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Im looking foward the this Thursdays premier of BBQ Pitmasters on TLC @ 9:00 p.m..
Direct TV HD channel # 280

I currently dont do competition BBQ( I enjoy competing against my last smoke right now), these festivals, and the pitmasters interest me.

Ill be watching, or recording on the DVR thats for sure.

i was in murphysboro,il. contest when they where filming this should be fun to watch. most of these guys use a jambo pit , 1 klose,1 team uses wsm's.

they are starting out with the cream of the crop in comp bbq thats for sure..i just hope they dont dumb it down like that old show they had on Versus...
either way it will be good exposure for the BBQ Comp scene
Phil ..did you go to 17th Street bar and Grill (Mike Mills place) by chance for BBQ when you were there?

yes, went to 17th st great place. the grand champion plater has everything on it. been to the one in ofallen ,il also. it is mike mills contest down there. he is a great guy for promoting bbq

have to agree on all points...

LTH,

There were a few interesting moments, but in general I didn't think Pitmasters showed competition BBQ in an especially good light. A cocky son of a gun getting straight zeros, a team freaking out about their WSM computer, and thanking god they brought a backup, a noted BBQ man pouring an entire can of lighter fluid on charcoal briquettes and the overall winner browbeating his wife on tv to say he was the king, or whatever the hell that was. Seemed more about ego than anything else. Certainly not for the love of BBQ.

Enjoy,
Gary

I was regretting missing it until I read your review Gary…..Now, not so much.

it was ok to watch because there was not much else on but agree with you gary. next week looks good , with trigg & another guy pushing each other?:

Just another twist on "reality" TV junk if you ask me.

I recorded it on the dvr since it was on past my work night bedtime.

I figure at least its something different than another typical cooking , or cake baking/decoratiing contest shows that I have tired of. Plus its bbq which I think about almost 24/7.

Ill watch it tonight.

Ahh yes.....Paul Peterson. Mr "Im better them all of them because Im a chef"*. Alot of these pros were probably doing this probably since Paul was in diapers and have better experience then he did. The fiance and I were laughing our asses off when he fell asleep in front of the pit and no one could wake him up.


I have to admit I thought that was overkill on the fluid.

I like the show myself, it being alot better then alot of the reality food shows out there. Ive always wanted to be behind the scenes of a BBQ Competition since I been to the Memphis in May and this show hits the spot.

*=I think I remember him saying something like this...Which made it all the funnier when he didnt make it any higher then 35th place.

DDI

I pretty much agree with Gary.

I personally cannot imagine enjoying any food that had been cooked over Kingsford and lighter fluid but I suppose that reflects the difference between meaningful bbq and competition bbq. I still think the truly great stuff is being turned out in people's backyards. Competition bbq seems geared mostly for show. All that technology has the net effect of stripping the soul out of the cooking. I suppose I can see the appeal but it's not really for me.

As a show, it was pretty low budget and reminded me quite a bit of the cook-off programs that are often shown on the Food Network. I'm sure (I hope, at least) that a lot of these folks are nicer in reality than they came off on tv -- not exactly a compelling or charming group of people.

=R=

I agree 100%.

Give me a break! The best & most competitive BBQ contests are very well known to those who cook real BBQ. Kansas City-style and midwest area contests always rank amongst the top in the world. How is it then that no one from KC, or anywhere in the Midwest is cooking on this show? I won't degrade the competitors, but the producers of this TV spoof are ill-informed and/or just plain stupid for not doing their homework. This compares to having a sushi TV show with competitors from Iowa.

yikes.. just watched the episode, cant believe all the lighter fluid that one fella was squirting into his pit. After watching I am thinking this show is not intended for an audience that lives BBQ, but for a casual observer more interested in the personalities, and conflics found in the typical reality show.

i agree with you there is some great cooks & teams from midwest that should have been on this. that will be another show.

I assume you're right and that as future competitions are chronicled in upcoming episodes, other 'personalities' will be included. If not, this show is going to become very tiresome in a hurry.

=R=

I was a bit surprised at the schtick myself..I think that smack talk was encouraged for the show as I know and have competed against a couple of those teams that were on and never heard that bullcrap talk. It is disappointing that they are portraying competition bbq'ers as they did. I gotta say 90 percent of the people I have met, cooked with, cooked against ,and broken bread with at BBQ competitons are not like that. Good example was Tuffy Stone. I think he represented the typical competition bbq'er the best (helping other teams out etc...).
for the record Ive never seen anyone use lighter fluid at a KCBS contest until last night..and I have to agree that some of the technology being used is starting to get way out of hand IMO. A WSM that pretty much maintains a solid temp all night if set up right does not need a Stoker to help it along.

watched this show again & just wanted to add tuffy (cool smoke team) is a level headed man & a bbq guy i look up to on the show . next week watch for jamie geer ( jambo pits) he makes all the shiny trailer cookers. & next week is a dual comption event KCBS & MBN.

I agree about Tuffy. He came off as a super nice guy and also as quite different from most of the other people who were featured in episode 1.

=R=

just talked to jamie geer( jambo pits) he said he is in show # 3 more then others , that they filmed him in all of them but in # 1hardley even showed him said he was disapointed inshow also but watched it the 2nd time & not as bad ? you just don't know when you end up edited to the cutting room floor

aside from the freakin' lighter fluid and the general asstasticness of a lot of the people, what amazed me the most was when Mr. 47th/47 Just. Would. Not. Wake. Up.

It was like he got a hold of Michael Jackson's propfol.

hard to turn last nights episode off after 30 minutes. The bickering, chest thumping, and near fisticuffs is not what bbq is about to me.

Made the mistake of watching part of this last evening too. What a bunch of jagoffs and misfits the show decided to feature. Also, much (probably most) of what they cooked looked subpar, unless you go for things like a hat made out of half a pineapple on your roast hog or ten kinds of sugar on your chicken. I was especially surprised that people would spend tens of thousands of dollars on robo-smokers (with oven dials, yet still incapable of keeping temp) and travel, then use the competition as the occasion to try things out for the first time (e.g., cooking a pig; cooking baby back ribs). Also -- an inexplicable total absence of reference to the local So. Ill. BBQ traditions, 17th Street, the Apple City team, etc., despite the fact that the competition is held in a field adjacent to the 17th Street Bar & Grill. No doubt, creative editing explains some of this. Some.

There are many BBQ enthusiasts and writers out there who hold these goofs up as the pinnacle of BBQ, while the real pitmasters are working their brick-and-mortar or steel and glass pits in relative anonymity.

PS, I know there are many "normal" people who do competition BBQ, and Mike Mills is the undisputed king. I love his original bar & grill and what he does. Don't get me wrong. But the guy who won it all in the episode speaks for himself; he's obviously very successful in a format where his personality and presentation is explicitly part of the competition. That tells me there's an institutional bias favoring -- or at a minimum accepting -- his approach. That might be a new thing, but it's a turn off.

I actually started laughing out loud when Harry Soo, of team Salp yo' Daddy, was running through the lengthy list of sweeteners he planned on adding to his BBQ.

I also noticed a number of blue Parkay margarine squeeze bottles, which seems to be a competition BBQ 'secret weapon.' Here's a link to an incredibly detailed tutorial to Award Winning Competition Chicken, Parkay features prominenntly. Next time someone asks me why I don't compete in BBQ contests I think I will simply send them this link.

Foil and sweet, foil and sweet, competition BBQ is a tasty treat.

Enjoy,
Gary

Wow, I think this thread has turned me off of both watching this show and going to one of these BBQ competitions. Yikes.

Not to pile on, and I know the contestants are simply trying to win, which means appeal to the known tastes of the judges, but I was surprised to see pork shoulders/butts destined for 12-plus hours of cooking removed from a Southern Pride-type cooker and foiled after 3 hours because more smoke and color than that would start costing the team points. The pork wasn't even close to George Hamilton in complexion at the time. It's a whole different thing and it explains a gap in understanding I never fully appreciated before. No wonder so many BBQ comp experts pan traditional regional BBQ places. They are further apart in what they are trying to do than I had realized. Why would anyone going for the form suggested in the show to be ideal BBQ want to have anything to do with Mack's chewy, rustic tips & links, for example. I'd love to know how this evolved. At some point did consensus emerge that a jet black TX brisket or chewy Memphis rib was destined to be a "loser" regardless of how true to the historical ideal they might be? I'd be very interested to see how judges' tastes have "evolved" over time. PS, I don't doubt that the incredibly motivated guys on the competition circuit could make more traditional BBQ. I'm sure they could. Instead, as portrayed in this show, they are using a corn syrup, tinfoil, and Kingsford to make something different. (I don't mean bad -- I'm sure it tastes good, actually.) And I will again recognize that the show has clearly been edited to exaggerate personalities and conflict. However, the show seems way too unsubtle and unconcerned about BBQ to be purposefully over-exposing the use of candy cane sauces and such -- why, to get a rise out of food geeks? Unlikely. I also wonder whether the Memphis events have a different taste than the KC in terms of what's perfect BBQ.

at this comp. all of these guys being filmed where at one end of the event. i cooked with bandt bbq in murphysboro & had a great time most(99percent) bbq teams are not like what your are seeing on tv. it is dishartening to watch some of this . but . i'm a bbq guy & i probley will watch them all . it should be titeld jacksold south & wood chicks . that is all they show

Yeah i watched the last 20 mins. or so of the show. Was grim..to much drama and bull.
Will prob. watch again to see if it gets better I dont think it will be on air long if it goes the way the first show went.

The more I watch it, the more it seems like they are hamming it up for the camera.

I'll still watch it. And I will still want to, hopefully, compete in a BBQ Competition.

Plus, its always hard for me to turn away from a BBQ show. LOL