We're very happy to announce that Lumber Jack BBQ Pellets will be fueling our BBQ adventures this season as a sponsor of Philly Special BBQ. As part of a collaboration with the Canadian BBQ Society, we were among a handful of teams chosen across Canada to use Lumber Jack BBQ Pellets as our fuel of choice.

I was also thrilled to be able to add the Lumber Jack Premium Lump charcoal to my supply as well - serving as fuel for my pizza oven, charcoal grill and, of course, the Philly Special drum smoker.

Lumber Jack was very accommodating and easy to work with and have nothing but good things to say about the product! They have a great selection of pellets but I have to say that Pecan Blend is a favourite of mine so far.

If you'd like to give them a try, you can find a retailer near you at lumberjackpellets.ca

In conjunction with Harley Davidson's multi-weekend festival Rally in the Rockies, BBQ on the Bow put on a special mini-competition where teams competed in just two categories - Chicken and RIbs - over the course of an afternoon.

Unlike most other events, the meat was supplied by a sponsor, so everyone was 'on the same footing' so to speak. After randomly drawing our meat packages, it was a quick sprint to get all the trimming and seasoning done and get the BBQ's lit to make the 5.5-hour time frame.

We're happy to say that Philly Special BBQ brought home a 1st place in Ribs and 2nd Place overall!

Many thanks to the sponsors and fellow competitors. It was a great tune-up to the double-header competition coming up on September long weekend.

Wish us luck!

We were super pumped to get back to competing at a real, live, in-person KCBS event!

The Lethbridge Exhibiiton Park put on a great event complete with a sanctioned Masters comp, an Amateur competition, and soem great food demonstrations from some world-renowned chefs.

The actual competition presented some challenges with scorching hot weather to start and significant wind and rainfall to finish - but that is life in Alberta!

Philly Special BBQ was proud to come home with a 3rd place in Brisket - a match for our best ever finish in this prestige category.

We are thankful to Half Hitch Brewery for providing us with refreshments as well as the Lethbridge Exhibition for putting on a top notch event. Can't wait for next year!

Congrats to SmellaQue for winning the Grand Champion! We'll be looking forward to the next competitions in September. !

I certainly don’t claim to have deep personal history with barbecue (relatively speaking) but I know that the roots of barbecue techniques lie in being able to take tough and cheap cuts of meat and turning them into something succulent through the magic of ‘low and slow’. Beef cheeks certainly fit into this category.

Enough talk! Jump straight to recipe.

On their own, beef cheeks are a gnarly-looking cut with lots of silver skin, extraneous fat, and cartilage. They are the polar opposite of a neat and tidy tenderloin steak. But if you and your ‘book-cover-judging’ tendencies can get past that gnarliness, they also naturally have some incredible marbling and - cooked the right way - all those gnarly bits transform into velvety and unctuous bites. Seriously, these are tender as a mother’s love.

The pack that I got actually came beautifully trimmed. You will see recipes on YouTube that tell you to do a yeoman’s worth of trimming work but I don’t think it’s necessary. Even if mine didn’t come trimmed like this, you can get away with only taking off the most offensive pieces and leave most of it on (including most of the silver skin). By the time these cook down and get shredded up, it’ll all incorporate nicely and it will save you a ton of prep work. But, if you want to take that time and trim them down, you ain’t hurting’ nobody.

For our meal, we did barbacoa tacos. Traditionally these are a full head of an animal (usually cow / lamb / goat) that is slow cooked - in a pit in the ground if we’re keeping it real - and then all pulled and mixed together. Beef cheeks are a simplified version of that. We just happen to love tacos but there is no shortage of ways to use this stuff. It can be be sliced, pulled or chopped. It can become a star of tacos, sliders, nachos, frito pies, hash, and all sorts of other great options. So I will leave all those ingredients off this recipe and leave that up to you.

As for the actual cooking process, there are two important cooking steps. The first is developing a healthy, crunchy, smoky bark. The second is getting them tender through a braising process. That braising process is why we need that bark. We want to be able to finish with a firm exterior to contrast the velvety interior.

Knowing that step 2 is coming, we want to season liberally - just be careful with the amount of salt you use. If you use a typical 50-50 salt and pepper mix (on a brisket, for example), you can easily go 2 parts pepper and 1 part salt, and then add in whatever else floats your boat (paprika, garlic, brown sugar, etc). It will seem like a lot of pepper but after all the smoke and after the braise, it’ll turn out great. I actually went even lighter on the salt I added because I was compounding my salt and pepper mix with a commercial rub (which generally have plenty of salt as is).

As for the equipment, this was cooked on my UDS (ugly drum smoker - the Philly Special). I think a cut like this works great for this kind of smoker. It is not a delicate cut so it can take all that smoke. It can also handle a bit of a higher cooking temperature. I wanted to cook these in the 275 range and my drum seems to like that 275-300 temperature. Plus, all that extraneous fat can drip on your coals and create it’s own flavourful smoke. But you can certainly do this on a pellet grill and it’ll come out great.

This was my first try using Springbok Braai charcoal, which was pretty great, actually. I tried the briquettes and they were huge briquettes, compared to what I’m used to so they lasted a long time and it smelled great. This was supplemented with some cherry wood - that’s just what I had on hand - but oak and hickory would also be great choices.

A note on the braising process. There is a food truck that I follow and is on my Texas BBQ Road Trip list called Leroy & Lewis. When they cook their beef cheeks and barbacoa, they do a full confit in beef tallow that they make from their brisket trim. I wholeheartedly endorse re-purposing bbq trim in general (and making beef tallow, specifically). Meat is too expensive and we really owe it to those glorious animals to use whatever we can. Plus it is more responsible and more cost-effective.

Anyway, I used the last bit of my beef tallow I had but needed to supplement it with stock for my braising step. You can do all stock or all tallow or a mix, depending on what you have on hand.

Lastly, the recipe shows what I cooked - a ~2lbs package. The next time I do this, I will definitely double or triple the amount of meat. It freezes really well and it just makes more sense to utilize the available cooking space if you’re going to do something that takes 6-8 hours.

On to the recipe!

RECIPE

Meat

• 2 lbs beef cheeks, trimmed or not.

Rub

• 2:1 mix of coarse pepper and kosher salt
• your favourite BBQ rub (I used Tumbleweed from Prairie Smoke & Spice)

Braising Liquid¹

• ~1 cup stock (beef ideally, but chicken/veg is fine too)
• 1 cup beef tallow

₁For the braising liquid, you’ll want to cover 1/2 to 2/3 of your beef cheeks, so the amount will depend on the pan you’re using. I squeeze mine into a smallish square foil pan.

Directions:

• Start your bbq of choice and aim for 275 degrees.
• Trim your cheeks as much or as little as you like. If you end leaving more trim on, you’ll want to make sure that it is well-cooked down during the first unwrapped phase.
• Season liberally with your rub. Remember, the first goal is to create a kick-ass bark. And it is going to soak in a liquid for several hours, so you’ll inevitably lose some seasoning.
• Allow cheeks to sweat for 10 minutes or so to let the rub adhere and place on smoker.
• Let cook for about four hours. There isn’t a need to spritz, you can just let it ride.
  • Your target internal temperature is probably in the 170 degree range but, again, the goal here is a really well developed bark so focus on how it looks and feels and less on temperature. It’ll be dark and really well set (i.e. the rub doesn’t come off if you were to rub it with your finger) but it’ll still be tough and tight. Mine came off at about the 3.5 hour mark, but my smoker was running a little hot for a good portion of the cook. 4 hours at 275 should work well.
• Set into a foil pan and add your braising liquid. You can throw in some onions at this stage as well if you like.
• Cover and put back on smoker for another 3 hours.
  • If you have your meat only partially covered (as I did), you can flip them once or twice throughout this stage.
• Knowing when they’re finished is a little tricky. Because cheeks have so much collagen in them, you’ll want to take these further then you would say, a brisket. Shoot for that “probe goes in like butter” feel and then go a little further. I’d say at least 205 degrees as a guide.
• Then you’re going to want to give these a nice rest (at least an hour). Because I had mine submerged in (partly) beef tallow, I wrapped the cheeks in butcher paper and put them in our oven at the ‘warming’ setting. I wanted the butcher paper to soak up a little excess fat.
• Finally, you can prep the cheeks to your desire. I ‘chopped’ mine, but most of that was giving them a satisfying squeeze and they just fell apart. Like this:

Like many others can attest to, COVID detroyed some of our best-laid plans over the past year, including travel plans. My family has been lucky to go to Mexico a few times over the years and I have very fond memories of the food and people there. I can say confidently that there are few things on this planet that can top a plate of al pastor tacos fresh off of a charcoal trompo.

So, when our trip was cancelled and I was jonesing for some of that soul-nourishing pork and pineapple, I set out to do my best impersonation at home.

With that I present Al(berta) Pastor Tacos!

Jump straight to recipe!

First, there are a couple of things that make the authentic al pastor tacos what they are - in my mind anyway. These two include:

• the flavour: a diverse marinade that gives al pastor its unique flavour profile (not to mention an incredible colour).
• the cooking method: layers of thin marinated pork shoulder stacked and shaped into sort of a bee-hive and turned on a vertical rotisserie that is cooked by shelves of charcoal. This cooking device is called a trompo and while I did see electric versions of this, the live-fire nerd in me couldn't get enough of the charcoal versions we came across. As the meat was cooked and slightly charred, it was shaved off to build the tacos, and the next layer of pork was free to take on a kiss of charcoal.

The flavour is something we can replicate fairly well, as long as you have access to good ingredients. I am lucky enough to have a little Latin American bakery where I live (what's up Queen Latina!) that has a small but completely sufficient selection of grocery items. Your mileage may vary where you live.

The cooking method requires some improvisation, though. The sheer size of a restaurant-style trompo isn't practical for a family or small get-together. There are after-market attachments that are meant to replicate the trompo on a smaller scale. Cool as they are, they don't really replicate the authentic cooking method I have in my mind considering where the heat source is coming from. It lacks that direct charcoal magic.

I've also discovered plans online to create a DIY trompo out of a 55-gallon drum (which would look great next to the Philly Special!) but I haven't had the time, garage space or, frankly, the rationale to make it.

I've also done a pulled pork method where I've smoked a full pork butt while using al pastor marinade/flavours instead of classic BBQ flavours. While enjoyable, you can't really get that same al pastor flavour throughout the meat - you get a great bark but the interior just doesn't measure up.

So, my inauthentic method is to take a boneless pork butt sliced thick (or pre-sliced pork steaks) and reverse sear them. You get the benefit of the slow-cooked process that gets the collagen broken down, but that high heat sear at the end gives you that sweet maillard goodness.

Obviously, the other thing we can't recreate is the ambience (which really can impact how good something tastes). In one scenario, you are sitting in a vibrantly-decorated Mexican restaurant drinking Modelo Negro in paradise weather conditions fumbling your way through the most basic of Spanish.

In the other, you are grilling outside in a toque drinking cheap prairie beer with a specially-designed glove (and drinking quickly enough that it doesn't turn to slush) rotating through the same 4 Spanish songs you remembered to download from your last trip.

In any case, despite the lack of ambience, I have to say that these Al(berta) Pastor tacos are a damn fine replica. A note on the ingredient list:

Some recipes call for very specific amounts and measurements. Some don't. This is one that really doesn't require specificity. I'll do my best to give a guide but it really is something that lends itself to eye-balling and 'making it your own'. Besides, that way you can say you created it and collect all of the glory. (Speaking of which, props to Kenji Lopez-Alt for some flavour and technique inspiration).

Lastly, I prepared my tacos fairly classically (pork, pineapple, diced onions, cotija cheese, onions, salsa, and crema on a small tortilla) but I'm not one to get too precious about toppings. After all, you are the Waka Flocka Flame of your Al Pastor Taco game (shout out to Chef John).

On to the recipe!

RECIPE

• 4 lbs (roughly) boneless pork butt, sliced into 3/4"-1" thick discs (or you can often find pre-sliced pork steaks).
• 1 pineapple - cored and sliced into 1/2" rings
• Small tortillas (corn or flour or both)

Marinade

• 3/4 Achiote Paste
• 2 dried guajillo peppers, de-seeded
• 2 dried ancho peppers, de-seeded
• 1 chile packed in adobo sauce, plus a tsp or so of sauce from can
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp each of oregano, paprika, cumin, pepper, and sugar
• 2 tbsp salt
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup of chicken (or veggie or whatever) stock (enough to get marinade to a nice consistency)

Toppings

• 1 white onion, finely diced
• 1 cup chopped cilantro
• Cotija cheese
• Mexican Crema
• Fresh lime juice
• Salsa of your choice (verde, raja, or pico de gallo)

Sides

• Tortilla chips with homemade pico de gallo and guacamole. Both are super simple to make fresh. Consult the internet. Also, I put tomatoes in my guac, don't @ me.
• Beer / Margueritas as required

Directions:

• Make your marinade.

  • Cut the stems off of your guajillo and ancho peppers and shake out the seeds and place the de-seeded peppers in a bowl. Then pour over boiling water and let sit for a few minutes to soften.
  • Add all of the marinade ingredients (except the stock) into a blender, including the softened peppers. The achiote paste that I use comes in these little, flavourful soft bricks with two bricks to a pack (this stuff is great as a rub on roasted chicken as well, by the way). I'd usually use about 3/4 of a brick for a batch this size.
  • Blend everything until well mixed. And then add enough stock to get to a good consistency. Basically, you want it sort of like a watered-down smoothie - easily pourable but you still want it to stick to the meat a little bit.

• Place sliced pork into a large freezer bag or deep dish and pour over marinate. Mix together and ensure all the pork is covered freezer bag or deep dish and place in fridge to marinate for several hours up to overnight.

• Preheat grill and create a two-zone cooking setup. Ideally, this is on a charcoal grill (I used a weber kettle). A smoker or egg works great as well, as long as you have the ability to sear over a flame at the end of it all.

• Take your pork out of the fridge and transfer the slices onto a board or sheet pan. Optional tip: do not discard the marinade! I found this can be re-purposed into a delicious topping. See optional step below.

• Time and temperature is all a little bit fuzzy here. It will all depend on the thickness of your cuts and the temperature of your grill or smoker. I didn't monitor grill temperature but I lit a chimney of charcoal, split it between two charcoal baskets, pushed to one side, and left the top and bottom dampers ~1/2 open. I'd venture to guess it was in the 275 range. I had a chunk of peach wood in for smoke flavour, and added another small piece about an hour into the cook.

• Put pork on the cool side of your two-zone setup, cover, and walk away.

• While the pork is cooking prepare all your other toppings, including slicing your pineapple.

• Fun optional step! Place all of the remaining marinade into a saucepan and heat until boiling. First, we want to make it food-safe so, let it boil for at least 5 minutes - more if you're paranoid. Next we'll gradually add some liquid to get it to the texture we want, and some flavours to get it to the taste we want. This is entirely up to you. I added a bit of apple cider vinegar and pineapple juice for acidity/sweetness (maybe a 1/4 cup each), and then about a tablespoon of the canned adobo sauce for a kick of heat. It has a fantastic bright colour so it really does make a nice topping for the tacos (or a light toss for the pork if it needs a bit of re-hydrating). Plus, you're a hero for re-purposing ingredients.

• The pork cooked on the cool-side of my two-zone setup for a little under 90 minutes. (Again, your mileage may vary).

• I was a couple of beer in at this point so I was only cooking until 'it felt right' but let's call it an internal temperature of ~175 or so. Now that your pork has come up to temperature, we want to finish over direct heat. Flip a few times until you get a nice amount of char. It was only a few minutes per side, for me.

• Take cooked pork and wrap tightly in foil and set aside in a faux camber or on the 'warming' setting in your oven while you finish up on the grill and your household remarks how amazing it smells. Say 'thanks' in a way that is equal parts enthusiastic, grateful, and humble. Play it cool, guy. You're a grill master.

• Grill your pineapple slices. I'll usually brush them with a bit of butter or oil before going on the direct part of the grill but, again, we're just looking for some char on the pineapple so a couple of minutes per side on a hot grill is usually all you need.

• Next, optionally place the tortillas on the grill for a quick pre-heat as well. Flour tortillas will give you a satisfying bubble in the middle, for what it's worth. 15-30 seconds per side and then into a coverable container to stay warm.

• Lastly, we're going to chop our pork and pineapple up. You should be left with a pile of tender pork that has all sorts of charred bark mixed into it.

• That's it! It's taco time, baby. Take your tortillas, fill with a scoop of pork and top with pineapple, onion, cilantro, cotija cheese, and a drizzle of crema (and optionally, a few dashes of your marinade sauce).

We tried our first virtual contest with a steak contest put on by Red River BBQ out of Manitoba. Our cook day managed to escape the brutal cold streak we had but it was still a chilly day.

We broke out the weber kettle for this cook and kept it pretty simple. We were happy with how it all turned out and managed to come away with a 3rd place finish.

Definitely looking forward to more steak comps. I love my KCBS entries but the equipment, setup time, cost, and committment are so much easier in a steak contest. Looking forward to seeing some of them pop up in Alberta once COVID has passed us by.

As with everything else, COVID dashed our hopes to do multiple competitions this year. Everything across Canada was cancelled - including Canada's longest running competition - BBQ on the Bow. Then, at the last minute, BBQ on the Bow found a way to get resurrected, this time in a campground in Didsbury at the end of September. This was also Seth's first taste of competition BBQ.

We were lucky to get into the limited field and blessed with some great weather, despite the time of year. The modified competition saw no Kids Q, no Chefs Choice, no Friday dinner, and no team potluck but one thing that wasn't different was the competition field. We definitely felt like underdogs but were just happy to be out.

The campground setting actually worked out really well for the competitors - we had ample space, a fire pit to discard ashes, easy water access, etc. Without the Kids Q and Chef's Choice, it meant that Saturday afternoon and evening had plenty of downtime so it was great catching up with other teams, checking out everyone's BBQs, and enjoying a few drinks in a peaceful setting.

But on to the comp. Overall, it was a great competition for us. We managed a 10th Overall and a couple of personal bests.

Chicken - 7th place (and a personal best)! Ribs - once again ribs were the downfall of Philly Special BBQ. We'll be heading back to the lab for these in 2021. 19th place. Pork Butt - 13th place. Middle of the pack on this one. Judge comments suggested that our presentation needed some work. Brisket - 3rd place!!! Over-the-moon with this call. It felt great at turn-in so once the calls got to Top 5 and we hadn't heard our name, it started to feel disappointing (knowing who was still left in the field of competitors). So hearing our name for 3rd was a pretty awesome feeling.

Looking forward to a comp-filled 2021!

Philly Special BBQ's inaugural comp season has come to an end with a fun (albeit tiring!) solo outing at BBQ on the Bow. A few excellent highlights, one impressive low-light, and a great overall experience!

The weekend started out with the Kids Q where my youngest daughter and her friend competed in a chicken wing contest as the bbQnicorns.

They were adorable and the two rainbow-loving kids came up with Unicorn Wings - where smoked wings were topped with Alabama White Sauce that was died different colours. They did awesome and, aside from the trimming of the wings, they did all the work themselves, I just acted as a supervisor. So, even though they didn't get the scores they wanted, it was pretty impressive first-time cook for them. They had a blast and, in my humble opinion, had the best team name there!

Next up was the Chef's Choice challenge where the theme was pizza. We created a brie and raspberry pizza that had a honey-maple drizzle and topped with candied pecans and rosemary. It was cooked over a bed of charcoal and served with a peach sweet tea. It turned out delicious and was good enough for 5th place overall!

After that, it was prep time for the main KCBS categories - chicken, ribs, pork butt, and brisket. It was a long and rainy evening and things got a little hectic as turn-in times approached but I'm happy to say that I made all the turn-ins on time.

Chicken was probably the one I had practiced the least. These turned out okay but lots of room for improvement. In an effort to decrease a bit of prep time that was occurring at 4am (chicken prep can be especially time-consuming), I only cooked about 10 pieces which meant my sample size to choose turn-ins was smaller than it should be.

Ribs were an unmitigated disaster and I don't even really know what went wrong. They finished much earlier than anticipated (but passed all my probe/temp test) and so I foiled them and put them to the side to keep warm while I finished and turned in the chicken. When I returned, though, the ribs were severely overcooked. Like, they were comically bad. I confidently predicted a last place finish for those after they were turned in (they came 2nd-last so, silver lining, right?) and, unsurprisingly, there is not a photo of them to be found in the gallery below. The dog got the leftovers and he was happy to have them but these pretty much torpedoed any chance of a decent overall finish.

Next up was pork butt. Despite a fairly low finish here, I was mostly happy with how this turned out. Judging by the other scores at the table I was at, it may have just been an unlucky set of judges. Appearance could improve and things may have been overcooked a tad and been a bit too tender.

Last was brisket. I was very happy with my turn-in for brisket. I finished 11th (just .011 points away from a top 10 finish). While 11th might not sound overly impressive, I was proud to see it score well against some very formidable competition at my same judging table (including Alberta's brisket champions) and knowing that my Costco brisket was going up against some very high end Waygu cuts. Always room for improvement but my brisket game feels like it has improved by leaps and bounds over the past couple of years.

All in all, a great experience and i was happy to get back in the competition scene this summer. Looking forward to doing a few more next year!

Your Local Ranch is a farm just outside of Airdrie and they participated in a province-wide event called Open Farms where they opened up their farm to the public, had games, events, vendors and all sorts of stuff. One thing they included was a BBQ contest where teams (that needed to include a child under the age of 16) cooked Your Local Ranch products. My daughter was eager to get in on the action so the Bo-Stick Burners entered and, lo and behold, we got 1st!

It was a super fun day. We started with a Tri-Tip roast which we smoked for about an hour and then finished over charcoal to sear the outside. Next we did chicken wings and - with full credit to my daughter for this one - we did dill pickle wings on the charcoal grill.

All in all it was a great family day and we got to walk away with some great swag and a beautiful brisket as the first place prize!

What a fun evening this was. A night of BBQ and wine pairings with a bunch of Rotarians.

My wife Kerry is a member of the Rotary Club of Airdrie and last year, over one of many social gatherings, her and a fellow Rotarian (who is a wine connoisseur) came up with the idea of an event where we came up with a few BBQ offerings and he would come up with a nicely paired wine.

Well, it went great and we decided to do it again this year. We had close to 40 people and it went even better than last time. A gorgeous July evening at a gorgeous acreage with a bunch of great people.

The menu this year:

• 3 types of Smoked Brie
• "Texas Twinkies"
• Sweet Chili Pork Belly with Southern Grits and Shrimp

• Brisket Burnt ends and Honey-Jalapeno Cornbread

  

After a break from BBQ competitions in 2018, I was excited to get back to it in 2019. With the #ALLMEATSMATTER team going their own ways, I opted to start my own team - Philly Special BBQ.

The team name came from my new toy - a homemade smoker celebrating the Eagles win in Super Bowl LII! I named it the Philly Special and, since I was going to use it in the competiton, I named my team Philly Special BBQ as well. It also made it easy to outfit myself given my abundance of jerseys.

In any case, me and a fellow Eagles fan signed up for the Heritage Heat amateur contest, which was a steak and pork chop contest. Despite a cold and windy day, we had a great time and brought back a shiny ribbon to boot!