The Howard Crew Team couldn’t duplicate the recipe that won last year’s Chili Cook Off at Stone Mountain Park even if they wanted to. They aren’t sure what it is.

“My husband panicked in the last 30 minutes before we had to turn it in,” said Jen Howard, 36, of Woodstock. “It was too salty. That’s when he threw in the lime and the sugar.”

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The Howard Crew team won the Chili Cook Off at Stone Mountain Park last year with chili so hot the women wore fire dresses. From left to right, Trevor Bruns, Gena NeSmith, Jen Howard, Don Howard, Larry Webb.

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How much lime and sugar?

“A little of this and a little of that and hope it tastes good,” said Don Howard, 37. They’ll try to come up with a pot of something equally delicious Saturday at The Great Miller Lite Chili Cook Off.

Dubbed the premiere chili event east of Texas, more than 300 teams will compete for $10,000 in prize money. They’ll also dole out samples to the public from a pot nearly as big as a garbage can with proceeds from the gate benefiting Camp Twin Lakes.

The Howard Crew Team will have three booths — and three chili entries — as well as more team members than you can shake a stirring spoon at. From a core group of six, they’ll expand to 30 or 40 in their seventh year of competition.

“Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon,” Jen said. “We figured it’s our only year to be the winner, we might as well make it big.”

Everyone will take shifts: Some will help cook while others will serve, act as disc jockeys or give out stickers.

They even have a barker.

Brian Houghton worked as a carny at a county fair in Toledo when he was young. Back then, he guessed weights and ages at a spot between the Gorilla Man and the Swinging Chairs.

Now, he’s hawking chili. He’s got his patter down: “Step right up, everybody’s a winner, taste the best chili. This is last year’s award-winning chili. We just thawed it out and brought it back this year.”

Mmm-mmm.

The Howard Crew uses a certain brand of chili powder that they found in successful online recipes.

For the judges’ chili, they’ll include cubed top sirloin and chili grind top sirloin, which is a larger grind than hamburger. They also use some sausage, but no beans. Jalapenos, diced with the seeds taken out, and onions add flavor.

“It’s basically just meat and sauce,” Jen said. “It’s spicy, it’s hot, but it doesn’t have a long burn.”

The Howard Crew figure last year’s winnings of $4,000 covered their expenses of the past six years. The fee to enter is $100 per booth site, and then they spring for the ingredients.

Jen, co-owner of a salon in Roswell, has been planning for the cook off all year.

“I have a little bit of an obsession,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s turned into this. It’s like my Christmas.”

“Once you’ve won, anything less than winning is kind of a… bummer,” Don said. “We never expected to win, but you hate to get 154th. They place every single one, so somebody is dead last at 321.”

But he doesn’t really expect to hit rock bottom.

“We’ll still place well,” he said. “It’s a good chili.”

Whatever it is.