The Smoking Hot Confessions BBQ Podcast

This is Episode Eight of Season Five. In this episode I'm on the road again and this time heading to far north Queensland for the inaugural Townsville BBQ Battle . It's the dead of winter in Australia right now, so a trip north was exactly what the doctor ordered. I had left my hoodie in my truck at the airport, but it didn't matter. Situated right on the beach, the sun was hot, the skies were cle...

This is Episode Seven of Season Five.  In this episode I get in the ears of the Reserve Grand Champion and Grand Champion winners from Smoke in Broke last weekend. So I kick things off with Richard from Beer-B-Q who reveals some very interesting things about the smoker that they cooked most of their hand-ins on. After that, I chat once again with Jye from Smokeface Grillahs - the team that just ca...

In a huge week for competition BBQ in Australia, we've had 4 competitions in just 7 days. We've had a sneaky mid-week ABA Lite competition hosted by Angus Reserve in Albury. Then, on the same weekend, we've had a Steak Cookoff Association competition at the Que Club in Melbourne, the Booval Barbecue Festival in Ipswich and Just Smokin' in Gloucester.  In this episode, of the podcast I get a hold o...

In this episode I pick up the phone and catch up with my old mates Booma from Full Metal Ketal and Jye from Smokeface Grillahs. These lads picked up RGC and GC respectively at the 2019 Iron Jack BBQ Challenge at the Western Hotel in Ballarat. We cover lots of things, from changing smokers mid-season, to vehicular disasters, to having food poisoning inside a BBQ trailer! I'd also like to let you kn...

This is a bonus episode for Season Five. It's the first of a new format that will be trialed here at Smoking Hot Confessions whereby after each BBQ competition, winners will contacted by phone for a quick round up. These episodes are going to be more raw, and unpolished than usual, but will be more timely and authentic because of it.  In this Episode I have a chat with Brandon and then Adam from t...

This is episode three of Season Five. This season covers the 2019 Australian Competitive BBQ Circuit and includes recordings from some of the biggest and best festivals from all over this beautiful wide brown land of ours. In short, I'm going to be spending the year flying, driving, eating, walking and talking my way around Australia and I'm bringing you along for the ride! In this episode I jump...

This is the second episode of Season Five. This season covers the 2019 Australian Competitive BBQ Circuit and includes recordings from some of the biggest and best festivals from all over this beautiful wide brown land of ours. In short, I'm going to be spending the year flying, driving, eating, walking and talking my way around Australia and I'm bringing you along for the ride! This episode is an...

This is the very first episode of Season Five. This season covers the 2019 Australian Competitive BBQ Circuit and includes recordings from some of the biggest and best festivals from all over this beautiful wide brown land of ours. In short, I'm going to be spending the year flying, driving, eating, walking and talking my way around Australia and I'm bringing you along for the ride! I'm kicking th...

This is episode ten, the final episode of season four of the Smoking Hot Confessions Podcast . In this season, I've been flying, driving, walking, eating and talking my way around Australia, going to BBQ festivals all over this wide brown land and having some fascinating conversations with some of the biggest names in the game, and some up-and-comers too. In this episode I'm back on a plane and th...

This is episode nine of season four of the Smoking Hot Confessions Podcast. In this season, I've been flying, driving, walking, eating and talking my way around Australia, going to BBQ festivals all over this wide brown land and having some fascinating conversations with some of the biggest names in the game, and some up-and-comers too. In this episode I jump back on a plane and fly right across t...

This is episode seven of season four of the Smoking Hot Confessions Podcast. In this season, I've been flying, driving, walking, eating and talking my way around Australia, going to BBQ festivals all over this wide brown land and having some fascinating conversations with some of the biggest names in the game, and some up-and-comers too. In this episode I head into rural Queensland for the Toowoom...

In this episode my buddy Anthony from Black Bark Barbecue and I jump in the faithful Smoking Hot Confessions Mobile and make the annual pilgrimage to BBQ Mecca - the annual BBQ Wars in Port Macquarie, the biggest competition on the Australian calendar with over 100 BBQ teams fighting it out for BBQ glory. Before we get started, there's just a week left to get my ebook ' 27 Lessons Learned from Com...

This is episode six of season four of the Smoking Hot Confessions Podcast. In this episode I get to stay pretty close to home, heading down to the Bangalow BBQ & Bluegrass Festival. It's a competition and festival whose sole purpose is to raise money for local schools, so I always make sure I'm there, doing what I can to help out. Before we get started, I do have a couple of announcements. For som...

  This is a very, very important episode for three, very very important reasons. Firstly, it's Episode 5 of Season 4, which means we're halfway through. Secondly, this episode was recorded at the Fabulous Burleigh BBQ Championships, the jewel in the crown of competition BBQ in Queensland and my personal favourite. Smoking Hot Confessions also kicked some serious butt at this comp, but more on that...

This is the fourth episode of Season 4, the 2018 Festival Season. Throughout the year I've been travelling around the country to various BBQ festivals and in this episode I'm on a jet plane again and heading down to the always beautiful Forster in New South Wales. I was super proud to have been invited to be a part of the first ever Cue For A Cause competition, raising money for the Great Lakes Wo...

This was the 4th year for the Brisbane BBQ Festival, and the 4th time I've been involved and I gotta tell you, if this comp isn't the jewel in the QLD circuit crown, it's gotta be close.  In this Ep I chat with teams about their hand-ins, and one team even gives me a live recording of them PREPARING their hand-in, talking me through how they do it all. Check it out now! For full show notes, head o...

In it's second year, the BBQ & Beer Roadshow has capitalised on everything that made it great last year, and ramped it up to 11. A great weekend out in Cleveland, just an hour from home let me catch up with a bunch of old friends, and make a whole lot more. This Ep includes interviews with competitors, a Q&A with well known Pitmasters, and of course a recording of the Awards ceremony.  For full sh...

This is Episode One of Season Four: the 2018 Festival Series. In this episode I hit the streets at Meatstock Melbourne, one of the jewels in the crown of the Australian BBQ scene. Armed with a Media Pass, I was able to access all the VIP areas, and had a great chat over a couple of bourbons with this year's special guest Big Moe Cason .  For full show notes, head on over to the Smoking Hot Confess...

Alrighty, this episode is the last in our US Road Trip series and sees me finish up with an interview recorded live in a BBQ joint in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Ralph from Pink Flamingo is something of a legend in that corner of the state. He was making so much money at BBQ competitions that he quit his job as a banker and opened up a BBQ joint. There is a trophy cabinet in his restaurant that stretche...

Okay, so the final stop on our tour of the US was Fort Smith, Arkansas, the home of WalMart. My wife's family is from that town so were there to visit the Aunts and Uncles. Not that that stopped me tracking down some very interesting people to talk Q with. The first was Daniel from the Fort Smith BBQ Society. This is a very passionate group of local people looking to make a difference in their loc...

Folks, this one is special. I was walking through the French quarter of New Orleans, drinking a giant can of mango margarita to calm my nerves, having just visited the most haunted house in America, the La Laurie Mansion. Earlier in the day our city tour guide had told us some things about the heritage regulations of the French quarter and I was discussing these thing with my wife and her friend f...

Folks, there are only a handful of times in your life when you get to meet an innovator, an OG. This was one of them. I was very lucky to be introduced to Eric from Hammond BBQ. Eric is a BBQ competitor, event promoter and was on the ground when Hurricane Katrina hit the deck in Louisiana in 2005. Every year, Eric and his team put on the Hammond BBQ Challenge, which has been the biggest competitio...

One of the things I love about BBQ comps is the networking that happens when you're not even aware of it. One of the fantastic connections I made at the Houston World's BBQ Championships was Craig Verhage, the BBQ Ninja. He was there helping out one of the British teams and was working with another team as well, doing whole hogs for their evening soirees. He's been competing for four times longer...

Let's get into it folks. For our final episode recorded live at the Worlds BBQ Championships , I hit the pavement to catch some interesting conversations with some interesting characters. Now, this was a long festival. We arrived to start set-up on the Wednesday and it was all done and dusted on the Saturday night so as you can imagine, the longer I spent hanging out with people the more I learned...

This is episode is part two of a pair of episodes where I turned the mic over to guest host Saffron from Bush Cooking while we were at the Houston Livestock Rodeo World's BBQ Championships. This is a very special episode that's stayed with me ever since we recorded these interviews. Saffron sits down with the lads from Operation BBQ Relief - a fantastic group of gentlemen who've taken the idea of...