10th Annual Pig 'n Pepper Festival

The weatherman was wrong with his forecast for the weekend of the 10th annual Pig 'n Pepper Festival. It was picture perfect fall weather, sunny and cool, both days. Saturday was a grilling event sponsored by the New England BBQ Society. Sunday was the KCBS sanctioned Massachusetts State Championship BBQ Contest.

On Saturday we were skunked. We didn't place in the top 5 in a single category. The first time ever that has happened. On Sunday we were a little luckier and managed to win First in Chicken, First in Pork Shoulder and Reserve Grand Champion in the State Championship.

In addition, the New England BBQ Society has a special award for "The Cooker of the Year". It is a traveling cup that is given to the team with the highest total points from their five best contests. They keep it until the following year when it is turned over to the next winning team. It was started five years ago and Lance Fuher and The Yahoos won it four years in a row. After the third year, the cup was named "The Yahoos Cup". Last year I came within 10 points of taking the cup away from Lance. You can read about it here.

Well this year I managed to succeed and Liquid Smoke became the first team to take the cup away from the Yahoos. Lance and I had an agreement with each other for whichever of us won the cup. Lance lived up to his word!

The contest was a lot of fun. Paul Royte and the NEBS reps did a fantastic job organizing the event. Of course the traditional 2 AM merry-go-round ride was also fun. Click on the links below for more!

Full Contest Results

More Pictures - More pictures from the event

Click on images for a larger view.