Viewers like you make this
program possible. Support your local PBS station. (laughing) (men conversing) - Welcome to BBQ With Franklin. On this episode I'm really
stepping out of my comfort zone. We're heading out to Kansas
City for a BBQ competition. And is nothing like what we
cook here at the restaurant, so I'm gonna check
in with an old friend that knows a thing or two about
competitions, John Markus. (country music) So I'm heading out
to Kansas City. I signed up for a
KCBS competition. - You are gonna go cook a BBQ competition?
(Aaron laughing) - [Aaron] This guy.
- I mean I've never been in a car wreck, but
I don't wanna do it. (Aaron laughing)
30 years ago competition started as
a sauce competition. That was the very
first BBQ contest. It was the Do Wah
Diddy sauce contest that Artie Davis started
with Carolyn Wells and the other KCBS
original founders. And then it graduated into
meat, and then at some point during the process of these
contests, someone decided to use sweet, because--
- [Aaron] And then look out. - And then it was
like you can't get the genie back in the bottle,
the genie is slathered in sugary almost candied
apple kind of a glaze. And that's considered
great BBQ in that world. So because they're all
trying to please the judges and the judges
supposedly like sweet, people are not trying to
find their own palates or their own taste profiles, they're trying to find
the judges' profiles. - Yeah, but the kicker is, is
that I don't cook that style. - [John] Right, but they don't
- I have no idea, I only have like thoughts. - They think you're
coming to beat them. That's what they're gonna think. I'm just getting
you ready for it. - [Aaron] No, you're
right, you're right. And that's kinda what
I'm worried about. - And you're a nice guy,
be prepared to be hated. (Aaron yells) That's what you're
gonna have to bring it. You want your game face on, you don't want anyone
messing with ya. I want you to know that
I'll be thinking of you the entire time you're in
Kansas during this contest, and I'll be smiling.
(Aaron laughs) I'm looking forward to this.
- [Aaron] Smiling at me at my failures.
- [John] It's gonna be a great it's gonna be a dawn of
a new knowledge for you. to have done this.
- [Aaron] It's gonna be very interesting.
- [John] It really will be. - It's definitely out of my
element, that's for sure. - And I'll tell ya something, if you win any cash
prizes, I'll match 'em. (Aaron laughing)
That's how well I think you're not gonna do.
(Aaron laughing) - Thanks a lot. - [John] (laughing)
Anytime Aaron. (country music)
- So it's about a 12 hour drive from
Austin to Kansas City. After talking to
John a little bit, I'm not looking to place
very high on this thing, that's for sure. You know, they don't use
a lot of black pepper and stuff like we do in Texas. I'm also in the habit of really kinda over
cooking everything, cause at the restaurant
everything's really,
really tender. But up here, you know
when you bite into a rib, they don't want it
to be too tender, the brisket shouldn't
be too tender, so that's gonna be a
little tricky for me. If anything goes
wrong, it's really gonna throw a wrench
in our spokes. But hopefully that
won't be the case. (laughing) Or it might
be, I don't know. Drama. And of course there's
no way to pull off all this stuff without a helper. So my helper's gonna
be Steve Jefferson, my trusty father-in-law. Steve does a fair amount of
competitions down in Texas. Never done a KCBS before, so it's certainly a
first time for him too, but he's a real good
guy to have on hand. Did you get that? (both men laughing) There's the chickens,
that's right there, brisket's right there, ribs
right there, all factory sealed. So, hey thanks. See ya later. It's just time to get to work. We're kinda getting
set up right here, got our cooker set up, you know
get the walls on this thing. If it gets windy we
certainly don't want the wind on our food and we also kinda want some
privacy if you will. With competition, is it,
we're always looking to see what the next guy is doing and that's actually called
shigging in some circles. So, walls, I like it. Then we can kinda
hang out in peace. So, it's kinda nice. It's also hot. We need to get some fans. Steve and I did a
test cook last week. So we're kinda ready,
but to complicate things, we're also doing a split cook. So we're lighting up our cooker while a lot of other
teams are still arriving. I think we'll do 15
minute increments, probably about 10 o'clock
when we start getting busy we'll switch to five minute
increments on this thing. Because the way I've
timed out all these cooks this is kinda what I wrote
out for the brisket stuff. So, 1:30 turn in, 1:15,
test box blah, blah, blah. 1:05, one o'clock, yeah
I don't really know about the chicken thing. I don't have that
timed out very good. Ah, we'll just have wing it. - [Steve] Well, when did we
put 'em on the test cook? - [Aaron] I don't wanna
cook 'em like that though. - I know, but the time's
gonna be about the same. - Well it will, I'm
figuring an hour and a half for thighs.
-[Steve] That's probably
about right. I'm still setting
up by the cooker, so I've sent Steve
to the cook's meeting. - Let me speak up,
can you hear me? Welcome to Kansas Speedway. I'm happy to present the
first annual Balloons and BBQ. Hopefully we can do
this for years to come. The balloon fest here,
this is their seventh year and it's a good show. Okay? Thank you very much. (clapping and cheering) - Okay, My name is Larry Hadley. As KCBS reps we are
here to ensure you get a fair and impartial evaluation. And to make sure KCBS rules
and regulations are followed. To qualify for a grand champion you must enter the four
basic KCBS categories. Pork is defined as Boston
Butt, Boston Roast, Picnic and/or Whole Shoulder. Cooked defined according
to USDA as achieving an internal temperature
of 145 degrees for pork and brisket,
165 degrees for chicken. You have a 10 minute window, five minutes before
to five minutes after the announced turn in times. You must be in line,
not running to the line. Thank you and good luck. - [Voiceover] Packets,
does anybody need a packet? You need one?
- [Steve] Yeah. - [Voiceover]
Okay, where is lot? (cooks chatting) - [Aaron] Ew. Two pork butts that
we're gonna do. I gotta trim these
things up a little bit. The seam fat between
these muscles is, really is like a road map
for what we're going for. That way we can get lots
of good bark on there. You know, cause this stuff's
totally getting parted out. And if you look where
the blade bone is, opposite of that is
the money muscle. This resembles a tenderloin. It's the tenderest
piece on the pork butt but it cooks at
a different rate. And when we turn these in, we're gonna slice one inch
medallions outta this. So I wanna make
sure that I get bark all the way around it. That's called the money muscle cause that's supposedly
what brings home the money. Now pork butt's a pretty
bland piece of meat. There's not a whole
lot going on in there, it also needs some moisture. So, we made an injection. It's pretty much salt, a
little bit of brown sugar, some really nice water, a
little bit of apple juice. That's pretty much it. Injecting pork butts is not
a standard thing for me. You know on one hand
it's just another tool to make something
more flavorful. On the other hand it's so, like, you know what do we
do at the restaurant is to keep things just simple, traditional, in a
real purist way. So this is a different
world for me, but you can't show up to
a gun fight with a knife. Can't show up to a knife
fight with an injector, it would be terrible. Yeah, and I'm like an hour
and a half behind schedule. Then I start getting
the briskets ready. This is mostly for presentation. If the bottom of our turn
in box is seven inches, I wanna make the brisket
a little bit bigger than seven inches
so when it shrinks it'll actually conform and be
the right size that I want it. I want bark all the way
around each and every slice. I need to have what little
bit of fat layer it is, it needs to be exactly
consistent all the way across. I'm gonna rub the brisket
down, rub the butts down. Keep in mind we're
doing a split cook here, so that means the briskets
and the pork butts are gonna go on
ridiculously early. Probably the first
people cooking out here. (lid slams) (laughing)
The world of BBQ can be pretty small,
so you're bound to run into someone you know
when you're at a competition. Well, well, well.
- [Rod] Oh, hello. - [Aaron] Mr. BBQ. - How are ya?
- [Aaron] Mr. BBQ. [Rod] How are ya?
- Man, I'm doing good. - Thanks for coming to
my part of the country. - [Aaron] Yeah,
it's interesting. - Yeah, outta your element here. - [Aaron] I'm so outta my
element it's not even funny. - This is like secret sauce. - [Aaron] You wanna give me
maybe a little bit of a rundown? Layman's rundown on KCBS? - So KCBS now, the
largest sanctioning body, BBQ sanctioning body in the
world I guess you would say. They're like the NFL. You know, they
oversee the contests and provide the referees. They're just here to make sure we get a fair shake when
we turn our food in. - Going into this,
what do you think I should be keeping in mind? - So KCBS judges are instructed to judge each entry
on it's own merit. Which simply means, to me,
good food is good food. So there's no one
right way to cook BBQ, but I'm gonna give
you one little hint. Sauce it.
- [Aaron] Yeah. - [Aaron] I know it
goes against your grain. - It hurts me inside. - Put some sauce on it.
(Aaron laughing) Even if it's just
- [Aaron] Just put some darn sauce on it.
- [Rod] just a little bit. Put a little bit of sauce on it. - Yeah, I made some sauces.
- [Rod] The judges are expecting some sauce. - [Aaron] Yeah, I
kinda figured so too. - [Rod] And only put your
best stuff in the box. But just like the NFL,
on any given Saturday anybody here could win, so. - Ah, that totally
makes me feel better. Thanks. - Tofu 15 minutes, tofu
turn in 15 minutes. Tofu.
(upbeat music) - [Aaron] You wanna tape down
down another cutting board for your skins and I'll trim
thighs and you do skins? - [Steve] Okay. - Clean hand, dirty hand. - I'm gonna have two
dirty hands, I can't - Yeah, you can't help it. - And so a lot of
people over the years have talked about crispy skin. Well, it's maybe not
really crispy skin, but it is bite through skin. Each judge gets one thigh. They're gonna take a bite
and the last thing you want is for that judge to take a bite and all of the skin
pulls right off. Most likely that's
what will happen, but we're gonna try our darndest
to make that not happen. And the way to go about that is that you pull off the skin, you scrape all
the fat off of it. I'm gonna shape the
meat on the thigh. I'm not gonna toothpick
it back on right now, that's gonna happen
tomorrow when we rub 'em. - [Steve] And during
out test cook last week, there was only one piece
that when you bit through it, it wasn't crispy, it just
pulled the whole thing off. And so we had a pretty
good run last week. - [Aaron] There
are a lot of people that don't clip the
knuckles off the bones. And normally I wouldn't,
but for me in this case it's more so I have
a real uniform width on my chicken thighs
and I want 'em all exactly the same alignment. So it's really just
for presentation. You know thanks
again for helping me. I know I've thanked
you like 40 times, but - [Steve] Yeah, quit it. - [Aaron] I'm really
glad you're here. - Well, I'm glad I'm here too. - Now get back to work, here's
another chicken skin. (announcer heard in distance) - [Announcer] Tonight it
is all burn in five, four, three, two, one, all burn. Pilots all burn, light 'em up. - [Aaron] So parsley. You wanna have a nice
green background. You wanna have a nice pallet. A display if you will
for your turn in box. You wanna kinda intertwine
'em a little bit. You know, it's a necessity,
but this piece is terrible. This would never score. I like this one though. (slow jazzy music) (slow jazzy music) All right, so it's
getting pretty late. I've got my briskets up to
temp, got pork butts up to temp, Smokin' Stevo's in there scraping the fat outta
the chicken skins. I'm getting pretty tired,
got a full day tomorrow. I'm gonna go catch
some Zs in a lawn chair until about four a.m. (upbeat country music) So I've got four
meats ithat I'm turning in. Brisket, pork ribs, pork
shoulder and chicken. Since you're a certified judge, you know when the blind box
comes in, we put it in a box with some parsley, garnish
and all that stuff. When it comes to the table,
what is a BBQ judge looking for? Like what's gonna,
like what route should I take to score highly? - What competition BBQ awards is not necessarily what you do. When you're being certified
as a judge, you learn that say when you bite into a rib, if you pull the rib off
the bone it's overcooked. But if you
- [Aaron] I happen to like my ribs that way.
- [John] Most people do. Like, I never worry
about overcooking ribs when I'm having people over, cause they don't think
like a BBQ judge. They love that
fall-off-the-bone, they call it. But in BBQ you have to see the impression of
your bite in the meat. And that's the rule. That means you've
cooked it expertly. And that does take a real
pitmaster to be able to do that. - Going into this competition,
I mean that's a style that's so different from
how I normally cook. It's all about patience
and just kinda, it's done when it's done,
it's tender when it's tender, you can't rush it. It's gonna be interesting.
- [John] You know what it's like, it's like
taking a guy outta the olympics who runs the 100 meters and
putting him into a marathon. And this is like the opposite. You're a marathon runner, and
you're gonna be sprinting. (Aaron laughing)
That's what you're gonna be doing.
- [Aaron] I've never sprinted before.
- [John] Oh, you're gonna be sprinting, I wish I was there. (beeping) (liquid trickling) (slow, quiet music) - [Aaron] In the wee
hours of the morning it's time to get the ribs out. I've gotta cut them
all to a uniform length and peel the membranes off. I've gotta get these ribs
looking as pretty as possible. I'm gonna use a mustard slather,
and then I'm gonna season and get these ribs a cooking. Right around this time we've gotta start
wrapping the other meats. And in the Kansas City
competition world, you wrap everything in foil. (crinkling) Chickens go on last, so I
can wait til the morning to put the brine together and
get those birds submerged. Brine concentrate. And then we're back
to watching fires. (sighs) (rooster crows) (fast paced music) When it's time to wrap the ribs, we're using foil
just like before. And we're putting in some brown
sugar, honey and margarine to get that super sweet
competition flavor. (crinkling) The chickens have brined plenty, so we can start
getting them together. - [Steve] How's the schedule? - [Aaron] Eh, it's pretty good. We'll actually prep
each piece of meat, then wrap them around the bone and pin the skin
on with toothpicks. - [Steve] Yeah and I've go
the temperature just right. (Aaron humming) The skins are perfectly crisp. You know, whoever did those
skins, he was spot on. You know, I don't know about
the butcher job underneath, but the skins were perfect. (upbeat music) - Yes, it's hot. All right, there's first
one, start filling in. Be sure the stems
stick down in there so they don't pull out too. See how I'm just
kinda doing that and getting it real
tight down in there. Two minutes? - [Voiceover] Yep, ready to go. - Okay, stop garnish please. Break a leg Carney.
(ding) Not literally. All right, so that stays there. Let's reset for
the next turn-in. For presentation,
I want the cleanest and quickest cuts possible. So I'm gonna get out
the old electric knife. All right, start filling
up right around in there. And once we've got
eight perfect ribs, we stack 'em up, give
'em a quick spritz and send 'em off for turn-in. That's it. - [Carney] Watch out behind. - [Steve] All right.
- Don't break a leg. - [Steve] Ah, you can't say
our butts aren't tender. Now that's the mark of
a done pork right there. He's got the money
muscle over there that, - Yeah, these are,
we're getting medallions outta these right there. Now what I'm doing
is arranging pieces where they kind fan up,
in a nice little display. You can see good bark, fat
render, which there's
plenty of that. All right he's
coming in with pull. - [Steve] Okay. - [Aaron] Ah, I like that pepper
right there, that's great. - [Steve] You want that there? - [Aaron] Ah, it looks
awesome, well I think. But then again I'm from Texas. So I'm just gonna dab
the top of things. All right, wipe it and run it. Okay, it's gotta go.
- [Steve] Okay. - Carne for Carney. - I wanted to try it. (fast rock music) - [Aaron] So that's
where our burnt ends are coming from, right there. In Kansas you've got
to have burnt ends that come from the point, the
fatty side of the brisket. They're cut off, sauced, and
then put back on the cooker. Burnt ends are a
Kansas City delicacy. It would be so funny if we
placed super poor in brisket. I somehow built an
entire career on this. - [Steve] Hang
up, cut one there. - [Aaron] All right,
start cleaning those up. Okay, I need some parsley. - [Steve] Okay,
where do ya need it? - [Aaron] Ah, just
right up in there. - [Steve] Okay. Yeah, there's about three. - [Aaron] That's
okay, we gotta go. Where is this thing? I'll just follow the
other, other people (laughing) (country music) - The judges basically have
a lot of BBQ to sample. So they have to learn to get their impressions
in one bite. The very first
impression is appearance. You're looking for,
like a perfect glaze. You wanna get 'em with
how they sit in the box, that your parsley
has been arranged, that box is open
and it's almost like you're showing a
diamond to people. They're just like bringing the
box around to show everybody. You never see grown
people act so weird over a piece of chicken thigh. And then of course
the second thing's gonna be taste and tenderness. Taste is very subjective. So this is where that
judging thing comes in, where judges are looking
for what is in vogue now. The scores you get
back, you'll see maybe that five of the six
judges gave you high marks. Like out of possible
nine they gave you eights and nines on
your brisket, say. But there's one judge at the
table who gives you a five. - [Aaron] Well KCBS
drops the low score. - [John] Okay, well
that's a good rule. But let's say that
- [Aaron] It is a good rule. - [John] a second
person gives you a six. So you get four nines and a six. That takes you out
of the running. I think you're gonna
have an interesting time. - [Voiceover] All teams here, say Ay.
- [Teams] Ay. - [Voiceover] Let's
get this rolling. Top 10, we're gonna
call 'em all out. Everybody's getting
paid, the top 10. In first place chicken, proud to announce
we have a 180 score. (cheering and whistling) Okay, here we go with ribs. - [Aaron] Well, we sat
through all the awards. And our name never got called. Turns out we place just about
dead center of all 50 teams. (cheering and clapping) - Here's to a long day. - Here's to a long night. - Oh, okay. Was there a night in there? I think we had a
pretty good cook. It seemed to go real
well, real smooth. There didn't seem
to be any hangups. - No, no hangups. You know, I had fun. - [Steve] Well, it was, it was. It was good camaraderie and it's nice cooking with
somebody that knows the meat. - [Aaron] Well, I gotta go do
something pretty important. - You're gonna be back
pretty quick, right? - [Aaron] Oh yeah,
I'll be right back. - [Steve] Okay.
- [Aaron] Thanks. I'll see you soon.
- [Steve] Well, I'll start. (playful music)
(kids screaming) - Aw man, I felt like
that might do something. You guys are setting
me up for failure here. (women chatting and laughing) (alarm)
(clapping) Cooking and preparing food has gone into
the realm of
a sweepstakes. - [Aaron] Well, it's like
Nascar for the food world. - I think BBQ is like Nascar except with less
good looking guys. There are more
weight issues in BBQ
than in Nascar. (Aaron laughing)
I'd like to see Nascar with guys as
heavy that are in BBQ. Because then you're really gonna test the cars.
- [Aaron] I'd like to see a frame that can support
that kind of weight. - (laughing) Exactly. They'd have to like change
all the specs on the cars. (digital music)
