Blackwater BBQ: Award-Winning Competition BBQ with a Heart for Alabama
Barbecue isn’t just what we cook — it’s who we are. Here at Crooked Creek, we believe good food and hard work go hand in hand. Our love for BBQ and all foods smoked naturally grew into our competition team, Blackwater BBQ. My husband and I have spent years perfecting our craft and chasing that perfect bite of smoky, tender meat.
We’ve been blessed to compete alongside some of the best pitmasters in the Southeast—winning awards for ribs, chicken, pulled pork, and brisket. One of the highlights of our BBQ journey was being featured on The Food Network’s hit TV series ‘BBQ USA’ with Michael Symon. Our episode, “Who Are You Calling Chicken?” was an unforgettable experience and a reminder that our little Alabama team can hang with the best of them.
Still hard to believe this happened. Being featured on BBQ USA with Michael Symon was an unforgettable experience— one we are thankful to have shared together as a team and as a family.
Our BBQ Philosophy: Sauce Is Boss
Every pitmaster has their secret, and ours is pretty simple: start with quality meat, season it right, and smoke it low and slow until it’s fall-apart tender. Then we finish it off with our award-winning house sauce, which we proudly say is boss!
Revive Alabama: Feeding a Crowd with Purpose
And while competion sharpens our skills, ministry opportunites are where we truly see BBQ come alive. One of the most meaningful cooks we’ve ever done was for Heritage Christian University’s “Revive Alabama” event. Opportunities like this are exactly why we sharpen our skills by competing—so we can show up well when ministry calls.
For that event, we loaded up the smoker early in the morning with Boston butts, smoking them low and slow with a hickory and red oak blend until they were fall-apart tender and ready to feed a crowd. We shredded every bit by hand, and mixed the pulled pork with our signature sauce.
This is where the magic starts: seasoned, trimmed, and ready for a long, slow smoke. Let the hickory work its magic!
Fresh off the smoker: pulled and chopped by hand. Chopping Boston butts before shredding is what ensures a perfect texture.
Almost there!
DRILL, BABY DRILL! This may look unconventional, but it works. Using a drill mixer gives us consistent flavor and a perfect texture every time.
Fully sauced and ready to go—this BBQ is perfect for bringing people together!
Competition-Style Smoked Chicken: The Butter Trick
Of course, pork wasn’t the only thing on the menu. We also smoked chicken — and here’s where we get a little geeky.
The secret to perfect competition-style smoked chicken starts long before it even hits the smoker. Proper trimming is key. We take the time to trim each chicken thigh so that it cooks evenly and presents beautifully—removing excess skin and fat, squaring up the edges, and making sure the skin lays smooth and flat across the meat. That clean, even surface helps the butter melt down evenly and gives every bite that competition-quality texture.
Trimming chicken thighs is where consistency starts—clean edges, even thickness, and no extra bits to interfere with a perfect bite.
Once trimmed, each thigh gets a light dusting of seasoning and a pat of real butter right on top. As the chicken smokes in the rotisserie section of our reverse-flow smoker (which runs a little hotter and cooks faster), that butter melts down into the meat, creating a golden “butter bath” that keeps the chicken juicy and adds rich, smoky flavor.
Using muffin pans keeps chicken thighs uniform while the skin tightens and the fat begins to render.
Low and slow in the smoker, each thigh cooks evenly while the skin renders and the meat stays juicy.
We finish by dunking the chicken in warm sauce for that glossy, irresistible shine, and then it goes back on the rotisserie racks for 20 minutes to carmelize the sauce. This little extra step is crucial to presentation and texture and seals in flavor for one unforgettable bite.
Golden, smoky, and dripping with flavor, this is the kind of BBQ that makes people wander toward the smoker.
Why We Compete
Competitions keep us sharp. They push us to refine our techniques, experiment with rubs, chase consistency, and to ALWAYS GET BETTER. But truthfully, we don’t compete for just trophies or bragging rights, we compete so that we can hone our craft and show up well when it really matters—for our church family, our community, and the ministry events we’re blessed to be a part of.
Every smoke session, every cook, every long night by the pit teaches us something new—and all of it prepares us for moments when BBQ becomes more than food. It becomes fellowship. It becomes connection. It becomes a way to share God’s goodness through a plate of perfectly smoked meat and a whole lot of love.
From the Smoke: What’s Coming Next
We’re excited to share more of what we’ve learned along the way—our best BBQ tips, tried and true rubs and new flavors, and products we’ve found that we can’t live without. Stick around and get ready for plenty of smoke, sauce, and Southern hospitality—straight from our ranch to your table.
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