Linkdown: 5/24/23 – The Melissa Cookston is No Brett Favre Edition

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Monk: Firehawk Brewpub opened its doors this past Saturday in Mount Holly and the barbecue joint/brewery promptly sold out within hours of opening. Based on the comments on its Facebook page, it appears that the visitors that day were pleased with their food and beer. I hope to confirm for myself soon.

Firehawk Brewpub will be open Wednesday through Friday from 4-9 and Saturday from 11-9 this week. Check their Instagram and Facebook pages for further updates on hours of operation.

Native News

Some photos from Jake Wood’s Gettin’ Piggy With It; looks like it was a great event

An estimated 100,000+ people attended last weekend’s Cheerwine Festival

Non-Native News

Photos of the Winners from last weekend’s Memphis in May 2023 World Barbecue Championship

Melissa Cookston has officially cooked in her last Memphis in May and will be focusing on her other businesses as well as the World Junior BBQ League

More coverage of Cookston’s retirement of sorts

Cedric the Entertainer and Anthony Anderson stopped by Memphis in May for their upcoming TV show, “Kings of BBQ”

Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, TX has recently added a barbecue joint and distillery to its operations

Barbecue Showdown season 2 will be released this Friday on Netfllix

John Tanner loved the Brunswick stew from Porkey’s BBQ in Lothian, Maryland

The Southern Foodways Alliance profiles Daniel Vaughn

Linkdown: 5/17/23 – The Day After National BBQ Day Edition

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Monk: Garren’s turning 40 in late June and throwing a heckuva party at Jon G’s! The Jon G’s Jubilee will bring in town Jake Wood of Lawrence Barbecue in Durham as well as the N. Sea Oyster Co from the Topsail Beach area. Charlotte’s Divine Barrel Brewing will provide the beer with ice cream from Wadesboro’s Brown Creek Creamery, who Jon G’s uses for cheeses in their sausages. Tickets will surely go fast for this so if interested, I’d recommend you act quickly.

Ticket info here

Native News

Hubba Hubba Smokehouse has opened for the season; they close each winter and reopen during the spring

Elliot Moss’s Little Louie’s continues to play with smoked meats

Southern Smoke’s Matthew Register is one of the chefs who weigh in on “Boat Chicken”

A belated Happy National Barbecue Day

Non-Native News

Fork Grove BBQ will open this weekend in Anderson

Hector Garate of Palmira BBQ is heading back to Texas for another collab, this time with Khoi Barbecue on May 21

The Memphis in May Barbecue Fest starts this week; here are 10 teams to watch for

How to trim a brisket, by Jess Pryles

NC’s BBQ Fest on the Neuse Puts Whole Hog In Spotlight

This week we have a guest post from great friend of the blog Sean Ludwig of The Smoke Sheet and NYC BBQ. Sean recently attended the BBQ Fest on the Neuse in downtown Kinston. I have yet to make it to Kinston for the event but after reading Sean’s recap, I have added it to my ever-expanding list of barbecue joints, contests, and festivals for the eastern part of the state.

This article has been reprinted from The Smoke Sheet with Sean’s permission and a minor edit to reflect when the festival took place. Both The Smoke Sheet and NYC BBQ newsletters are invaluable resources for the barbecue-obsessed and if you aren’t already subscribed, I can’t recommend it enough.

On the first weekend in May, an estimated 100,000 attendees showed up for the BBQ Fest on the Neuse in Kinston, North Carolina. The annual BBQ Fest — held alongside the Neuse River — featured food trucks, vendors, live music, rides, family fun activities, and more on Friday night and Saturday day.

The BBQ Fest on Neuse attracted tens of thousands this past weekend in Kinston, NC. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

But the real star of the show for die-hard barbecue fans was the 42nd Wil King Hog Happenin’ BBQ competition — the world’s largest whole hog cookoff. The competition, sanctioned by the North Carolina Pork Council, featured 40 Professional and 47 Backyard teams that cooked hogs on Friday night into Saturday morning. This whole hog competition is one of the top competitions held annually in North Carolina, alongside events like the Newport Pig Cookin Contest.

“This is the largest whole hog competition in the country,” Chris Fineran of the highly decorated Beach Boys BBQ team said. “And at the Newport competition, they have 68 cooks, and every one of them has to compete in the same Professional category. Here it is broken into two different groups. … But everybody shows up. There are probably six to eight prior Pork Council champions competing.”

The BBQ Fest hosts the world’s largest whole hog competition. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

Competitors select their hogs using a lottery system on Friday starting at 8 p.m. and then go to work cleaning and prepping them. No special seasonings can be used, only salt. Teams cook for roughly 10 hours before judges begin tasting and testing hogs at 8 a.m. Just four judges were in charge of evaluating the 40 Professional team hogs, and four judges scored the 47 Backyard teams.

Employees from Kings BBQ Restaurant prepare chopped whole hog for the public at the BBQ Fest. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

Almost all of the hogs and hog parts that are cooked during the cookoff end up being chopped up and served for BBQ sandwiches during the main event. The crew from Kings BBQ Restaurant in Kinston, North Carolina, is in charge of selecting what meat and parts go into the pork and chopping it up in style. The BBQ sandwiches and “bulk BBQ” in plastic containers sell out each year, with this year being no exception.

Around the U.S., traditional whole hog cooking is not easy to find, with only a handful of restaurants still serving it weekly. It takes a lot of hard work but the result is special.

“You can get some of the bacon, you can get some of the ham, the shoulders, the loins, and all that is chopped up together,” Fineran said. “With whole hog, when you put it all together, you got all the flavor profiles with the white meats and the dark meats. There’s no better barbecue.”

Fresh whole hog sandwiches for the public are prepared Saturday morning of the fest. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

During the awards ceremony, cooks who had been up for 40+ hours finally found out the results. In the Backyard category, Kenneth Clark of Backyard Bubba won first place, earning him $300. In the professional category, Billy Narron of Wicked Pig took first place and won $500. (See more winners from the event from the Neuse News.)

Billy Narron of the Wicked Pig team from Middlesex, NC, won the top prize in the Professional category. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

The strangest thing about the BBQ Fest on the Neuse may be that you could go to it and not experience what makes it special. On both Friday and Saturday, thousands of attendees bought tons of non-BBQ food from street vendors, watched popular country artist Easton Corbin put on a show, and checked out classic cars.

But the whole hog competition, which purposely has teams putting in so much effort Friday night and Saturday morning, is not really meant for the general public. That said, I did see a lot of people in the know walking around before the event kicked off on Saturday, and they were able to get some fresh whole hog bites from teams after they had been judged. And the masses can at least try some of the whole hogs in the form of tasty sandwiches throughout the day.

Whole hog is a special type of barbecue. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)

I certainly was glad I showed up early on Saturday morning so I could see teams finish up their hogs, observe the judging, listen to stories from pitmasters, and taste-test a few hogs. If you do find yourself near the BBQ Fest of the Neuse, you should check it out. Just be sure to make friends with the teams cooking whole hogs, and you’ll be able to get the full experience.

Sean Ludwig
Co-Founder, The Smoke Sheet

Linkdown: 5/10/23 – The Barbecue Hall of Fame Semi-Finalists Edition

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Congrats to Steve Grady of Grady’s BBQ (as well as the rest of the top 10) for making the semi-finalist list for this year’s Barbecue Hall of Fame class! The inductees will be announced later this month on May 24th.

Native News

WRAL is a fan of Midwood Smokehouse‘s latest location in Raleigh

Midwood Smokehouse has some new barbecue taco specials Thursdays through Sundays in May for National Barbecue Month

Winners from this year’s Jiggy with the Piggy Challenge in Kannapolis

Congrats to Longleaf Swine for being named Readers’ Choice Awards winner for Best New Restaurant by Wake Living’s readers

Congrats to Prime Barbecue on 3 years open

Panther City BBQ out of Texas will be joining Christopher Prieto in an upcoming Latin-inspired barbecue class

Check out John Tanner’s updated list of best barbecue in Eastern NC

The Lexington Pit Stop Event Combines NASCAR and Barbecue this Memorial Day weekend; it’s a celebration of Lexington’s stock car racing teams and the pit-cooked Lexington-style barbecue for which the town is famous

Non-Native News

Scotty’s Whole Hog Barbecue is switching to a “once and month” pop-up schedule in Minnesota this year, and the next service will be on May 20

Aaron Franklin’s latest book, Smoke, from him and his photographer/collaborator Jordan McKay is now out

John Tanner’s out of state travels takes him to B. Cooper Barbecue in Austin, Pig Beach in West Palm Beach, and Pig and Pint in Mississippi

Report from the field on Kolacny BBQ House by Bryan from Tales from the Pits