.....Guys, I've got all my made-sauce on hold with this contest in a little over two weeks....I'm bringing down a load I just started that should end up with about 10 gallons, but I'm not for sure it will be ready by the 13th....I bring down an initial watery load of 24 quarts, that fills the 24 quart pot to the absolute top as it sits on a smaller width, but adequately-sized, hot plate....and yes, the hotplate would support a pot containing a graveyard dead skinned and washed King Kong....I feel it's paramount to bring this initial load down very slowly....on very light heat.....I've stepped this initial load up a hair on the heat, to try to have the option of freshly-made by contest time....but I think I will probably use what I have already made since it's had time for the sour side to mature, and I sweeten it up a bit, with more light brown sugar and baker's grade honey, too late for rendered down grape jelly, don't dare use jam, jam burns....I could probably go much warmer since there's no flour involved, even in the mustard, a gallon and six cups up front taken watery....real watery from rooster sauce and vinegar and pineapple juice....that was the largest breakthrough I had....add pineapple juice right up front for the rendering-down, to turn the sour side pastel-like in taste....kinda' like a compressor does on voices, great blend.....when the initial rendering finishes, what you get is the pot half-full of good stuff....then the ketchup filler I use is seperately double-boiled down by 1/3, and it takes on a totally different flavor that's "quality"....use Heinz unless you honestly like another national brand of ketchup better....the ketchup thickening up is ok, but the great result is the flavor....at this point using the Heinz ketchup double-boiled down by 1/3, you can add drained hamburger, chopped garlic buds, and erregano, maybe it's arregano, or oregano, anyhow, and you get a very quality spaghetti sauce....the ketchup must be double-boiled down....the flour in ketchup which is considerable, goes to burn quickly with direct heat....in two minutes, with "normal" heat, it can go to the bottom being burned black an inch or two thick, hello, disposal, truth....I'm thinking about only entering the sauce division, but you can't beat charcoal smoke by the right methods, and I may go for the chicken category too, and put my chicken up against guys with grills in big trucks, ya' know?.......I'm thinking about serving the judges charcoal smoked chicken wing drummies, gizzards, and livers, with no sauce on any of them, plastic forks and knives on the side, and a measure of sauce for dipping in front of each judge....almost everyone likes one or the other concerning gizzards and livers, and there's wing drummies for the guteral abstaining dissiminent, haha....the judges will fork their choice, maybe cut it smaller, then go to the warmed sauce sitting in front of each judge in a styrofoam bowl/cup....when this segment is fully completed, there should be only a scant few walking-wounded....then, to ice the prize, when my turn comes to be judged, each of the four judges would be handed, right after fully tasting and analyzing my chicken and sauce, an ICE-COLD, fresh out of salted ice/water from a cooler, "Nehi Peach Drink" that comes in a big glass bottle, about 20 0z, still drippin' ice water out of that Igloo cooler.....Nehi Peach, ice-cold, is killer with bbq-anything.....at that point, it will be bring in the wagons and start loadin' bodies....
