Iowa State Championship BBQ Contest

This contest was held in Marshalltown, Iowa which is a nice small little town of about 28,000 people. It was held in Riverview Park which has a campground with electricity, water, hot showers, clean rest rooms, and a swimming pool. It was just a perfect place for a contest. Nice grassy sites and most with shade. This is Char-Woody's home town.

We (Old Dave & CW) started planning for this contest just as soon it was confirmed that it would move from Des Moines to Marshalltown. I think this was in January. We decided to try the contest with all ceramic cookers. This was nice for me as I would have the camper pretty well loaded without my cookers. Over the next few months, we got most of what we wanted to do with this contest figured out. CW would bring some of the items we need that he had available and I would bring the rest of the material for the contest. CW also built the raised platforms for the cookers and a loading ramp.

We also did some practice cooks by e-mail on some of the recipes that we thought we might use. This was really hard to do but we tried it the best we could so we might have a little experience with the recipes, times, temp, and so on. Anyway, I figured we would be really flying by the seat of our pants at this contest as there was no way to do a practice cook by e-mail.

I also decided to go out to Iowa a few days early so we would have plenty of time to get all of CW's cookers moved to the contest site and to maybe have some time to do a practice round. I also stayed over an extra day to get all the cookers moved back to his home.

We left Coatesville, Indiana early on Tuesday morning on the 25th for Marshalltown which was 450 miles from my home. I say we, as my long time friend Mike Zinkan went along to be the "gopher". He claims to be the Indiana State Champion Micro-Wave cook but won't show me the papers of this win. I don't think he could boil water in a micro-wave! About 1:00 pm in the afternoon, we met CW at a stoplight in a town about 20 miles South of Marshalltown in his big "caddy" and he led us to the campground the back way which was much quicker. After a couple of beers, we got the camper set up and all unloaded. CW and Mike went to the house and loaded up the first round of cookers and brought them to the site along with tables and a bunch of other contest items that we needed. I also got a tour of the town and got a chance to me the wiffy Joyce. We got this all setup where we wanted it and CW and Mike went to get some steaks for the evening meal. While they were gone, a lovely lady reporter (Jenny Welp) from the Times-Republican, the local newspaper showed up at the camper (at this time, we were the only competitor in the campground) and she started asking questions about the contest. She was there about an hour when Mike and CW showed up and they also answered some questions. Anyway, said she would come back and get some pictures later in the day. Didn't have any idea of what she would do with this. She did come back and got a picture of us eating diner on the first night at the contest site. CW had purchased three Prime Amana Ribeyes and had them cut off the whole loin that were about 1-3/4 inch thick and must have weighed about 19-20 oz. each. I think he used a couple of different rubs on these steaks and cooked them up for us that night. Both me and Mike thought that this was one of the better steaks that we had ever eaten in our life.

Wednesday, our second day was a great day at the contest. We bought the local paper to see what Jenny had put in the paper. Figured it might be a couple lines burried in one of the back pages. Heck, we were front page news with an article and a picture that took about 1/3rd of the front page!!! If it wasn't for the first murder in the town for about 14 months, we would have had top billing and been on top of the front page. What a way to start a contest! CW had got a local store (Hy-Vee) to sponsor us and furnish the meat so we went to look at the meat to see what we were getting so it would help us with our timing for the cook. They had selected two butts, two briskets, about 6 slabs of loin back ribs, and about 24 chicken thighs. Wiffy works at this store so I am sure this helped. We spent most of this day with our planning for the contest. I thought we might be able to do a practice cook but it was just too hot with all the days in the mid 90's. Just too damn hot for the "Over the Hill Gang" to do anything but drink beer and tell lies. The team figured that we would only have one shot at this contest so we did want to try to get it right the first time with our planning. CW bought some ground buffalo meat and fixed us up some burgers for our Wednesday night supper. They were just super!

Thursday, our 3rd day at the event was spent with more planning and working out our contest schedule. We had also planned to do a Friday evening party for CW's family and friends along with some folks that we would invite so part of the day was used to get ready for this event. We wanted to do pizza to showcase the ceramic cookers as this is not usually done at a contest. CW and Joyce worked most of the day making the dough and cutting the veggies up for this event. We really needed this done on Thursday as we wouldn't have much time on Friday as we would be getting ready for the contest. There are many other things that happened on the first three days and I know I have forgot some of this. I got to meet both of CW's daughters along with their spouses and one of his two sons. I think the other son lives out of town. I also got to meet many of his friends. I also need to say that my long time friend Mike who is in law enforcement made some friends with the local department and it was fun when they would come by to share stories about police work. Talk about telling lies!!!! They even set up the mobile command center right across the road from us and the shift commander told us to watch it to be sure somebody didn't steel it!!! Besides the contest, there were many other things going on in this town on the same date. CW cooked us a three bone prime rib for this night. My piece must have been about 2 inches thick after he cut it and was as good as I have ever eaten in my life. He also did some super baked potatoes which he had oiled with peanut oil and then added a rub. Just one great meal!

The complete cooking setup. My cooking rig along with CW's cookers. He had all his cookers at the site. From the right, you can see the Primo Oval, next is the standard large Primo, next is his small Egg, next is his large Egg, and not seen in the photo is his mini Egg which we didn't use.

A little closer shot of the cookers and the great platforms that CW built for the contest. The one on the right was built to not only hold the cookers but also to be the loading ramp. He made them so the loading ramp would kinda lock in place with the other platform which was on the ground to make it easier to roll them up into the back of his truck. His whole setup really worked great and I am sure was a lot of work for him.

Our Tuesday night cook just as CW was getting those big prime ribeyes off the cooker. Mike is holding the plates.

I didn't get a picture of our Wednesday night buffalo burgers.

A picture of our Thursday night prime rib. This was a "killer" meal.

The front page of the local paper with the picture and the article that Jenny wrote about the contest.

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