Professional, amateur, and kids BBQ teams compete in 5th Annual "Up in Smoke On the Square"

[June 08, 2015]  LINCOLN - On June 6, 2015, over 42 participants competed in the fifth year of "Up in Smoke on the Square" sponsored by State Bank of Lincoln and held in downtown Lincoln.

Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) participants prepare chicken, pork ribs, pork, and beef brisket. According rules on the KCBS website, contest must submit six portions of meat in an approved container and chicken, pork, and brisket may be chopped, pulled, sliced, or diced; while ribs must be turned in bone-in.

Teams this year were from Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Many teams travel around Illinois and throughout the Midwest to participate in competitions with the competition circuit lasting from April to September each year.

Nuthatch Hill BBQ, with Lincolnites Brad and Jennifer Luckhart, as well as a few friends acting as 'pit crew,' are in their fifth year competing, having been in the competition since day one. The team has won competitions in Morton, Arthur, Wisconsin, and Iowa. This year, their daughter Marin also competed in the new kid's contest.

For flavor, Luckhart uses Pork Mafia Memphis Mud, which contains a variety of spices and seasonings and his own Nuthatch Hill spices. He likes the progress in cooking and making your product perfect, plus find it is a good way to promote Nuthatch products. He also enjoys the Anything Goes Competition on Friday night, and this year made pulled pork sliders with a bourbon BBQ sauce and a spicy chicken with bacon on potato bread and maple syrup, plus bread pudding with apple shine.

Another somewhat local team was the Smoky Links BBQ team which includes Ken and Mary Tappendorf of Lincoln, and their son Kris and his wife Julie of Northbrook. It is their third year in the competition. In three seasons of competing on the KCBS circuit, the team has traveled to Westmont, Morton, St. Charles and Brimfield. Though they have not won any contests overall, they have placed first in chicken and pork and an eighth in ribs.

Kris said their Brisket now cooks for eight hours, though at one time he cooked it for fourteen hours. As for the method of cooking, Kris suggests getting the flavors you like. For the chicken, the team uses a spicy homemade chicken rub with a sweet sauce. They use a mix of commercial sauces for the other meats, with two or three that work well together.

The Cluck, Oink, and Moo BBQ team, with members Bob Brown and Tom Lanning, hails from nearby Peoria. They have been competing on the KCBS circuit since 2008 in Westmont, Morton, Monroe City, Springfield, Arthur, Waterloo, Iowa; and Bagnell Dam, Missouri. They won in the chicken category at last year's competition and placed fifth in ribs. Just last week, they won first place in the pork category in Brimfield.

Brown and Lanning like the competition and getting to know the same people on the circuit in addition to meeting new people at each one. They describe their cooking method as old school, low and slow, and enjoy using a smoker because you do not have to "feed" it. As for their recipes, the team declared them top secret.

Blue Island BBQ's Brandon Richardella has been competing for two years in Brimfield, Morton, and Arthur, but it is his first year for this competition. Richardella said some friends who previously competed here convinced him to come. He loves the community and says people have gone out of their way to help him, making it a phenomenal time.

In last year's competitions, Richardella had a couple of first places. He uses pork mafia spices with his own special sauces and cooks it in a "jumbo," a barbeque pit handmade in Texas. For the Anything Goes Competition, he prepared a grilled watermelon skewer wrapped in prosciutto with fresh mozzarella and watermelon balsamic vinaigrette.

Backyard Barbeque Competition
The Backyard Barbeque Competition hosted by Royal Oak BBQ allows amateurs to showcase their talent. This part of the competition has rib and chicken categories.

JTA BBQ, made up of John and Tricia Goldsberry and their daughter Anna, has competed in Lincoln for the past three years and recently started going to Backyard BBQ competitions in Morton, Arthur, and Tuscola. They have not won yet, but said it is just fun to do as a family. As for their methods, the team just cooks it a few hours here and a few hours there, looking for good color, racking the ribs, and adding spices and barbeque sauce, then a dry rub and more sauce after taking it out of the cooker.

Former Lincoln fire chief Bucky Washam calls his team 9-11Q. It is his second year in this competition and he placed fifth in chicken last year. Washam uses a special sauce and a homemade rub and cooks ribs for five to six hours, and chicken for three to four hours in the smoker.

Kids Q Competition

A new contest this year was the Kids Q Competition sponsored by Woods and Bates. Those competing were mostly local, though some travel with their parent's teams and have competed in other kids' competitions. There were two age groups: Seven - 11 and 12 - 15. For the competition, participants were given one pound of hamburger to prepare any way they chose and cook on a small charcoal grill. Many of the children said they anticipated that the competition would be fun.

Two Best Friends and Grill team members Mia Boughan and Adrena Reynolds help grill at home and thought it would be a lot of fun to compete.

Miller's Big Smoke team with brothers Dalton and Brody Miller also help their dad grill; they saw the event in the paper and explained that it sounded fun.

Little Nuthatch Hill's Marin Luckhart loves to cook and help dad out, and looked forward to having "superfun."

Guardians of the Grill's Burke Wilkins and Cage Kingsley love to grill. Burke said his dad's boss Chris Graue asked if they would compete.

The Panther Burg team of Elijah Pollice and Griffin heard about the competition from their cousins and decided it would be fun and also hoped to win.

Jack Graue of Jet BBQ said his dogs enjoy eating his cooking and he figured it would be a good way to learn new things.

Grilling with Style's Chloe Bottom wanted to compete because she likes to cook and her dad taught her to barbeque, so she thought she would give the competition a try and found a lot of gourmet recipes, hoping to have fun cooking.

Country Boy's Barbeque's Prescott Davis and Jackson Mathon heard about it from their moms and like to grill a lot, like food and cooking, and thought it sounded like fun.

Team Red, White, and BBQ's Tanner Strampp and Trent Butterfield have been taught how to smoke meat and felt it was a good chance to try grilling and have fun at the same time.

Desi Q's Isaiah Wahab likes cooking and thinks it is fun to compete with others who like cooking.

Kicking Ash's team of Grace Skelton and Alice Roate like to grill at home and when they heard about the contest, thought it sounded like fun.

Smoke Em All's David Pisoni travels with his uncle's team and has enjoyed cooking for a while--he thought it was cool when his uncle started a team and has done one other competition this year.

Sugar Creek Jr. Barbeque team's Alex Eads and Chase Eyrse looked forward to cooking and having fun. Eads and Eyrse are just getting into cooking, but Eyrse's dad competes in KCBS competitions.

[Angela Reiners]