink. Be sure to drink and/or mix at your own risk! A bag of Skittles and a few bottles of vodka will go well with our 1000+ jello shots down at Memphis in May! Tags: bacon, jello shot ...
Bacon Explosion in Memphis Here’s a recipe we’ll be trying shortly…it’s called a Bacon Explosion, and looks to be delicious, although very fattening and “heart-threatening”. http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/ See pics of our own Bacon Explosion here. Tags: bacon, jello shot ...

Memphis in May 2009 Pictures

Dave — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:27:46 +0000

The pictures from last week at Memphis in May have been posted here, or you can browse to them from the menu above.

Thanks to Jack Antonuk for snapping all these.

Tags: Pictures

Grilling in the Memphis Snow If you tried to grill out this past weekend in Memphis, you would have seen this: As one reader (@PlowBoysBBQ via Twitter) called it, it’s a “Weber Snow Cone”! Tags: Pictures ...

MIM 2009 Results

Dave — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:57:07 +0000

The Swine-O-Mite Team, 2009

The Swine-O-Mite BBQ team proudly finished 17th out of 106 teams this past week at the World Championship BBQ Cooking Contest here in Memphis. We were just 4.4 points away from the Top 10. This was our best finish at MIM, and continues a trend of improvements in our product.

Thanks to all the team members who spent many hours down on the river setting, cooking, cleaning, and finally tearing it all down again.

Also, thanks to our sponsor, The Memphis Area Teacher’s Credit Union, or MATCU, for their continued sponsorship.

More pictures will be published soon.

Tags: MIM

Welcome! Welcome to the newly designed website for The Swine-O-Mite BBQ Team! This website was created to: help promote the Swine-O-Mite BBQ name help promote the Swine-O-Mite BBQ product recruit new members advertise for our sponsors share recipes and cooking techniques that we use share photographs of our contests and cooks Your comments are welcome. Tags: MIM ...

MIM 2009 - Day 2

Dave — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:37:16 +0000

After loading in yesterday in the rain, today was the first real working day. The big tent got set up last night, flooring got laid today, and the smokers are in place. Now just to organize, and then start cooking…

MIM 2009 Day 2 Progress

Tags: MIM

Memphis in May 2009 Location & Map

Dave — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:43:47 +0000

Our booth number is R-090. We are on the north end of the park, closest to the Beale Street entrance. Look for the People’s Choice tent…we are two tents north of it.

MIM 2009 Map

A full size map of the park can be found here.

Bring your mud boots…looks to be a wet one.

Tags: map, memphis in may

Memphis in May, 2008 The Memphis in May contest is always a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. No exception this year. The weather was nice, although a little chilly on Thursday night, which cut down on the crowd. But we made up for it on Friday and served a huge crowd a lunch and dinner of ribs, butt, catfish, hush puppies, BBQ nachos, tenderloin, and some slaw and potato salad….and a few beers to wash it all down with. The competitions didn’t fare too well, although it’s always a crap-shoot when you’re competing against a large number other teams. Everything has to come out perfectly in order to do well. We competed in ribs, beef, exotic, and the tomato sauce categories. We would like to thank our two sponsors, Chris Price Ford and the Memphis Area Teacher’s Credit Union, for their help in making the event a success. Tags: map, memphis in may ...
Grilling in the Memphis Snow If you tried to grill out this past weekend in Memphis, you would have seen this: As one reader (@PlowBoysBBQ via Twitter) called it, it’s a “Weber Snow Cone”! Tags: map, memphis in may ...

What Color Do You Like Your Ribs?

Dave — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:09:01 +0000

Every cook has a different “method” of smoking ribs, and because of that finished ribs have many different colors to them. The color is affected by the:

cooking time
amount and type of wood/fuel used
contents of the rub/sauce that is applied
wrapping (or not wrapping) the ribs during cooking
basting or finishing sauce

What color do you like your ribs to be? Please answer the poll in the left sidebar or leave a comment here.

If you’re associated with a competitive team or are a judge, please leave a comment as well.

Tags: color, ribs

Cook Times for Pork Butts and Shoulders

Dave — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:26:21 +0000

Here are a few guidelines for cooking pork butts and shoulders. I’m posting these as a result of some questions from friends, as well as an “incident” I had recently where some of the meat didn’t quite finish getting to temperature in time (they were edible, but just not “fall of the bone” good).

Pork should be cooked to a minimum of 160F degrees. To really render all the fat out and have the meat turn out tender, shoot for 190-195F. At this temp, the bone should pull out cleanly, and most of the fatty, connective tissue should be gone.
A good temperature to maintain in the smoker is around 220F. If you have a water pan, this keeps the water boiling, which creates steam and maintains the temperature better.
Plan for a minimum of 1 to 1.5 hours per pound. Most pork butts are around 7-10 lbs (double for shoulders), so this means a good 8 hours is required to get the meat up to temp.
The time required is primarily based on the size of the meat, the amount of fat, and the consistency of the cooking temperature.
You can apply smoke to the meat up until it reaches around 120F degrees. After that, the chemical reaction between the acids in the meat and the smoke residue is complete. One way to get a larger “smoke ring” is to put the meat on the smoker while it is colder (but not frozen)…this allows for more smoking time before the meat gets to 120F.
The meat will approach 160F rather quickly and then the rate of temperature increase will level off for a few hours. Just keep the fire going.

If you run out of time and your meat hasn’t reached 190F, don’t fret. There are a few things you can do:

Power cook it! Crank the temperature up in the smoker.
Use the oven. It may be “cheating”, but you can control the temperature a little better and get it as hot as you want to easier in the oven. Again, at this point you aren’t going to apply any more smoke…all you really need is heat.
Take the meat off, wrap it, let it cool a bit, and refrigerate overnight. Finish them in the morning. Alternatively, you can wrap them and store them in a small cooler. They will stay warm until you can continue the cooking process.

Remember, BBQ is all about “low and slow”. Plan accordingly.

Tags: butt, cooking time, pork, shoulder

Aluminum Foil - Shiny or Dull Side? My wife enjoys baking cookies, cakes, and sweet stuff probably more than I enjoy smoking BBQ. The other day as she was preparing something for the oven, she asked me which side of the aluminum foil to put towards the “outside”. It stumped me. And even worse, she knew it stumped me. Although I’ve used thousands of feet of aluminum foil wrapping ribs, butts, shoulders, and even wood, I’ve never really stopped to think about it. If you take a moment to look at a piece of foil, there’s a shiny side and a dull side. Surely there’s a reason for that, right? Maybe all the times I’ve overcooked some ribs or undercooked a pork butt could be blamed on the dull side (or the shiny side) facing the meat?? Not so. According to Wikipedia: Aluminum foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminum is rolled during the final pass. It is nearly impossible to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, therefore, for the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. When the sheets are later separated, the inside surface is dull, and the outside surface is shiny. This difference in the finish has led to the perception that favoring a side has an effect when cooking. While many believe that the shiny side’s reflective properties keep heat out when wrapped on the exterior and keep heat in when facing exterior, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation. Glad I don’t have to worry about that any more. Tags: butt, cooking time, pork, shoulder ...

Bacon Flavored Vodka

Dave — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:07:10 +0000

Here’s a new product I just ran across…bacon-flavored vodka!!

Check it out at http://bakonvodka.com. (Note that bacon is spelled differently, which begs the question, was baconvodka.com already taken?) You can also follow them on Twitter…@baconvodka.

Looks like it will only be available in the northwest starting in April, so it may be a while before a Swine-O-Mite member is able to do a formal review, but it definitely looks interesting. Maybe we could serve it to our on-site judges at the next contest??

Tags: Alcohol, bacon, bakon, vodka

Skittles Flavored Vodka For some reason, it seems that nearly every grill or smoker needs some form of alcohol in order to produce some good tasting meat. At least, that’s our experience. Personally, I usually stick to the cold beer, some like wine, but others like to experiment a little with the liquor and come up with some strange concoctions. The folks over at Mix That Drink have a nice tutorial on making a very colorful and flavorful beverage…Skittle flavored vodka. The recipe certainly looks pretty easy and produces what appears to be a very potent drink. Be sure to drink and/or mix at your own risk! A bag of Skittles and a few bottles of vodka will go well with our 1000+ jello shots down at Memphis in May! Tags: Alcohol, bacon, bakon, vodka ...
Bacon Flavored Jello Shots [caption id="attachment_238" align="alignnone" width="679" caption="Bacon Flavored Jello Shots"][/caption] Tags: Alcohol, bacon, bakon, vodka ...
Bacon Explosion in Memphis Here’s a recipe we’ll be trying shortly…it’s called a Bacon Explosion, and looks to be delicious, although very fattening and “heart-threatening”. http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/ See pics of our own Bacon Explosion here. Tags: Alcohol, bacon, bakon, vodka ...

Grilling in the Memphis Snow

Dave — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:25:40 +0000

If you tried to grill out this past weekend in Memphis, you would have seen this:

As one reader (@PlowBoysBBQ via Twitter) called it, it’s a “Weber Snow Cone”!

Tags: grill, memphis, snow, weber

Bacon Explosion in Memphis Here’s a recipe we’ll be trying shortly…it’s called a Bacon Explosion, and looks to be delicious, although very fattening and “heart-threatening”. http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/ See pics of our own Bacon Explosion here. Tags: grill, memphis, snow, weber ...
Memphis in May 2009 Pictures The pictures from last week at Memphis in May have been posted here, or you can browse to them from the menu above. Thanks to Jack Antonuk for snapping all these. Tags: grill, memphis, snow, weber ...