Adams Rib Rib & Steak Challenge

This past weekend we competed in the Adams Rib Rib & Steak Challenge in Van Dyne, WI. As the title suggests, it was a double rib turn in and a steak competition and made for a very busy day.

The Lovely Jubbly BBQ Competition Team consists of myself, Mitch, My wife Dani, our daughter Ellie (a rib eating machine) along with my dad Mick and his girlfriend Kelly. Between the 5 of us, we make a pretty efficient team that has a lot of fun mixed in. We did something different this weekend that is going to replace photos for this week’s blog post. We filmed as much of the day as possible, and it will be posted on the Lovely Jubbly BBQ Facebook page once the editing is complete.

This competition was the inaugural competition for both the new Lovely Jubbly Mobile (my new competition trailer) and our new Old Country BBQ Pits G2 insulated offset smoker. The trailer is a fantastic addition to our competition setup. Having the storage is great, being able to make a more permanent setup is even better and we don’t have to unload it and return it to U-Haul when we are finished with it. Cleaning up after a comp is so much easier when we only have to pull out what needs to be cleaned, and then put it back and ready for the next time. Plus, it was very windy at this competition, so having a workspace that was out of the wind was a huge benefit. The smoker is insulated and is a tank. It was a lot of fun learning to work with it while actually competing. As i mentioned before, It was very windy, so even the insulated firebox was struggling in the 20-30mph winds, but we made due and made some awesome ribs on it.

Given that it was a double rib competition, I wanted 4 racks of spare ribs, 2 per turn in to give myself enough ribs to choose from, and I tried something different this time as far as brand and where I sourced them from. These ribs were Prairie Fresh Prime Spare Ribs and this was the first time I had used them. I am familiar with Prairie Fresh from using their Naturals line of products, usually from Walmart, but I had heard of the Primes and decided that this level of competition was the perfect place to try some high quality meat. I found them at Piggly Wiggly in Milton and was able to order them through the meat department. Each rack had great marbling (fat interwoven throughout the meat) and each rack was 4-5 pounds each, where the Naturals are usually anywhere from 2.5-4 pounds per rack, so more meat.

The steaks were provided by the event organizer and the 3 choices for steak cuts were Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin. For steak selection, each team was called randomly to grab a box of 2 steaks without looking at them, I ended up grabbing a box with NY Strips in it, which I was perfectly fine with because it is my favorite cut. Most people like Ribeye’s, and I like them too, but the more people that order Ribeye’s, are less people taking my NY Strips ;).

The process started Friday afternoon as we set up the trailer and got everything ready to go for Saturday. 4:30 Saturday morning we got up and hit the road for the 90 minute drive to Van Dyne. Once we arrived at our site, we set the trailer up, got the fire started to preheat the smoker and set the site up. About 8:15 we trimmed the ribs from full spares down to St Louis style, removed the membranes and got the first set of ribs rubbed with The Everything seasoning and let it set for 15 minutes. The And Then Some went on about 8:45ish and rested till just before 9 when I had to go to the cooks meeting, so the first 2 racks were put on. The same process started at 9 for the second turn in.

Once the ribs were on, we were able to socialize for a little while, see some fellow BBQ friends that were there and make some new friends as well. My ribs process for this competition is the same as my normal process, so instead of repeating the entire process, please see my “RIBS! RIBS! RIBS!” post from 9/16.

Steak turn in started at 12 and ended at 12:30, so we started cooking the steaks about 11:40ish and put the grill grate on top of the hot charcoal chimney in order to get a nice sear on the outside, and then rest before turning in. The requirement for the steak cook was a supper club steak, and cooked the way we would want to eat a steak, so we went with the one we liked best to turn in, and then chowed down on the other one that was left behind. We got our steak turned in almost right away in the window, and then shared leftovers with our surrounding teams, like they did to us.

Once we worked through the rib cook, the first Rib turn in window was 1-130 and I decided to do a Hollywood cut on these ribs. A Hollywood cut is cutting out a rib by skipping a bone so it maximizes the meat on a single rib bone, giving as much meat per bone to each judge as possible. I can admit that I was not as pleased with this turn in as I was hoping to be, but we made it on time and got 6 bones turned in as required, so you can’t ask for much more. The second turn in window was 2-2:30 and I was very pleased with this box, you’ll find out soon why it’s an ironic statement.

After getting everything cleaned up we went in for awards. Top 10 in Steak got a call, and the top 5 got a check, along with a medal. Top 10 in Ribs got calls and checks, along with medals, and the top 2 of each got trophies. In total, the results for us weren’t the best, but like I said, we made each turn in on time and despite the troubles with the wind, I couldn’t ask for more.

Our results were:

• Steak: 18th of 23 teams.
• Rib A: 21st out of 31 teams.
• Rib B: 31st out of 31 teams.

Like I said, I was not proud of my first rib box, but we clearly faired better with that box than we did the second box, hence the irony. It has been said before though, if you don’t like your turn in, chances are the judges will, and vice versa.

This will probably be our last competition for 2024, but I am already looking at planning for at least 5 next year already. More to come with that as they get closer.

As always, Keep Cookin’ and Lovely Jubbly!