Holtsville Hosts 2010 Battle of the BBQ Brethren

The fourth annual KCBS-Sanctioned New York State BBQ Championship Battle of the BBQ Brethren was held in Holtsville this weekend.

It was a BBQ-lover's haven. In attendance at J. Kings Park were smoked, slow cooked, tender ribs, chicken, beef brisket, roasted corn and 23 teams from around the northeast competing for the grand championship title, the accompanying cash prize and bragging rights valid for at least a year. Organized by the Suffolk County Police Athletic League, all proceeds went to the New Interdisciplinary School, a learning center for children with special needs in Yaphank. 

"There are about 60 volunteers here including police cadets," said Joe Bionbo, who has been on the PAL Board of Directors for 10 years.

The strategies implemented on the road to victory vary as much as the teams themselves. A spokesperson for Swamp Pit, which has been competing since 2007, said that they never do well in the ribs category and need to start paying attention to what their competitors are including. 

Matt Ragusa, 31, from New Jersey, who founded Jacked Up BBQ, found out about the Battle of the Brethren by following the Kansas City BBQ Society. Ragusa said he uses molasses, brown sugar, cider vinegar, ketchup and 17 different secret spices for their ribs and pulled-pork sauce and beef broth for the brisket. The key to competing, according to Ragusa, is to keep it sweet.

" I don't want to insult anyone with the heat," said Ragusa.

The family team, Balzin' Buttz BBQ, has a secret of its own: practice, attention to detail and high-quality meat. The ingredients are "nothing exotic" but general spices hand-blended into a secret mix, with salt the only ingredient they are revealing. They call it a flavor profile and reflect on how restaurants use a lot of sauce rather than letting the flavor of the meat shine through. Bob Schwartz, from Sayville, slow-cooks the ribs for six hours.

"We call the amber liquid that exudes from the meat 'pig honey'," he said. "When it comes out the meat is tender."

It's all about feel, according to Schwartz, who said to test if the ribs are done, lift the rack and if it is flexible and flops it's done.

Shake 'N Bake, which competed for the first time, sprays its ribs with apple juice to keep them moist.  The sauce, however, will remain a mystery.

Purple Pork Masters' secret sauce starts out sweet, moves to sour and in the back of your mouth is the fire, spicy not hot. They just sent their sauce out to be bottled to sell on the Web.

The overall winners from the weekend-long competition were Smoke In Da Eye in third place, Chubby Hubby in second and Out of the Ashes in first. Out of the Ashes is now able to represent New York in the national invitational contests.