A contest weekend goes well when most of the work was done before you left home. This countdown is a starting point. Move the dates around your own life, and use the Comp Day Timeline to turn the last part into minutes.
Three weeks out
- Confirm your entry, and read the rules and the cooks’ packet. Note quiet time, power, water and the inspection and turn-in times.
- Book lodging if you need it, and tell your crew the dates.
- Look over the cooker and the trailer: seals, grates, burners, fans, tires, bearings, brakes and lights. Fix anything that is slightly off now.
- Plan a practice cook, and decide what you will test.
Two weeks out
- Order the meat that has to be ordered, and any supplies that have to ship.
- Do the practice cook on the clock. Write down the times for each meat. The BBQOps Cook Log keeps them.
- Practice building a box for each category, and time it.
- Update your timeline with what the practice cook told you, and print it.
The week of
- Buy fuel, foil, gloves, towels, ice and everything that does not spoil.
- Make your rubs, sauces and injections. They are not put on the meat until it has been inspected.
- Check the forecast and pack for it: a tent and weights, tarps, fans or heaters, and rain gear.
- Confirm who is doing what, and who is driving.
- Start getting extra sleep. You will give some back on the cook night.
Three days before
- Pick up the meat. Check it as you would at the counter, and put it in a cooler on ice at 40°F or below.
- Pack the truck from your checklist, in the order you will unload it.
- Charge the thermometers, the phones and the lights, and pack spare batteries.
- Print the timeline, and put a copy where the crew can see it.
Friday
- Arrive, set up and be at inspection on time. Meat stays in the cooler until it is inspected.
- Trim, inject and season after inspection, in the order the meat goes on.
- Check the cooker, the fuel and the probes, and agree who sleeps when.
Afterward
Hold a hot wash within a day, while it is fresh: what ran late, what you would move, what the scores say. Write down what to keep and what to fix. That is what the next countdown starts from.