11/07/2022
So happy for the return of the Texas Kosher BBQ Championship this past weekend! We first started competing in this event in 2016 to support our Jewish friends and community. It’s become one of our favorites and we’ve made a lot of great friends over the years.
This is a particularly challenging event for a number of reasons.
1. Shabbat: no cooking or prep can occur from sundown on Friday until sundown (+3 stars) on Saturday.
2. Kosher guidelines strictly prohibit the pairing of any meat and dairy product. And all cooking utensils and pits must be kashered. It also means a complete reset of using any of the pre-made injections, rubs, glazes, etc. that we’re used to. It challenges our thinking to creatively use only kosher and pareve items.
3. Kosher Meats: Title sponsor H-E-B generously donated all of the kosher meats and fish. These are prepared very specifically in a salt solution to remove all blood. The fish are gorgeous whole salmon flown in from Norway.
4. People’s Choice: Tickets are sold to the public, and all teams provided a taste of all 4 categories (beans, salmon, chicken, brisket) which are voted on by the public. A health inspector is on site and all teams have a rigorous health inspection and certification in order to serve the public.
5. Sheer Volume: because of the People’s Choice requisite, each team prepared:
- 4 briskets
- 4 whole salmons
- 20 chickens
- 10 lbs. of beans
6. Condensed Timeline: Fires cannot be lit, nor meat retrieved until Shabbat is over on Saturday night.
- 10:00 am beans
- 11:00-2:00 serve the public (Many thanks to our friends and family for helping us with this! We couldn’t have done it without you!)
- 12:00 chicken
- 1:00 salmon
- 2:00 brisket
It was a looooonnnnnngggg weekend but we’re very excited to announce that we won 2nd place chicken, 1st place brisket, and Reserve Grand Champion overall.
Sleeping today!