Meat

Nelsonville, Ohio’s public square was not especially vegeterian-friendly Oct. 16 as competition barbecue teams from all over the midwest gathered for the annual Ohio Smoked Meat & BBQ Festival.
While the majority of the three-dozen entrants were from Ohio, teams from Indiana and Oklahoma ended up taking first and second places, respectively. Each team was required to prepare four smoked meat items: chicken, pork ribs, pulled pork, and beef brisket. The items were delivered at specified times to a panel of lucky judges in the Nelsonville Elks lodge, who chowed down and deliberated. The judges are certified by the Kansas City Barbecue Society, which sanctioned the contest.
“I built this over the winter,” said Earnie Dotson of Torch, Ohio, displaying his elaborate trailer-mounted barbecue kitchen and multi-smoker rig. Dotson and his wife Tina got interested in competition barbecue in recent years and designed the kitchen with the help of a friend who is a master smoke chef. “This is our first year” at the Nelsonville event. They did well for newcomers, finishing 19th overall and finished 7th in the pork butt judging.
The smokemasters at Brutus and Company, the perennial favorites from Vincent, Ohio, said they believed their succulent ribs were the best they’d ever made, but in the rib judging they took second place to Grey Street BBQ of Avon, Indiana. The Washington County team took third place in both pork butt and brisket and finished in fourth place overall. They took first place in the 2013 competition.
Because it is a competition, meat prepared by the entrants may not be sold, but samples may be given away – an expensive proposition when the crowd runs into the hundreds over the course of the day. This leads to spectators imitating dogs by the back door at dinnertime, some asking for samples, others waiting for a pork rib or a piece of brisket to be offered. For those who didn’t develop relationships with the competitors, barbecue was available from noncompeting vendors.

Nelsonville, Ohio’s public square was not especially vegeterian-friendly Oct. 16 as competition barbecue teams from all over the midwest gathered for the annual Ohio Smoked Meat & BBQ Festival.
While the majority of the three-dozen entrants were from Ohio, teams from Indiana and Oklahoma ended up taking first and second places, respectively. Each team was required to prepare four smoked meat items…  (read more)

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