Team Takes Big Bar-B-Que Prize with Fast Eddy's by Cookshack Smoker "Straight Out of the Box"

Randy Pauly had never cooked on an FEC before the 2007 Houston Livestock Show World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest and he walked off with the Grand Championship. He says it's because FECs are so easy to use.

PONCA CITY, OK (PRWeb) March 7, 2007 -- Prevailing over 400+ teams, Randy Pauly's Hot Knots Cooking Team went home as the Grand Champion of the Houston event, February 22 - 24, 2007. Smoking on two fresh-out-of-the-boxes Fast Eddy's by Cookshack smokers, team members Pauly, Mike Thompson, Tim Butler, and Bill Millroy had never fired up an FEC before, but were still able to get the results needed to walk away with the big prize.

"The main benefit of using an FEC in competition is not having to baby-sit it. I watched it the first four hours to see what the degree difference would be. It never went more than 2 degrees above or below what we set it at, which I was very impressed with. It's awesome that I can put in product and get consistent turn out every time. With an offset, there is a big window where that product quality can fall, but with the FEC it's consistent," said Pauly.

Pauly attended the Fast Eddy's Championship Cooking Class in December, 2006. The class provided him the information he needed to decide that an FEC100 was the pit that he wanted, and he placed his order for 2 FEC's before leaving Ponca City, OK, where the class is held. The smokers arrived 3 weeks before the contest.

"It was truly worth the wait. I was stoked, so excited. I opened up the boxes to make sure everything was there, but didn't have time to play with it, so I left them alone."

Pauly did not fully unpack the smokers before heading to the contest. Turn-ins were on Saturday, and on Thursday he unboxed the smokers at his cooking site to get them seasoned before cooking his contest meat. Never having operated an FEC before, Randy had decided to dedicate one hour to reading the operators manual before even firing the pit up.

"I grab the envelope where the manual is supposed to be, open it up, and there's no manual. I have no clue what I'm supposed to do, but I had kept hearing how easy these were to operate. I had seen Eddy the night before and asked him what I needed to know about firing it up, and he told me the basics. All I had to go by were Eddy's tips, but I thought 'how hard could it possibly be? I'll figure it out.' I also knew I could call Stuart (Powell, Cookshack CEO) in the morning and he'd do whatever needed to be done if what I did didn't work."

Pauly got the FECs fired up, did a test run, and got to know the basic format of the operating system. "We ran a test run, and it purrs like a kitten. We set it how we wanted it to cook, made a mix of pellets we thought would work and let it go. It cooked a little quicker than the offset did, but that's no problem, because that's more sleep time."

The team turned in ribs that they were very happy with. Those ribs got them into the finals, and their final entry "coasted us home" to Grand Champion.

"We were going blind with it, but the FEC's turned out a beautiful product. We were very pleased with the results, and we were really excited about our win. Now we're heading to the Jack (Daniel's Invitational Barbecue) with two FEC100's. The opportunity to go to the Jack is one of the major reasons we were gunning for this win. There is no better victory than the opportunity to cook at the Jack, and that is what this gets us."

Cookshack Barbecue Equipment

Cookshack manufactures smoker ovens for commercial, home and competition use under the brand names of Cookshack and Fast Eddy's by Cookshack. Cookshack has an industry-wide reputation for its high quality products and exceptional customer service. The company has been in business for over 40 years and ships its products worldwide. Cookshack is privately held and is located in Oklahoma. Commercial equipment is NSF approved and UL listed; most stainless steel models are USDA approved. Residential equipment is UL listed. Made in the USA.

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