February 2026 - Class Recap
We weren’t terrible. We just weren’t great. And in competition BBQ, “almost” doesn’t get called.
The worst part about competition BBQ is the drive home. You’re completely exhausted. Your name didn’t get called. You had a great cook. What happened? Why don’t the judges recognize all the hard work (and money) that went into this? The long silence while you keep replaying turn-ins in your head. Then the doubt creeps in, the obvious frustration until finally you start wondering…
Is it time to take a class?
Do we really need a class?
Are we overthinking this?
Is it worth the money?
The interesting thing is, it’s never been easier to learn competition BBQ. There are dozens of classes available across the country. Champion pitmasters teach openly. Entire online platforms break down processes step by step. Sites like The BBQ League offer detailed videos from top teams. YouTube is filled with timelines, trimming demos, box builds, and flavor profiles.
Information is everywhere. That’s both a gift — and a trap. Because access to information isn’t the same thing as execution. How many times have we shown up to a competition only to throw out our old process to try the latest greatest idea we saw on YouTube that week. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. Sound familiar?
But eventually you realize:
More information doesn’t automatically equal better results.
That’s where we were. We didn’t want hype. We wanted clarity. We wanted consistency in results. We weren’t chasing a magic rub. We wanted systems that worked on equipment that we were using. So, looking at the options available in our budget and timeframe we made the tough choice of investing in Brad Leighninger’s class.
There were definitely other, cheaper choices we could have made but ultimately his class was the right option for us. While some may think we chose him because of his appearance on Food Networks BBQ Brawl, it honestly came down to his preferred method of cooking on Gateway Drums and his proven record for getting top ten calls that helped him land the title of KSBS Team of the Year in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2025.
Not to mention our envy at watching him roll into a comp, parking his trailer, how he would disappear around 6 p.m. Friday night and then not return until 6 a.m. the next morning… I mean how does he even do that!?! We had to see his system. We were tired of staying up all night. So, we signed up.
Our first surprise came with pulling into the parking lot. We just looked at each other… is that the pitmaster from “Girls Can Grill”. Yep. What’s her name? Christy, right? OMG. We walk into the classroom, we decide on our seats, we start noticing the shirts. Many of them are team shirts, wait, does that one say “The Jack”. Uh… yep. That’s what it says. Wait, that’s not the only one… we were completely floored. These were individuals who already had Grand Championships under their belts. Chicken Fried BBQ, Rio Valley Meat BBQ, Heavy Smoke to name a few. And they were there to learn, just like we were. That’s when it dawned on us, people who have already won at the highest level are still investing in education. It blew us away. We also met some new friends that are local to us. Lucky D’s BBQ, Low Eye Que and Who’s Cooking…we look forward to seeing you on the competition trail and following your success!
This led to our first “Oh…” moment — you truly can’t get complacent when it comes to competing. Growth in this sport isn’t accidental. It’s intentional and continuous. The teams that keep walking aren’t the ones who know the most — they’re the ones who never stop learning.
Championship-level cooking requires championship-level curiosity.
And honestly, in some ways it was fantastic taking a class with so many well-versed pitmasters. They asked the questions we didn’t know to ask, they dug deeper where we would have settled for surface level. Yet, on the other hand, it also meant that this class was not geared towards beginners.
There were 35 students in the 2 day class. Even with that number of people in the class, Brad made sure everyone got to dig in and get as much hands on as each of us wanted. He said multiple times the class would end when he answered all our questions. He stuck to his word. He didn’t have a problem with any of us taking videos, so that’s what we did.
The biggest surprise? How close we already were. Our flavors weren’t wildly off; our methods weren’t broken. The biggest lesson was discipline. We tightened up our technique (prepping as much as possible in advance is key), we adjusted our timing (this was the tightest timeline we’ve tried yet), figured out that the timeline wasn’t a flexible suggestion (frankly with it this tight, there’s no room for flexibility), workspace setup needs to be intentional. And that refinement requires repetition, which for us meant a practice cook as soon as we got home.
We decided not to practice a full cook (too expensive), but rather a focus on the two meats we’ve been struggling with the most – chicken and ribs. While we appreciated the simplicity of the techniques used with the chicken, we discovered that our application of the layering was still off. There’s hardly a meal that goes by now that we don’t somehow critique what we are eating. But, in this case, I really thought I knew what I would be getting. So, imagine my surprise when I bit into the leg only to discover it was way spicier than Brad’s had been. What the heck?! How did that happen? Dang. Guess we’ll have to try that again.
For ribs, we straight up need to get faster. And it emphasized the need for better equipment. Cheap boning knives work just fine for trimming meat, but when it comes to slicing, you absolutely need to invest in good quality knives. In our case, the good knife was in the trailer, we thought the kitchen knife would be good enough. It wasn’t. Tearing wasn’t an issue; it wasn’t that bad. But it did slow us down. A lot. Enough that it was noticeable, and with a tight timeline that’s simply not going to work.
So, in the End, Was It Worth It?
Absolutely! Not because it transformed us overnight. But because it simplified our thinking. We stopped trying to incorporate everything we’ve ever learned. We committed to one system. One structure. One flavor philosophy. Less chaos. More precision. It aligned us. Aligned our process, our expectations, our roles as a team. And this is an exciting place to be heading into our next competition… because the teams that win aren’t afraid of failure-they’re afraid of being average.