photo by Samantha Hurst

Pulled pork barbecue sits awaiting hungry mouths at the booth of A Bone to Pick, an amateur team from Alabaster that competed in the Stokin' the Fire Barbecue and Music Festival in Birmingham.

Stokin' the fire

By Samantha Hurst (Contact) | Shelby County Reporter

Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Some like it sweet, some like it spicy but everyone loves their barbeque slow-cooked throughout the night.

More than a dozen teams from Shelby County, both pros and backyard grillers, glazed ribs and rubbed down chicken at the 2008 Stokin' the Fire Barbeque and Music Festival this weekend.

"This takes tender loving care," said Whipping Post team member David Etheredge. "We have to watch it all night and keep a constant heat going."

Doug Delong of Helena began the overnight process on his pork at around 9 p.m. Friday night. He said it took about 12 hours for it to cook.

"You rub it and inject it, rub it and inject it and rub it again," Delong said. "You never know if your recipe will win them over. It just depends on what the judges like."

Etheredge and his buddies, Eddie Echols and Grant Alspaugh, all of Chelsea, consider themselves among the more authentic cooks.

"They call us stick cookers," team leader Echols said. "We use charcoal and wood instead of a rotisserie like some of the teams here. It gives it a heavier smoke flavor."

Every team has their preferred method and of course think their recipe is the best. Chris and Patrick Savage of Alabaster set up their Upper Deck Tailgate team for the amateur competition.

"That's the thing, people think grilling and barbequing and smoking are all the same thing but it's not," Chris Savage said. "With grilling you're sticking your food straight over a flame, with barbequing and smoking slowly to get the tenderness and richer flavor."

Delong's team The Patio People have been competing three to four times a year for the past six years, traveling across the Southeast. Delong's oldest daughter Alex creates all the presentation while his younger daughter Krissy helps keep an eye on their favorite side dishes like roasted okra and helps create deserts like cheesecake for sidebar competitions. Last year, the team got their name called on ribs -- a sense of pride for the family.

"It's an expensive hobby," Delong said. "We're just a bunch of people who get together and cook -- we're all family."

For many teams, the weekend feels just like tailgating with all of the events surrounding the game of competitive barbequing.

The Whipping Post began competing in barbeque competitions in response to a bet made with some guys at a hunting lodge.

"The guys over there from the Blind Dog team out of Huntsville, we hunt with them, and one night they said there was no way we could cook better barbeque than them," Alspaugh said. "We told them to put their money where their mouth was and enter a competition."

Both teams did and that first year The Whipping Post won first place for barbeque chicken. The team has never won an event since but they still love the competition and hanging out.

"These guys have been friends since high school," said Grant's dad Clay Etheredge. "They've done everything together but this is their niche. They went from a little bitty grill to this monster."

Multiple local teams were set to compete in the event including Rob Hennessee of Alabaster with his team The Smokin' Hokie, Ron Dennis of Birmingham with 2 Men and a Pig, The Buttmasters from Birmingham led by Butch Russell, Mike Leonelli with Big Mikes BBQ from Birmingham, BBQ Buddies led by Sandy Pool from Helena, Jon Grower with Grower Power from Helena, and Steve Heam with Simple Q from Pelham.

Amatuer teams from Shelby County included Cosmo's Krazies from Alabaster, Nicholas Herbert and the Hogs and Hank from Chelsea, the Southern Jesters led by Michael Aultman from Wilsonville and Mike Ritter with A Bone to Pick from Alabaster. The amateurs were chasing a $1,000 prize by collecting dollar bills from those who loved their barbeque.