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Where there's smoke ...

There's fire, as teams cook up the 'cue for top prizes at Ribfest.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published November 10, 2005

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]

John McKinney, 52, of J&J Bar-B-Q in Bradenton is one of the few local cooks who will compete at this year’s Ribfest. McKinney, who has been cooking for 26 years, will have a crew of five working this weekend’s festival.

Good barbecue takes a very long time.

Four hours for a decent slab of ribs, 12 to 14 for beef brisket or a fine Boston butt of pork. And then 20 years to convert the most primal form of cooking into a national sport.

All of which - ribs, brisket, pork shoulder and competitive attitude - will be up for sampling by the ton this weekend when the Northeast Exchange Club hosts the 17th annual Ribfest at Vinoy Park in downtown St. Petersburg.

The 'cue comes with or without sauce, and a mop splash of sass, too. Chicken will be on the fire too, but why?

"Anybody can do chicken. Brisket, now that takes 12 hours that no one can do at home. They come straight to us," says Jim Clayton, whose Texas Outlaws have won the biggest cookoffs several times.

Clayton and other smoke-stained cooks on the pro tour of barbecue start unloading their trucks and firing up their cookers today.

By dark, crews from Minnesota to Alabama will have their brags posted and a first load of ribs in the smoker for eatin' on Friday. They'll cook the big hunks all night and put the ribs on in the morning when they play to a crowd of 60,000 barbecue fans.

For John McKinney, the journey to Ribfest is only 30 miles up from Bradenton and across the Skyway.

It's a longer trip for Dennis Carino. He is one of the touring pros who has been on the road since spring, pitching his barbecue tent at 20 cookoffs from Georgia to Canada and Nevada and back again (with 17 pennants).

Their caravans are different, too. From McKinney's smoke-tinged J&J's south of downtown Bradenton, it will be a 14-foot truck with a big load of hickory and applewood, refrigeration for 50 cases of ribs, steam tables for sides, sinks and his choice of three black pot-bellied smokers.

McKinney is one of the few local cooks to join in Ribfest. The Oaks of Sarasota will be here again as well as Fat Fred's team led by Frank Edgar of Cafe 1001 in St. Petersburg (not related to the Fred Fleming's Famous Barbecue chain).

McKinney has been smoking ribs at Ribfest for 13 years and barbecuing twice as long. Although J&J's doesn't compete nationally, his barbecue is such a staple at outdoor events and parties around the Tampa Bay area that some weekends all three cookers are smoking somewhere.

Flying the yellow flag of Porky-n-Beans of Parma, Ohio, Carino will pilot a custom-built mobile restaurant, with a three-door fridge, a walk-in freezer, a three-basin sink, a 16-foot-tall inflatable mascot and a roll-out wall of fame listing years of accolades.

A 38-foot fifth-wheel trailer is divided between storage and living quarters for Carino, his wife, Judy, and dog Pepper.

Yet McKinney and Carino's stock will be the same: thousands of pounds of ribs, Boston butts and chickens. McKinney brings his own and Carino's are delivered around the country as he travels.

They both pack another ingredient: a practiced team of five or more plus their own quarter-century of wisdom in the alchemy of meat, fire and smoke.

In 1987, St. Petersburg added a barbecue cookoff to the Festival of States, and Ribfest has been on the circuit ever since, although it has since moved to the fall.

Ribfest is a familiar stop for longtime campaigners like Porky, the Outlaws, the Deperadoes from Ohio, Camp 31 from Alabama, and Aussom Aussies, led by a contender from the land of the barbie.

Custom rolling kitchens can cost more than $100,000, cookoff entry fees are as high as $2,500 and weekend sales can top $80,000.

It's full-time business as much as competition, for most contests offer as many prizes and affirmation as a school fair in Lake Wobegone, including People's Choice awards. At Ribfest, however, a panel of local judges will award $4,000 in prizes for first, second and third place in ribs and in sauce.

Yet ribbons matter to guys like Clayton of the Texas Outlaws.

"If I was in a sack race I'd want to be in first place," he says. "When we won Reno in 2004 we were on the Food Channel 12 times. I literally had people fly in from Seattle and people drive 700 miles out of their way" to eat at his restaurant in Elizabethtown, outside Louisville, Ky.

While cooks have a few secrets about their sauces and rubs - this year's Reno winner used some anchovy - most sauces follow broad national tastes, tomato-based and a tad sweet. Many offer honey mustard or hot as well, and one cook will have North Carolina style, but all take more pride in meat than sauce.

"I put more emphasis on the meat. My meat tastes good without the sauce." McKinney explained during a visit to the screened-in pit behind his restaurant. "When you have to put sauce on barbecue for it to taste good, that's wrong."

If Ribfest isn't enough barbecue for you, there's more 'cue on the bay area's plate next weekend when Plant City hosts its third Pig Jam. This is barbecue of a different sport, barbecue for serious amateurs competing under the purist rules of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. Almost 50 teams will cook competitively and sell to hungry spectators.

Next stop on the circuit: your back yard.

- Chris Sherman can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com

Ribfest gates open at 11 a.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Vinoy Park, Seventh Avenue NE at Tampa Bay, in St. Petersburg. Admission is $6 per day, advance at Ticketmaster plus service charges or $10 at the gate (no re-entry). Ages 12 and younger are free. No coolers, video or audio recording devices, alcohol or pets. For information: (727) 528-3828; www.ribfest.org

Highlights include a Corvette show Saturday and a Harley-Davidson show Sunday. The Budweiser Clydesdales will be in the park at about 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. A kids play zone is open each day.

The music will be on two stages, the main Budweiser Stage and the secondary Red Hook Stage. The schedule:

FRIDAY: From noon to 6 p.m., Urban Gypsies will play in the middle of the park.

Budweiser Stage: 6 p.m., Dennis Lee Show; 7:30 p.m., Charlie Souza & the New Tropics; 8:30 p.m., David Lee Roth.

Red Hook Stage: 6:30 p.m., Black Maria; 7:30 p.m., Burn Season; 8:45 p.m., Nonpoint.

SATURDAY: Budweiser Stage: 1 p.m., Little Feat; 3:15 p.m., Night Ranger; 5 p.m., Honey Tribe featuring Devon Allman; 6:30 p.m., Gator Country; 8:30 p.m., Dickey Betts and Great Southern.

Red Hook Stage: 1 and 5:30 p.m., Cuban Sandwich Crisis; 2:30 p.m., Trick Shot; 7:15 p.m., Soulfound; 8:45 p.m., Socialburn.

SUNDAY: Budweiser Stage: 3 p.m., Gregg Rolie; 6:15 p.m., Foreigner.

Red Hook Stage: 1 p.m., Heat Seeker; 2:30 p.m., Blue Wail; 6 p.m., Lennon.

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 14:55:09]