Page 35 - February 2022 Barbecue News Magazine

By: Mark & Gretchen Noordsy Certified Judge
KCBS, SCA, EAT
mnbbq@outlook.com
The spice collection that Gretchen knows about
With winter upon us, I found myself taking inventory of my menagerie of seasonings, rubs and marinades and wondering about the creative talents that developed such a wide variety of flavor profiles that caused me to pry my wallet open. With Gretchen being an avid quilter and scrapbooker and me playing in the cooking world, we are used to seeing lots of small charges go through our bank ac- count. Fortunately, we are both too smart to ever ask about the purchases or add up the total cost. You may recall that when I started cooking in the SCA, we tried to develop our own season- ing called “smidge” since we were obviously smarter than any cook before us. We quickly abandoned that effort and em- braced the vast selection of quality tested seasonings and on the market.
A collection usually starts small with a few highly recommended rubs or seasonings. Then you hear about a combination that is winning at competitions and you add them. What works for pork, probably doesn’t work for steak so you add a few more. Then you learn about layering season- ings and you add a few more. Soon, you have a collection of some of the best seasonings available no matter what you plan to put on the grill, smoker, in the oven or in a fry pan on the stovetop.
This got me to wondering, how are all these seasonings developed and what does take to make it to the marketplace? And, there are always new ones to try such as the much anticipated PrairieFire steak dust or the Prime Time Proprietary Blend Unicorn All-Pur- pose. This month I’ll introduce you to William Mann and his PitGrit line of seasonings and Steak Princess Rylee Wright and her line of cleverly named seasonings.
William (Bill) Mann has spent the last 40 years working in the oil fields and honing his BBQ skills. He can trace his interest in BBQ back to standing next to the grill with his dad in their back yard. In the 1990’s he was cooking competition BBQ and building Pit of Heaven custom grills on wheels. An encounter with the steak cooking champion, Dustin Sanders piqued his interest in cooking steaks. In 2017, he developed his recipe and technique, but the judges didn’t quite agree. In 2018/2019, William was part of Danny Helm’s BExtreme team and was beginning to gain traction in the steak cookoff world. In 2020, William brought his season- ings to the public – rolling them out at the Steak Cookoff Associa- tion’s (SCA) World Championships in Fort Worth, TX. While steak is a major focus these days, William remains committed to BBQ as well. His line of products reflects his broad food interests, his drive to bring quality products to the sport and, most importantly, ones that help cooks win!
Creating a seasoning entails a lot of trial and error and testing. William’s wife Pam works right along with him as the seasonings work their way
through the devel-
opment process. The rubs and sea- sonings are based on the food he cooks at home and in competition. On the the competi- tion circuit, you will find William behind a PK360 or a PKGO as part of Team PK. No sea- sonings leaves their kitchen with- out first passing
FEBRUARY 2022
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Photos Courtesy of William Mann, Mark Noordsy and Rylee Wright