Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. Next up in our interview series is the Red Hot Smokers. We spoke with Tommy Langdon of Arlington, Tennessee, first. He started cooking with the Red Hot Smokers in 2006. He has many fond memories of the trips the team has taken together. Competing in the competitive barbecue circuit is a great honor, and it’s even better when you place in a BBQ competition like Memphis in May, one of the biggest competitions for barbecue in the world. Because he loves smoking and grilling, getting to compete is a fun thing to do, and it makes the barbecue taste better when you put your love and passion into it, too.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. Today, we sat down with Tuffy Stone from Richmond, Virginia. You may also know Tuffy by his nickname, “The Professor,” because of his obsessions with the science of smoke and the precision at which he attacks his barbecue. Tuffy was culinary trained with French techniques at La Maisonette, but he turned to barbecue in 2004. After his first barbecue competition, he was hooked! He’s competed many times since, winning Grand Champion titles in almost every major barbecue competition, including back-to-back wins at the American Royal World Series of Barbecue. He’s won at the Kingsford Invitational and the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitation. Tuffy is also a judge at Destination America’s Barbecue Pitmasters and he competes at Memphis in May with his team, Cool Smoke. Sometimes, the team consists of his father, George, and Tuffy alone, but at larger competitions, they’ll have a team of eight. If you’re interested in cooking BBQ – whether it’s as the best backyard pitmaster in the neighborhood or if you want to take your skills to the next level and do some competition barbecue – Tuffy Stone recommends taking a class. This is especially helpful if you’re going into competition barbecue, because there are a lot of costs involved (the entry fees, fuels, buying the meats, etc). A BBQ class shortens the learning curve and can really help you make the most out of your investment. For backyard barbecue enthusiasts, he suggests buying a book.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. In our latest interview, we sat down with Ray Lampe of Dr. BBQ in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dr. BBQ is the name of Ray’s team, but it’s also his nickname. There’s a reason that Ray was inducted in the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2014. He’s one of the most recognized pitmasters in the country, and he’s spent 15 years testing different BBQ cooking styles. He entered his first rib BBQ contest in 1982 and quit the family trucking business to become a full-time pitmaster. He’s written nine books, including Slow Fire: The Beginner's Guide to Barbecue, Dr. BBQ’s Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook, the official NFL Gameday Cookbook, and a new cookbook (the Big Green Egg Cookbook) to help home barbecue enthusiasts, backyard grillers, and those interested in competition barbecue learn how to cook the best New American Barbecue.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. In this installment, we took a few minutes to chat with legendary pitmaster Big Moe Cason from Des Moines, Iowa. His favorite thing about the world of BBQ is the people and the crowds. Everyone comes together and becomes part of a big barbecue family. Over the years, you get to know the people on the competition circuit and the other pitmasters. They become your friends and you get to share the love of barbecue, grilling, and smoking meats together. Another piece of advice from Big Moe Cason is to season meats before they go on the grill, and sauce them when they leave the heat. Sauces often contain sugars that can caramelize and burn on the hot heat of the grill, even in lower temperatures of a smoker. Don’t learn the hard way like Moe did; benefit from his skills and experience!

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. As we sat down with Chris Sussman from Louisville, Kentucky (otherwise known as the BBQ Buddha), we were reminded of something he always says: Grill by feel. Sussman’s whole philosophy is about learning how to cook, grill, or smoke in any environment. Once you really zone in and get into making great BBQ, you’ll be able to know when your food is finished just by sight and touch;

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. In our next segment, we took some time to interview Dylan Lipe of Grilla Grills and Blackwood BBQ. Dylan is the owner of several restaurants in Chicago, Illinois, as well as a food truck in Denver, Colorado. Throughout his career, he’s been featured in many Chef magazines and has earned many awards, including KCBS and MBN competitions. He’s always been inspired by the way that food can create personal connections between people who started out as complete strangers. He’s traveled all over the world, developing and refining his cooking techniques. He has a true passion for the pit and all things barbecue, and it really shines through in his food. The thing he loves most about BBQ in general is the familial atmosphere. Everyone gathers around the pit and the fire, coming together to enjoy a meal together. It’s a very old school cooking method – an early man thing – but somehow it’s still so relevant today despite all our advanced technology.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. Next up, we took some time to chat with Kyle Storms from Nashville, Tennessee. Kyle talks about his love for barbecue. The best part about it is that BBQ is that it’s an experiment that you get to eat. Along the way, you make friends with other BBQ enthusiasts, sharing new recipes and trying out new things. Every time you make a new BBQ recipe or try out a new grilling technique, you get to eat the results of your experiment!

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. Next up, we sat down to chat with Pedro Gonzales of the Memphis Latin Porkers. Pedro is from Venezuela, and he’s the head cook for the Memphis Latin Porkers team. They’re currently the only Latin team that competes in Memphis in May. They started competing in 2016, and this team of Latinos is proud to represent their Central and South American origins. Their goal is to provide an opportunity for the Latino community in Memphis to become more integrated, bringing their traditions and integrating them with Memphis cultures. They’re looking to create a culturally-unified Memphis, and they hope to bring everyone together through the family community created by barbecue.

Sign up for the free Quickstart Competition Barbecue Tips Interview Series grillmasteruniversity. com/quickstart We interviewed 10 more competition barbecue teams at the Memphis in May World Championship of Barbecue Competition. Each team offers their top advice and tips for mastering your smoker. Whether you’re a backyard cook or interested in entering the competition circuit you’ll love these behind the scenes interviews. In the next interview in our series, we took the time to sit down with Ben Corden of Memphis Sparks. If you want to learn to smoke, Ben’s advice is to go for it. It really doesn’t matter what gear you have – you may have a hand-me-down smoker or a regular, inexpensive kettle grill. You can buy the cheapest smoker on the market, and it doesn’t matter. It’s all fine, because the quality of the food is what is really important in great barbecue.