100% BACON, The 'Merica Burger - Slater's 50/50

About 2 1/2 years ago a friend of mine introduced me to a restaurant in Anaheim Hills called Slater’s 50/50. I had no idea what I was in for. Upon arrival I could see the drool running down his face and as we sat down and he said, “Here they have burgers that are made out of 50% beef and 50% bacon”. It was as if everything I had understood in the world was now flipped upside down and I knew nothing. I ordered everything bacony on the menu and could only finish a 1/2 pound of the amazing deliciousness.

Fast-forward to today and you have one of my absolute favorite places in the world to eat burgers. It literally is the Super Bowl of BACON here everyday. We’re not talking little sissy In-N-Out Burgers; we’re talkin’ 1/3, 2/3, and 1-pound burgers. Not to mention just about anything and everything comes with bacon.

If you saw the news on Friday you may have heard of “IT”: Slater’s 50/50 burger of the month - “The ‘Merica”. This burger is made of 100% ground BACON. It is topped with thick cut bacon, a sunny side up egg, “Bacon Island” dressing, and bacon cheddar cheese. This burger is probably the coolest thing I have ever tasted. It is all bacon. You have to live, to love and to loathe bacon in order to really appreciate just how awesome this is when it meets your taste buds.

'Merica Burger

Originally I went down 2 weeks ago to interview Scott Slater (the mastermind) and try some of his most epic burgers. Upon arrival I noticed next months burger of the month was “The ‘Merica” burger. I was not going to post this article without having tried the burger that started it all. It just so happened that yesterday was the premier episode of “United States of Bacon” and it turns out Slater’s 50/50 was gonna be featured on the show. If you missed it I highly recommend trying to find a rerun cause it will blow your mind. So why not kill 2 burgers with one stomach?

I got down there and set up to eat The ‘Merica burger. It was like receiving every single gift you have ever wanted as a kid - all at the same time. It’s overwhelming but at the same time I was so overjoyed with excitement that I could hardly contain myself. Servers would walk by asking if I was OK and all I could do was laugh. I mean, it was heaven. I had to eat it slow so I could savor every bite. The juices from the dressing and the egg were just enough to give the burger that perfect level of moistness and decadence. I couldn’t finish but let’s just say I’ll be back for more.

'Merica Burger 100% Bacon, Bacon Island Dressing, Thick Cut Bacon, and Sunny Side Up Egg.

I sat down with legend, owner, and President of Slater’s 50/50, Scott Slater, to see what it’s like to be the “Sir Charles Bronson” of burger restaurants…

MEAT ME: How did Slater’s 50/50 come to be?

Scott Slater: It’s funny. I found the location first and then developed the menu. I have been making the signature 50/50 burger for about 10 years while tailgating at San Diego Chargers games. We didn’t want traditional tailgate food like hot dogs or brats. We wanted bacon but you can’t really cook bacon on a grill so we made 100% bacon burgers. 

MEAT ME: 100% BACON?

Scott Slater: 100% Ground bacon burgers!

MEAT ME: And how are those?

Scott Slater: It is our burger of the month this month- the “‘merica”. It’s pretty damn good. They are a little sloppy. I couldn’t imagine when I opened the restaurant serving those just because they were so outrageously decadent. Adding beef to the bacon would give it a little bit of integrity, juice, and flavor. That’s how it all started; out of necessity, I guess.

The 50/50, Peanut Butter & Jealousy, and Fried Chicken & Pancakes.

MEAT ME: How did you come up with the idea of combining the beef and bacon?

Scott Slater: When we found the restaurant space, we were trying to come up with a menu. We were making the bacon burgers the whole time and when we started adding beef, we called it “The 50/50”. I thought that’s a cool name - Slater’s 50/50. Boom, that’s it! It’s really wasn’t as magical as some people think. 

When I opened the restaurant I was a young guy and I didn’t have a lot of money or time. I had to open up pretty quickly because I was running out of money. It took me 30 days to get the location to fit, paint to match, get a menu together and hire some staff and start bringing in some dough.

Peanut Butter & Jealousy.

MEAT ME: What is your background in restaurants?

Scott Slater: When I was 15 I was a dishwasher. That was my first job and I’ve been in the restaurant industry since. I worked in the back of the house, front of the house; I managed a little bit. I know what I like. There are a lot of these gastro pubs out there that are fancy but I like to keep it simple but at the same time come up with some original ideas using simple high quality ingredients. 

MEAT ME: With bacon being a trend and a lot of burger joints popping up what are some of your influences and inspirations?

Scott Slater: I have pretty common taste buds and I enjoy a lot of the same foods most people do. I go to other burger restaurants to do some recon missions and of course, get some ideas. For example, I found my bread company from one of my competitors. I can’t say the same for my signature burgers. Certainly service and ordering styles were inspired from other restaurants. 

I like what we have and what we’ve developed and I don’t want to be mixed in with the others in the burger bubble. At some point I think it is going to burst. We distinguish ourselves with the different facets of our business; a menu full of variety, our great beer selection, the sports bar atmosphere, hard alcohol and a full menu served until 2 am.

I try to branch out as much as possible; good salads and sandwiches and great appetizers like our Vampire Dip. I try to expand the concept as much as possible without diluting it.

There are great burgers places out there that just have burgers. They have great burgers but they can’t fill a 6,500 square foot restaurant. Whereas my restaurants are anywhere from 5,000 to 7,900 square feet and I have to pack the house just to make it worth it.

Fried Chicken & Pancakes.

MEAT ME: So what are these 3 items you are featuring here today?

Scott Slater: The 50/50 is our signature burger. It’s got pepper jack cheese, fried egg, with avocado mashed chipotle mayo. The 50/50 also has the 50/50 patty all on the brioche bun. Then we’ve got the Peanut Butter and Jealousy, which is just simple peanut butter and strawberry preserves, thick cut bacon, beef patty and a honey wheat bun. Last is the Fried Chicken and Pancakes; 3 buttermilk pancakes, 3 fried chicken strips, bacon, fried egg and bacon infused country gravy covered in maple syrup.

MEAT ME: Is there a particular type of peanut butter and jelly?

(I am asking because I grew up on PB&J. When I was 7 my Mom took me to the doctor because I would only eat PB&J. I am obsessed with a nice creamy Skippy under seedless Smuckers jam on white. I could tell it was Skippy but I just wanted to make sure.)

Scott Slater: Nope. Skippy. I love Skippy. 

The meat is really what ties it all together. We use great quality beef from a single source in Idaho - Sterling Silver. No hormones, no antibiotics - all organically fed. That really speaks for itself. 

MEAT ME: When I look at what you’ve got here, at least 2 of these dishes visually, I’m thinking they are going to taste really salty, but they’re not. What is the secret to savoring the flavors and avoiding…?

Scott Slater: A salt bomb? You know we still get complaints that some items are too salty but at the same time you are ordering a bacon burger. 

MEAT ME: To me, it wasn’t even close to as salty as looked - like it could have been.

Scott Slater: The beef obviously helps. When you cook ground pork a lot of the fat is rendered out. That’s where a lot of the salt comes from. The ground bacon we use isn’t cured like normal bacon. It’s not strips of bacon that are being ground up. When you cure strips of bacon you use sodium nitrates and that’s where a lot of the salt comes from. We are literally using ground pork bellies. 

The 50/50 Burger.

MEAT ME: Let’s talk about your bacon ketchup. How long did that take to get right? Where did that come from? There are a lot of bacon flavored products out there and I would say most of them aren’t working.

Scott Slater: We had a couple of trial errors. At first we made our own ketchup. If you taste other people homemade ketchup, they don’t taste anything like ketchup cause they refuse to use corn syrup. A lot of those gastro pubs refuse to even give you ketchup but we are a classic American fare type of restaurant. 

MEAT ME: Yea it is really good.

Scott Slater: It’s fantastic and it has little bacon bits in it. We have a ratio that we use because we have so much extra bacon fat to use. Every morning we are baking hundreds and hundreds of pounds of bacon because we go through so much of it so we just pour it into the ketchup. We fat wash our vodka and we fat wash our bourbon. We have a bacon vodka and a bacon bourbon that we do the old fashion way; those two we “baconize” ourselves.

MEAT ME: What are some of your favorites?

Scott Slater: The PB&J. I try not to eat more than 2 burgers a month. I don’t want to ever get tired of my food and so far I’m not. Every time I come into the restaurant I want a burger so I eat the burger of the month or a PB&J on a Sunday and watch some football.

MEAT ME: Now what is your favorite meat?

Scott Slater: Honestly our beef is so good. There is a time and a place for a 50/50 burger. I still eat one every Sunday when I’m watching the Chargers. I go for the beef whenever I eat a burger cause it’s just such high quality. The 50/50 is high quality too and it’s just so juicy. The thing is with pork, bacon and salt is it’s hydroscopic so when you do cook it, it is going to suck a little bit of the moisture out with that salt content. I like my burgers just like I like my steaks medium rare and just bloody. With 50/50 burgers you’re not going to get a bloody burger; you’re going to get a tender burger because of the all pork belly and the fat in it. I like those juices. 

MEAT ME: With a lot of people starting restaurants and most people failing, what do you think the key is to being successful?

Scott Slater: Quality product and quality service. It’s no secret. One thing that sets us apart is that we are a sports bar that serves excellent food. How many sports bars are known for their food? It comes down to quality food, consistency and creating a culture of great customer service and making sure that all of our guests not only want to come back but can’t wait until they are hungry again so they have an excuse to come back.

My whole staff, front to back knows that everything that they do comes back to the guest. Everything. The way we do everything, the way that we explain it, this is how we do it because that is what the guest expects.

I know how important customer service is. Where I spend my money is going to have to include good service, it’s an obsession of mine. 

MEAT ME: When you first started up were you using a lot of PR to get people in or was it just boom, bang opened the doors and the place just filled up?

Scott Slater: Yea pretty much I opened on a Wednesday and had a wait list by Friday.. Food was taking an hour and fifteen minutes, it was a complete mess. I really had no idea what I was doing. On that 3rd day the whole staff went in the back and said, “Well, we don’t have to worry about people coming back here but we are going to have to start if we don’t get this thing right”. We learned quickly and out of necessity. We put our noses to the grindstone. I was bussing’ tables, washing dishes, waiting tables, bartending and hosting. I started beefing up the staff. We understand that we’re going to screw up every once in a while, a burger is going come out over cooked, and the kitchen is going get backed up. It does happen and we have to make sure that we’re on top of it and recognize when a guest is not having that perfect experience before they walk out the door and give them that second opportunity to enjoy that quality product and service that we are known for. 

In the very beginning we did very little campaigning and advertising. Now we have our Marketing VP and once we got on TV that’s when it really took off. We bumped up staff and par levels we were able to sustain that growth. We were actually on United States of Bacon last Sunday.

MEAT ME: Do you guys have any other locations that are opening up in the future?

Scott Slater: Yep – Pasadena, the Mission District in San Francisco and South Orange County. Hopefully 6 more locations in the next year. That would be the dream. 

I devoured the Peanut Butter and Jealousy. I had never thought that putting my 2 favorite dishes together was going to make my life perfect. It works! For once I was able to have my cake and eat it too. The hint of salty combined with sweet, the crispy bacon and juicy burger were all bear hugged together by that incredible bun. I still can’t stop thinking about it. It’s one of those things where you look at it and you say, “Ok that looks cool, I’ll try it.” Totally thinking it’s not going to work. You take a bit and right away, “Holy shit! That is stupid good!” That’s exactly what it’s like.

Next was the 50/50 Burger. It’s the burger for everyone. A perfectly balanced meal with a little bit of everything and just enough to keep you engaged for the entire burger. Its’ taste is a wonderful story of flavors that helps tune out the rest of the world. It’s the burger you have at the end of a long day. It hits the spot while leaving you at peace with yourself.

Last, but not even close to least, was the Fried Chicken and Waffles. This was the mullet of meals: All business up front with a giant party in the back. The syrup keeps you grounded with its decadence but the meal slowly evolves into this giant head bangers ball. I wanted to dance, I felt like Bill Cosby in those Jell-O commercials. It really is a classic. 

The “United States of Bacon” is a truly awesome show. Thank God I was actually at the restaurant with an already full belly. How often do we make that mistake of watching an epic show about food on an empty stomach? This time I nailed it! Slater’s 50/50 couldn’t look any better and everyone inside was filled with awe and applause.

If you read my blog, it’s because you share the same love, respect and appreciation for food that I do. So you know that you owe it to yourself to enjoy some Slater’s 50/50. I don’t want to hear any excuses. This one should be at the top of every ones bucket list. 

You can find out everything you need to know about Slater’s 50/50:

http://www.slaters5050.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Slaters5050

https://twitter.com/slaters5050

I would like to thank everyone at Slater’s 50/50 for helping me make this happen especially Scott, Erika, and Ali.

Respect the BACON,

MEAT ME

aka Sean Rice

Phoenix Club BBQ Championship - with Slap Yo' Daddy

I consider myself to be a very lucky to enjoy days like today where my only worry is finding the right foods to celebrate such and awesome occasion… Our declaration of FREEDOM. There really is nothing free about it. Our forefathers went through hell once the British started taking over shipping docks and taxing everything. We had no say what so ever. We had no one over in England representing us and being the strong independent westerners we were, we decided we had enough.

After a long hard fought battle on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, along with the initial idealist Richard Henry Lee finalized the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

             

We not only believed that we had the God given right of freedom, but that every human on this planet deserves this freedom. No matter what race, religion, or creed. This is the exact reason we go into other countries and fight for the freedoms of others we feel are deprived of this God given right. On this day 236 years ago we didn’t just make a promise to ourselves, we made a promise to the human species, that we as Americans will fight to the death until everyone of us is FREE.

So with that said, I had the freedom to sit down and get to know Harry Soo of Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ at the Phoenix Club BBQ Championships. We talked a little about where he came from, how he got here and just what is involved in doing a double header. You have the freedom to check out my interview.

MEAT ME: How much stuff do you usually bring with you?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: Donna (my fiancé who has her own BBQ Team – “Butcher’s Daughter) and I cook out of 1 minivan. We basically have tents and 2 smokers. Donna is cooking Silicon Valley so I have the luxury of real estate here. Most days I travel with one WSN and one canopy. Travel light.

MEAT ME: Have you cooked with other types of smokers?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: Yes, I have cooked with everything. I prefer this because I am a one person team. I have to pack, clean and unload everything myself. After you do about 30 of these a year it gets to be really hard because of all the work you have to do every time. After the contest I will clean and pack the van for the next contest. I don’t unload the van at home it is only used for cooking. Before I leave I load it with the consumable items like meat, tissue, and towels.

MEAT ME: So do you have covers for each side of your canopy?

                            


Slap Yo’ Daddy: No, I just leave it open because with sides it acts like a sail. I leave it open with just the team banner up and so the wind comes underneath and keeps everything cool.

MEAT ME: So where do you sleep?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: In the van. If it’s nice out I will sleep under the canopy.

MEAT ME: What about your tables?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: I raise them up with 1” PVC piping. This is the best $5 you can spend at Home Depot. A normal counter top is 36”, a normal dining table is 24”. You want to make sure it is 16” higher than your dining room table. This will save your back.

*Harry took a moment to show us how to be able to tell when your meat is ready.



MEAT ME: On the vertical smoker you are using wood and charcoal combined together?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: First of all, let’s talk about fuel source. You have a number of different choices for pits. You can use briquettes, pellets, and wood logs. Different teams have different preferences. I use the cheapest available fuel, which is Kingsford at $7 a bag. Second is the flavor of your wood. Most teams use hickory, apple, cherry, or peach. Those are the most common. Wood is usually depends on the region you are in. If you are in the Pacific Northwest they use a lot of alder and in southern California they use grape vines as well as a lot of citrus kinds of woods. I like to use apple and hickory.

You have to worry about two things :1 is BTU’s. When you run a pit you need to worry about heat, it is measured in BTU’s. Certain woods have higher BTU’s than others. Some people who use pellets use oak because it generates heat other woods like apple don’t generate heat they just generate flavoring. So you have to have a heat source that generates both heat (BTU’s) and flavoring. I use briquettes for my heat source and apple and hickory for my flavoring.

MEAT ME: So you get your charcoals heated up. They are nice and red are you adding wood then? How does it work?

                            

Slap Yo’ Daddy: I load a pit using the Minion Method. Which is named after a guy named Jim Minion. You put unlit coals in your pit and then put lit coals in the middle of the charcoal pile and over time those lit coals will slowly ignite the other coals touching them. That way I can get a very long burn. A ¾ bag of charcoal for me burns from 9pm till about 2pm the next day. I cook and entire contest on a ¾ bag of charcoal.

MEAT ME: Without having to add more charcoal?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: You fill the charcoal ring with about 15 or 20 lit briquettes in the middle and that burns out from the middle over the next 18 hours. I also have an insulating blanket that I use that also helps preserve the fuel.

*One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is not letting your brisket rest. Harry shares the importance of letting your brisket rest.



MEAT ME: When do you add the wood chunks?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: You add the wood chunks when you add the briquettes. You scatter them around I only use 4 apple and four hickory.

MEAT ME: Do you wet them?

Slap Yo’ Daddy: You don’t need to wet them. When you soak wood for 2 weeks and you hack it with a hack saw the middle is dry so there is no need to wet the wood. Liquid will only permeate wood chips. I add them all at once and slowly let them smolder. I will do this all over again for tonight.

MEAT ME: So what are the secrets to winning a barbecue contest?

                            


Slap Yo’ Daddy: The secret is to cook extra ordinary, ordinary barbecue. It is kind of like when you cook the best mac n’cheese in the world it has to be something familiar so that when someone eats it they know it is macaroni and cheese but it is extra ordinary that it blows their mind. Judges will only take one bite of food. If you do not blow them away with an exploding mini symphony of flavors in their mouth you won’t win. You have to have the “IT” factor and that is what everybody is trying to do here: so that the one bite transports you into a state of “hog heaven”.

That’s why this is a great sport, it is just like golf. You can play golf on the same course everyday and everyday it’s a different game. BBQ is the same thing. You can cook a set of ribs every weekend and it is going to come out very different every time. The challenge of this sport is creating food and reaching its’ highest possible potential giving the prevailing conditions that is what makes it so fun.

I would like to thank Harry for time and sharing with me his love for the art of BBQ. Harry finished 1st in chicken, 9th in ribs, 4th in Pork, and 3rd in Brisket. He came in 3rd overall on the first day. You can find those results here: http://www.kcbs.us/events.php?year=2012&month=6&id=3542

On the second day Harry came in 4th in chicken, 10th in Ribs, 4th in Pork, and 9th in Brisket and 4th overall. You can find all of those results here: http://www.kcbs.us/events.php?year=2012&month=6&id=3541

You can check out more of Slap Yo' Daddy on his blog at: http://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/

Written and Photographed by Sean Rice,  Edited by Aaron Black (Meat Inc.).

Stay free,

MEAT ME

aka Sean Rice

             

Pechanga BBQ Championship - Featuring Left Coast Q

Over the last 6 months, I have covered several BBQ Competitions and I have gotten to know Organizers, competitors, fans, and carnivores. I have learned a lot about what great barbecue is. I also feel that I have only scratched the surface of what great barbecue is all about. In an effort to dive deeper a team currently ranked 13th in the nation, Left Coast Q, has offered to let me get up close and personal to find out what it takes to be up there with some of the best.

Ok - so I’m sure you’re all waiting in suspense. I left LA around 5:30 am to head out to Pechanga BBQ Competition in Temecula and meet up with Matt Dalton of the BBQ Team - Left Coast Q - to find out what it takes to be one of the best.

MEAT ME: (7:58am) So today we’re gonna talk a little bit about your process. When did you guys actually arrive here at Pechanga?

Left Coast Q: We got here Thursday Night. This is a good thing to know for someone who is just starting out As you can see the teams are pretty packed in. If you come in here as early as possible you are at an advantage. You can come in and drop your trailer or equipment down and get set up. We live fairly close to this event so we were here early Friday morning. We got our meat inspected pretty early too - about 8 am.

MEAT ME: So what is involved with getting your meat inspected?

Left Coast Q: The KCBS Reps come by and look at your meat. They are looking to make sure your pork butts are a minimum of 5 pounds. They are also looking to see if your meat is seasoned or injected which you can’t do before it is inspected. They make sure everything is kosher and on ice. You can start your prep process at any time after it is inspected.

             

The brisket is getting close to done while Matt adds more rub to the ribs.

We started trimming and injecting our pork butts at that time. That sat over night and put those on at 4 am this morning. So they had a good long soak on them basically.

A near by team offers breakfast as a random at of kindness.

MEAT ME: Do you just inject pork butts?

Left Coast Q: No brisket too, we inject both. It’s a pretty concentrated mixture. When you taste it, it’s strong but it needs to be that way because as the meat cooks it is going to push some of the injection out. It’s really the only sure fire way to get flavor into the pork. It’s a very bland meat, you could put everything on the outside but you are only going to get it on the crust. You really have to drive the flavor into it. Injecting is the only way to achieve that. You really don’t have the time to brine it; I really don’t think it would work in the time frame.

Doing work, prep and strategy.

MEAT ME: How much time do you have from when you brine it to when it actually goes in the smoker?

Left Coast Q: It ranges. It just so happens that we got our meat inspected early. Sometimes it might get inspected in the afternoon. So it sits roughly for about 12 to 14 hours sometimes longer. It has a really good long time to sit. See, we like to cook hot and fast. What I mean is we are cooking above 275º; we are pushing the 325º range at the beginning of the cook and then taper down. Now you see we are running at 225º because I have ribs on there and I don’t want to cook those that hot because the sugar will scorch much faster than on a butt.

The KCBS judge comes by each team to let them know that official time so they are not late in turing in their food.

I usually come to the contest with the ribs and the chicken already pre-trimmed. You are not allowed to season, inject or brine any of the meat but you are allowed to trim the meat. But it is just a convenience factor with the butts and brisket; I would just rather trim them here. Chicken and ribs are the most time consuming to trim so I would just rather do that at home and freeze them and bring them to a competition.

The morning shot to get the day going.

We start at 4 in the morning so I got up and I rubbed the butts. These guys started the fire at about 3:30 am and I put the meat on at about 4:15 am. Once they come out of the cooler, I just rub them and put them on the smoker.

They set up the Left Coast Q tent were people can buy meat.

MEAT ME: What type of smokers are you using?

Left Coast Q: This is a Mak Grill. It runs on pellets. This is a Jack’s Old South whole hog cooker. We start it with charcoal but we run it Pecan wood on it for smoke. We have been using Pecan and Cherry and it’s to sustain the fire along with adding the wood and smoke for flavor.
                            

Matt sprays down his ribs with his secret liquid.

MEAT ME: What is the difference when it comes to a rub versus a brine?

Left Coast Q: Well, a brine is a liquid. What that does is creates osmosis.  A flavorful combination brine is just salt, sugar and water. What is does is pulls the salt in and doesn’t let it back out. This holds the moisture in and makes the meat more moist. A rub is dry; it is just a spice mixture that is applied to the exterior of the meat. You never inject a brine, it’s more like a soak or a marinade. A lot of people brine or soak their chicken because it is a smaller piece of meat; not very many people do butts. There are products out there for brining pork butt but we don’t use them. We inject and then rub and it goes on the smoker. We also spray the meat with a concentrated juice, I can’t tell ya what’s in it but I’ll let you taste it if you want.

Everyone gathers for the morning shot before competition begins. 

MEAT ME: It kind of taste like Hawaiian punch. I have no idea what’s in it but it reminds me of those Capri Sun’s I used to drink as a kid.

Left Coast Q: Yea it’s really sweet and that helps build bark, because were cooking fast I am spraying it on there as the meat dries out, it also caramelizes on there. So there is a dual purpose plus it adds another layer of flavor. That’s what you are trying to do is stack flavor on top of flavor and pack the most punch into one bite.

Everyone drinks their shot after the morning toast.

MEAT ME: Everybody has their way of doing barbecue sauce. Do you guys use barbecue sauce and where does it fall into your process?

Left Coast Q: Yes. Our sauce is more of a finishing glaze once it gets hot. I am trying to add another flavor and I don’t want it to muddy the other flavors I have already got. It needs to be just a finishing and very thin. It has a lot of flavor and it complements the meat. It’s not covering up the meat; it’s not hiding anything - it’s actually really clear so it makes the meat shine as well. I am actually using 2 commercially available sauces. I am mixing those 2 sauces and then adding about 10 other ingredients to that. I can tell ya I have butter and apple jelly in that sauce. You can’t really place one thing. You know - like you were saying with the Hawaiian Punch, which it’s not…

Keeping the ribs from drying out.

MEAT ME: Yeah, that would be pretty funny if Left Coast Q’s secret was Hawaiian Punch. (we laugh)

Left Coast Q: People do crazy stuff. I have heard of people using Tang on their ribs, or Gatorade. Using the powder to get that citric acid pop. I have never used that. I have heard people using Jello for color.

Spritsing in action.

MEAT ME: Why would you use Jello?

Left Coast Q: The powder, you would just put it into the rub.

The color on the ribs is perfect so they are now ready to be wrapped and placed back in the smoker.

MEAT ME: In the Midwest and the southeast everybody claims that wet ribs are better, or that dry ribs are better. How do you explain the difference between wet and dry ribs?

Left Coast Q: Basically it is un-sauced and sauced. Memphis style is basically pulling them out of the pit and hitting them with a dusting of rub. Wet would be mopped with sauce. That is the only difference. They both have rub on them. It is all done at the finish of it. They are the same ribs until they put sauce on them.
             

Matt checks the tenderness of the pork to see if it's done.

MEAT ME: What types of preparations are made before the food goes in to the judges?

Left Coast Q: You have got to make sure every piece is on point. You want uniformity and juicy meat. Chicken is a different story. I could take a bite out of a piece that I am not submitting to the judges but it is not going to tell me that the other pieces are good. Everything else you can taste. There is not much of an adjustment after the fact. When you are going to build the box, you can taste the meat and see if that is the flavor you want. I also try to build a full box with eye appeal. The way you lay the food out has to wow them from the beginning. You eat with your eyes first. If it looks good they expect it to taste good. It is just human nature; it’s that wow factor that I am trying to put in there every time.

The strain the juice before it goes on the meat.

MEAT ME: If you could rate your dry rub in terms of how spicy it is from 1 to 10 where would you put it?

Left Coast Q: I would say right in the middle, about a 6. It’s not really spicy. I really try and come in with a balance marriage. It’s sweet at the front and finishes with a little back heat. I have tasted a lot of food out here and I have walked away and a lot of spice has kicked in. Ours is not like that it is pretty faint but there is some heat in it.

They discuss team tactics while rubbing more pork. 

MEAT ME: So you have been doing this for how long now?

Left Coast Q: 2 years. I started in May 2010 so a little over 2 years.

Matt checks the ribs to see if they are done.

MEAT ME: So have you noticed any trends in competition barbecue where one year it is a certain way and the next is completely different?

Left Coast Q: I don’t think I have been doing it long enough to be able to notice that. All I know is the target that I am trying to hit. A lot of people that are doing this now have been judges before so they kind of know what to put in the turn in box and how to make it look… I really couldn’t tell ya.

In barbecue this is considered working.

I know that I have it figured out right now but if something were to change six months from now? I don’t know. It all goes back to good food, is good food. I am trying to put undeniably good food in there. When they take a bite they are gonna go “Damn, that’s good!”. Regardless of who you are, if you like sweet or spicy, the meat just has a whole balance to it.

MEAT ME: Do you notice a big difference with the actual meat between using a local farmer or say, Smart and Final? What do you prefer?
                            

Matt blankets his pork to keep it warm.

Left Coast Q: Well as far as beef brisket goes, we use Wagyu. Yes, it makes a difference but the cost is about double. When you’re already accruing all these other cost what is another $40 dollars when it increases your chance to win. The Wagyu briskets are always good. Flavor on them is excellent. I have cooked a ton of other briskets from Restaurant Depot and it just doesn’t compare. The better meat you start out with the better final product you’re going to end up with - every time.

As far as chicken, it doesn’t matter. I usually use Albertsons Brand just for the fact that they have the nicest skin and the biggest pieces. They are cheap and we do so much to the chicken that there is just no way you could tell the difference between free range and main stream.  It is not like you are just slapping salt and pepper on it and putting it on the grill. That is what barbecue started out as, turning shitty cuts of meat into something really good.

Matt prepares what looks to be the last supper. Beautiful.

Ribs we get from Restaurant Depot. They’re fine. We have cooked Berkshire pork but it takes longer to cook and has a higher fat content. The results have gone up and down. It’s good meat and there is a difference in it, mostly it’s just richer. In the 70’s the other white meat was pork and they started breading a lot of the pork out of pigs. Now you have the artists and breeders that are doing Mangalitsa, Duroc, and Kurobuta breeds of pork. They are bring back these heritage breeds that have a higher fat content because there is a demand for it now. Beef is the one we are going to spend the most on every time. We only cook one brisket. I know brisket really well and I’ve already been around the block with it. Wagyu brisket is all I have ever cooked in a contest and our scores have been up and down, but now I have the process nailed. In Vegas it was 2nd place out of 112, 1st Long Beach, 1st in Bakers field, 5th in Orange County and 4th in Boulder. Once you get to the top 5 in scoring consistently it comes down to the smallest of details.

Matt sauces his chicken.

MEAT ME: (9:55 am) We’re about half way through with my questions. How much time until the first submission?

Left Coast Q: The first Turn In – Chicken - is at noon, and then a half hour after that is ribs, half hour after that is pork and another half hour for brisket. We are done by 1:30 so there is a half an hour of crunch time between each meat category. So now we are at the point where the ribs are about to be foiled. Our butts and briskets are foiled now we are just waiting for those to get tender. We have about another hour to hour and a half on those. The ribs will be foiled for about an hour. It just depends on the thickness of the ribs. Right now I have some meaty ones in there so it might take longer than an hour. Sometimes and hour and twenty; if they are thinner it might be 45 minutes. I just have to watch for when I start to see pull back from the bone. That will tell me they are pretty close and I just go by feel from there.

It's easy to work up a sweat preparing that much food.

I will hold the brisket and butts under the blankets and we are just about to get started on the chicken right now.

                            

Brisket with some team dedication.

MEAT ME: How much time do you spend cooking your chicken.

Left Coast Q: Usually an hour to an hour and forty-five minutes so we push it pretty close to the edge of noon. It’s a pretty bulletproof process and once the chicken goes on, all of our meats will be on but butts and brisket will be pretty close to being pulled off. Everything will be foiled in the big cooker and then we finish the chicken.

Matt adds rub to his brisket.

MEAT ME: Is the amount of time they give you enough to prepare everything? It seems like all of the submission are really close together.

Left Coast Q: That’s why you want your big meats to be done and resting. Then they are out of the way and you don’t have to worry about them. You can just concentrate on your chicken. Then you move right to your ribs and then your butts and brisket are right there ready. You’re just pulling them out and boxing them up. Is it enough time? It is plenty of time. Most of the time, you’ll see at the end of each submission all of us looking at the clock, wondering what the time is and when I should be pulling out the next meat. You have 5 minutes on each side of the turn in window. You could start submitting at 11:55 am so I will probably send him walking very shortly after that. The turn in door is only a minute a way at this event.

Matt sauces up his ribs. 

MEAT ME: (7pm) How did you feel about the food you submitted today?

Left Coast Q: I felt good about all the food. I didn’t feel like anything was… Well now that I know what the scores were, I didn’t feel like the ribs and the brisket were going to score that low. That is just how it goes sometimes. I felt fine with it. The brisket was may be just a touch over done but I do tend to cook it like that. When I get feed back from judges I hear a lot of tough brisket, tough brisket, and tough brisket. So at least I know it was tender. There were a lot of people that took walks that don’t usually take walks at contests. That doesn’t say much about my food but that’s just how it goes, man. Every contest is different. Every cut of meat is different. There are a lot of variables so you just never know.

It's pretty damn tasty.

MEAT ME: With brisket, what are you looking for to know if it is done or not?

Left Coast Q: I am looking for that butter, tender, probe feel. When I probed it the first few times it was really tight, the muscle hadn’t relaxed yet. The last time I probed it, it just went right in like a hot knife into butter. That’s all I look for. Just to make sure it is tender at that point. Once the brisket is the way I want it to look, it is wrapped and foiled and I am just trying to get it tender.

The team runs in the competition chicken.

MEAT ME: When you are checking the tenderness in the smoker how much are you factoring in the amount it’s going continue to cook while it is resting?

Left Coast Q: The temperature is going to go up some. It is probably going to rise another 10 degrees and that can be the factor of it being done or over done. I cooked the brisket the same way the last 5 comps and it has been top 5 every single time. At that point I am trying to put a minimum of at least 1 hour rest on it or longer. I think it was about 11 am when I pulled it off so it had about 2 and a half hours of rest on it. I like to let it sit for at least and hour so all of those juices can redistribute. When I cut it up it was nice and juicy, where I was running the knife on the backside it was squirting juice out the front.

Ribs and Chicken.

It’s hard to say, it could have hit the wrong table. I did put burnt ends in the box and they have been really, really tender. May be one of the judges got one that wasn’t, but all the pieces I touched were soft. So I don’t know – the judging is objective.

                            

Brisket and Pulled Pork.

MEAT ME: You guys did 8th in chicken, how did you feel about the chicken?

Left Coast Q: The chicken was better than the last few times out. It had a little more juiciness to it. Remember I was telling you I was gonna change the times around on it?  I did. Do I think it should have scored higher than it did? Yes, I do. Actually this week I saw a few other people’s boxes that were posted online and I am thinking wow, compared to mine there is some sloppy stuff out there. That is not to say that theirs didn’t taste better. I could have just been at the wrong table that day. Taste is the score that carries the most weight. It could look the best in the world but the taste is what’s gonna carry you over the top. If it doesn’t taste good and doesn’t pop, you’re not going to win with it.

Brisket and Pulled Pork.

I felt good about the chicken. I felt good about all the meat. The ribs, I put meaty ones in the box and cut ones from the end where they are really juicy. Some of the ones I was cutting in the middle weren’t as nice as I would like. They were done and pulled away from the bone like they should. They just weren’t as juicy as I like to put in the box. They placed 16th and they were the lowest place category of the day for us.

MEAT ME: Based on the results of this competition do you change anything for your next competition? What is your next competition?

Team Meat Inc. showing the crowd how to get down!

Left Coast Q: We are going to Iowa. We will be cooking on the 4th of July, which is unusual. I think it’s the only one in the country that is on the 4th of July. As far as how I’ll cook out there… I will probably cook with a little less spice and a little more sweet. Cause I know for a fact that sweet works out in the Midwest. They don’t want as much heat as we do out here. I will dial a few things back and sweeten a few things up but other than that I will run the same cook.

MEAT ME: As far as scoring, does how you placed in this competition affect your over all national score?

Left Coast Q: Yeah, it actually moves us up. It took us from 13th overall and moved us up to 11th. It moved our chicken up to 11th. Even that 8th place chicken moved us up to 11th in the country. KCBS only takes your top 10 scores in each category and I have an empty score box in chicken so what ever we got at the contest it was going to add points to our total. Now the next competition our lowest score is 10th so we have to score 10th or better to knock that score out. Now were gonna start knocking out low scores with all the categories. I also have a 13th in chicken from Bakersfield from a few months back and the 15th in Ribs and 16th in Brisket I wanna try and knock those out.

MEAT ME: When you guys are done, what is involved with clean up and prep for the next competition?

Sometimes bacon gets people really excited!

Left Coast Q: We clean our smokers we inventory what we’ve got. If I have a lot of contest in a row I will freeze a lot of meat. For this next competition in Iowa, I am taking a brisket. I’m gonna freeze it and pack it in my luggage cause it’s only a few hours flight. It will be fine. Other than that, I will get the rest of the meat there. Typically here in California, we’ll take everything out of the trailer and clean everything up. I will make sure I have everything for the next round. Say we were cooking this weekend in Anaheim doing the double contest; we would have to get double everything. Monday I would be kicking back, Tuesday I would be getting all the meat, prep it and freeze it. I would make sure I have all my stuff to make my sauces. It takes probably 3 days of getting that trailer ready to roll out to go to another contest. So if were gonna do a contest it probably takes 10 to 15 hours of prep time.

MEAT ME: Awesome man well it looks like you have your work cut out for you. Good luck in Iowa and I hope to see you guys in Vegas at the Jack.

I would like to thank Matt for his time and letting me get up close and personal on how Left Coast Q gets its done.

You can find Left Coast Q on face book at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leftcoast-Q/125103440847709

You can see their events page at:
http://www.leftcoastq.com/Home.html

This woman was found passed out on the floor the night before and still managed to pull off first place brisket the next day.

As for the first annual Pechanga BBQ Competition it was a total success! There was a constant line at the door of spectators trying out the various team’s People’s Choice BBQ and the crowd had a blast. Harry of Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ took home Grand Champion so I would like to congratulate him on his win and you can find the rest of the results at: http://www.kcbs.us/events.php?year=2012&month=6&id=3540

Sometimes when you don't walk away with a trophy a group hug is the best thing.

For those of you who are interested in using my images... You are totally welcome to just click on the image to see it high resolution and download it. I just ask that you please reference Sean Rice and http://www.meatmeblog.blogspot.com in the caption. If you link back to the actual article, that would be awesome.

Written and photographed by Sean Rice, Edited by Aaron Black (Meat, Inc.)

Stay hungry,
Sean Rice
aka MEAT ME