Notable Finishes in Sanctioned BBQ Competitions, (KCBS and IBCA):
1st Place Chicken – 2
3rd Place Chicken – 1
9th Place Chicken – 1
5th Place Ribs – 2
8th Place Ribs – 1
7th Place Brisket – 1
10th Place Pork – 1
Reserve Grand Champion – 1
People’s Choice Winner – 1
When we began our journey into the world of BBQ as we know it now, there was never any intent to do any sort of competitions. In fact, when we got serious about cooking BBQ many years ago, I had never even heard of Competitive BBQ. It wasn’t until one night I happened to catch an episode of “BBQ Pitmasters” on TV that I even knew something like it existed. Over the next little while I watched the other episodes as they were aired and realized it could be a ton of fun. So, in 2011 we formed our first try at a BBQ team which included myself, my wife and our three kids known as “The Sinder Pit” and entered our first contest. The event was close to home and there were a few big names there and we were way out of our league, but we really did have and good time and ended up doing ok for our first competition and managed a 5th place in ribs as well as winning the peoples choice.
Sinder was our old German Shepherd who was a constant companion whenever I was cooking at home so the name just kinda made sense. You can read more about how this all came about by visiting our blog, The Sinder Pit Blog.
After our first time competing, life and such got in the way and we took a bit of a hiatus for a few years other than just a couple of local, non-sanctioned events. We did a little catering and honed our craft along the way but weren’t able to get back to the competition circuit, time was not our ally. In March of 2017 Sinder passed away and we decided to get back into the competition game later that year, however it was determined that we should make some changes which included a new team name. The Sinder Pit just didn’t have a good ring to it and I was not real happy about having a constant reminder of my faithful companion and friend since he was no longer with us
So, we came up with the name “Luney-Q BBQ” since I am of the opinion you have to be a little crazy to do this anyway. We began competing again in August of 2017 and have fared pretty good so far. It really has been and is a great time when we compete and since my wife and children are involved, I tell people we go to BBQ competitions and a family vacation breaks out.
In all the time we have competed we have only used what is now known as Phoebe Ann’s rubs and sauce. We originally started out with just two flavors of rub, (Original blend for Pork and Chicken and Desert Dust for Brisket), and in the process have developed 3 more, (Best of Both, Competition Pork and Competition Beef). Our sauce recipe, however, has remained unchanged since around 2007 except for competition cooking I will tweak the heat or sweet just a bit to give it a little more pop.
We figured out it is important to have some diversity in the flavors and methods used since the judging for competitions can be very subjective. There are times when we have placed very high in a category and even though we do basically the exact same thing at another event, we will place fairly low in the same category.
Through it all one thing that has been very important to us, that we use our own recipes for our rubs and sauce. There is an immense sense of pride when we win with our own products. That is why we are proud to offer our original rubs, spices and sauce to others knowing it has been proven not only in the backyard for family and friends but has done very well for us in competitions.
