Matt Hanson had dreams of going to culinary school but they never materialized. Instead he went to law school and became a criminal defense attorney, but his zeal for cooking never subsided.

For years he honed his grill skills in his backyard, spending nearly a decade refining his low and slow technique for smoked meats before he partnered with his wife, Amanda, and his brother David to try his hand at competitive barbecue.

While Matt dreamed of attending culinary school, David actually did and while David’s culinary background is a nice complement to the team, barbecue is its own art form.

The Hansons — competing under the name Crooked Pigs as a wink to Matt’s passion and his profession — “finally got up the gumption” and entered in and won a cooking competition in Nampa three years ago. That win qualified them for the 2014 World Food Championships in Las Vegas.

“That’s what got us into competing,” Matt said.

Since then they’ve competed in numerous competitions throughout the North and Southwest and have been featured on the Travel Channel.

Competitive barbecue is “something that takes a lot of work to perfect,” Matt said. “It’s a whole different animal than barbecuing in your backyard.

“You want to come up with that ‘one-bite’ barbecue taste that will grab the judge’s attention and get high scores.”

Part of Crooked Pigs’ secret is that they use a mixture of charcoal, wood-fed and pellet-driven grills depending on what category of meat they’re cooking. Conversely, many teams will cook all their meats on a single, large grill.

“Our style is to use several smaller grills,” Matt said. “That way we can tailor our heat or smoke.”

Matt urges anyone who thinks they might be interested in competitive barbecuing to check out the Rock’n Brews and BBQ Festival to get a sense of what it’s all about.

“The sport appeals to all kinds of people, and the (barbecue) community can’t be beat,” he said. “It’s something you can’t find any other place.”

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Phil McGrane’s education includes more than his impressive academic achievements – a law degree and a Master of Public Administration – it also includes the finer points of barbecue.

The Boise man first caught the barbecue bug, while he spent a year in Alabama serving in the AmeriCorps. After that he also spent a summer in Washington, D.C., where barbecue was both ubiquitous and delicious.

McGrane, better known for his day job as chief deputy county clerk in Ada County, tackled barbecue with the same studious approach that propelled him through school. In just six years of competing, he and his partner and father-in-law Lou Johnson of Monument, Colo., have ascended the pit master ranks, placing third in the nation for pork at the 2013 Sam’s Club National Championships and 18th overall.

McGrane said his barbecue education and success have come “very incrementally.” Unable to shake the taste of southern barbecue from his memory, several years ago he set about building his own hybrid vertical smoker from raw steel. A self-proclaimed tinkerer, it took him about a year to construct.

The first time he used the smoker was also his very first competition in Pueblo, Colo. He elected to start his competitive career in Colorado because that’s where Johnson lives and if nothing else, it was a good excuse for a family outing. Johnson became part of the team in large part because he had tent trailer they could use as their command center.

Before long, they started to do well.

No matter how well they do – and they do better than most – traveling to competitions serves as a bonding experience, not just as a family but as part of the greater barbecue culture.

“It’s just a great community,” McGrane said. “It’s fun to compete and it’s great food.”

And while many people don’t equate the Gem State with great barbecue, Phil and Lou are winning hearts and minds one bite at a time. He also wants to help educate Idahoans about barbecue.

“Idaho raises some of the best beef in the county,” McGrane said. “Hopefully we can enlighten the locals about that quality beef and how good it tastes when it’s slow smoked.”

Ryan Patterson is a self-described geek. A clinical microbiologist, his passion is understanding scientific principles.

Lately he’s turned his focus to barbecue.

“When there’s something I’m interested in, I just dive in head first and want to learn everything I can about it,” he said.

Learning about barbecue has involved studying barbecue and watching “all the shows on TV” that feature barbecue competitions. Patterson works a seven-days-on, seven-days-off schedule, which has given him quite a bit of time to refine his technique.

“The thing about practicing barbecue is it’s not cheap — a brisket is $50 every time you want to practice,” he said. “I’ve spent a ton of money on meat.”

Come Sept. 17, he’ll see if all that practice has paid off. The Rock’N Brews & BBQ Festival is his first barbecue competition.

Ryan credits his dad and teammate Doug for inspiring his barbecue quest.

“He was always into cooking,” Ryan said. “When I was a younger kid he was always showing me different techniques. That really planted the seed.”

These days if you give Ryan a chance to cook barbecue he jumps all over it; at Thanksgiving he even smoked the turkey.

“At first I was really trying to cook like the people on the shows, then it became about feeding my family,” he said. “With my wife, I had to get a lot more creative with my barbecuing because the meats are so heavy.”

As he continued to ramp up his interest in barbecuing he also started to look for a nearby competition and he was excited when his mother saw an announcement for this event.

Now he’s getting antsy for his new custom-built smoker to arrive from Kansas City, Mo. It should be here any day.

“The one I’ve got now isn’t big enough for a competition,” he said. “I’m supposed to get the new one at the beginning of September.”

He looks forward to meeting the other competitors and learning some pointers from them.

“I just love cooking food outside,” he said. “It’s fun, and there’s something primal about it.”