BBQ Contests: Battle of the BBQ Brethren

This was probably the worst video I've ever seen for a BBQ contest. I was there and I don't get the feel of the event at all. A more complete post is coming, but the video does tease the event and plugs a forum nicely.

Vancouver Olympic Barbecue

Tonight at the opening of the Olympics, the USA flagbearer will be Mark Grimmette, a Kansas City Barbeque Society Certified Barbeque Judge (CBJ) and member of the USA Luge Doubles Team will be marching in the opening parade along side teammate Brian Martin who is also a CBJ.

Mark is USA Luge's all-time leader in international medals won winning a total of 65. After this Olympics, I'll bet the number is much higher!

Barbecue is EVERYWHERE. There's no escaping it.

Judging Barbecue

Some of you have asked what happened to my competition barbecue stories. Well, I'll tell you. This past summer, money had not been my friend. We've passed each other in the hall without so much as a nod. And to those of you who are in the know, it's expensive to enter a barbecue contest. No money = No contests. No contests = No stories.

The only contest I attended this year was the Sayville Fall Festival back in October. Jerry Mullane, contest rep extraordinaire, roped me into judging the barbecue contest. But instead of judging, I got the chance to perform as a Table Captain for the first time at a Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event.

Table Captains are the folks who bring the food to the judge's table for judging. Actually it's a little more involved. Table captains are also responsible for making sure that the entries are in compliance with the rules, make sure that the judges judge and behave properly. Table Captains also keep the table clean and supplied. Sounds real exciting doesn't it? You'd be surprised.

A quick explanation of what happens when judging barbecue in a KCBS sanctioned event. The judges are seated at tables of six. When judging begins, the Table Captain opens the first box of food, announces the team number and the judges all take a look at the box and score it for appearance. Once the first box is scored by all the judges, the Table Captain opens the next and the process is repeated until all the entries are scored for appearance.

The Table Captain then opens up the first box and gives it to the first judge whom takes a sample and places it on his judging plate. The judge then passes the box to the next who does the same. This happens until every entry is given out to sample. Only then will the judges begin to score the meat on taste and tenderness.

During the appearance portion of the judging, the Table Captain is usually the first to notice if there is a violation on the rules. These are usually the glaring errors, like not enough samples, improper garnish, foreign objects in the box, etc. At Sayville, The Hot Dawg Truck submitted a rubber chicken as their entry. Of course it had to be disqualified, but it was funny. Apart from that one aberration, the rest of my table's entries contained no surprises.

For an explanation of the scoring system, check out this previous post.

One thing that did surprise me however was how much I learned about my own judging at barbecue contests. Watching the judges and seeing how each entry was scored and comparing the judge's scores with my own, it really brought home that I am a tough judge. I always knew that I was tough, never buying into the belief that the teams deserve high scores simply for showing up, but maybe I am perhaps too tough. (Just for clarification, the Table Captain doesn't score at a contest. I was only scoring the entries in my head.)

Would it hurt to give a little higher number? Probably not. I'm not saying that I need to be any less tough on an entry, but maybe I need to rethink what my definition of what 4,5,6,7,8 are to me. Maybe I need to be a bit more generous in my scoring next year. Time will tell.

Photograph of the barbecue being judged comes from the great website Amazing Ribs. Check it out, you'll love it.

KCBS Gets It Right

This just in from Kathie Dakai....

"Hi everyone,

Ken and I would like you to know that the KCBS BOD has reinstated us as KCBS Reps and Ken as a CBJ Instructor.

Thank you for all the support you have given us!! We'll see y'all on the BBQ circuit!

Kathie"

I'm glad KCBS finally did the right thing.

KCBS Reps Respond - KC Bull Shit Part Two

A while back I posted that Ken and Kathie Dakai were removed from their position as KCBS reps for reasons know only to the Kansas City BBQ Society Board of directors. This action by KCBS caused a huge outcry of well deserved support for Ken and Kathy over at the New England BBQ Society web board. This still hasn't been resolved, but here's Ken and Kathie's statement.

"Kathie and I would like to thank all of you for your support. We have spent the past week trying to make sense of the this whole thing. We want you all to know Kathie or I did nothing wrong. The charge of "conduct unbecoming the interests of KCBS by contest official " is false.

Kathie and I have always worked to do our best to run Fair , Honest, and Fun contests for Organizers, Cooking Teams, Judges and KCBS.

We will appeal this decision by the KCBS BOD.

Ken Dakai"

If you'd like to add your voice to the growing chorus of people demanding that Ken and Kathie be reinstated, please send an email to each member of the KCBS Board of Directors stating your support. You can email the entire KCBS board by clicking here!

Kansas City Bull Shit - Part One

The KCBS Board of Directors made the determination to remove Ken and Kathy Dakai as KCBS Reps and Ken as a CBJ instructor. The reason was listed on the KCBS Quick Notes from the Board 4/8/09 and was stated as: involved for conduct unbecoming the best interest of KCBS. This cryptic infomation can be found on the KCBS web site. Hopefully the upcoming minutes from that meeting will shed more light on the situation. Because, for the moment, it's a decision that is leaving many in the dark.

I'll have more on this in the near future, but trust me, I'm not happy.

Want To Judge?

You've seen those happy folks on the Food Network stuffing their faces allegedly judging food at all the barbecue contests. You've wondered, how do I get in on the free chow? Well, if you're in the NYC tri-state area, here's your chance...

The BBQ Brethren and the Sayville Chamber of Commerce announces..

2009 KCBS BBQ Judging Certification Class

Held at the Sayville Fire House

Saturday April 11, 2009

$55 for KCBS Members $90 for Non KCBS Members. Non member fee includes 1 year membership in KCBS.

Class is limited to about 42 people. First come first serve.

For information send email to: Eric Devlin.

BBQ Contests: Battle of the BBQ Brethren

On the weekend of October 24th to the 26th the Sayville Chamber of Commerce will be hosting the Battle of the BBQ Brethren as part of their annual Sayville Fall Festival.

This KCBS sanctioned event is a NY State Championship.

Come down and enjoy live bands, demonstrations, lectures, great food from our BBQ vendors and the heat of competition.

The cook-off will include Chili on Friday after set-up, Grilling and Kids Q on Saturday and BBQ on Sunday.

The Sayville Chamber of Commerce will be aided in the BBQ aspects of their Fall Festival by members of the BBQ Brethren.

The Brethren will be dedicating two of their on-site locations to Breast Cancer Help, Inc., a Long Island charity dedicated to eradicating the scourge of breast cancer.

Judges Application: Now Available

Competitors Application: Still Available

The "cut off" date for applications is October 15th, any applications received after that date will not be accepted. To avoid disappointment please get your applications in as early as possible.

They are currently looking for people who would be interested in judging, grilling and/or BBQ at this event.

BBQ Contests: Judging Brisket and Sauce at Blues, Views and BBQ

So, we're finally in the homestretch of judging at Connecticut's Views, Blues and BBQ festival. 3 categories down and one left to go; brisket. Brisket, the hardest piece of meat to get right and my least favorite of the competition meats.

At this event, every brisket box presented to my table contained slices and burnt ends. Or what may or may not have been the cook's attempt at burnt ends, as most were cubes of very chewy, but tender meat. None were particularly smokey as burnt ends tend to be. All of the slices in the boxes were on the thick side, but most were very tender.

In terms of flavors, no one entry sticks out in my mind. Two reminded me of pot roast with no noticeable smokey taste. One had an odd sauce on it that I've tasted before at other contests and in other categories. This sauce always leaves me with a strange apple cider vinegary after taste that lingers long. Little did I know it would reappear in the sauce category.

With the judging of brisket, the official KCBS part of the contest was over and we judges were asked to stay and judge a sauce category. I've never judged a sauce category before so I had some quick discussions with a couple of other judges looking for tips. My main concern was on appearance of sauce. How do you judge that? KCBS rules are not comparative judging, so you are to judge each sauce on its own merits. One judge came up with a good set of guidelines and that's what I tried to follow.

When I was told it was a sauce category, I expected that the "sauce" we were to judge would be a barbecue sauce, but no, the reps repeatedly pointed out that this was a "sauce" contest, not a BARBEQUE sauce contest. Any type of sauce was a legal entry.

They then told us how we were to judge the sauce. Sauce would be presented to us in small plastic cups with lids. We were told to take each cup, open it and judge it for appearance. Each sauce was to be judged for appearance before we could move on to taste.

For taste, we were told to break a saltine cracker in half. We were told to dip one piece of the cracker into the sauce and to taste that. Then we were instructed to dunk and swirl the other piece of cracker, taste it and then score each sauce for taste. Again, we were told to judge each sauce for taste before we could move on to the final judging criteria, tenderness.

Judging a sauce for tenderness is a kin to judging water for wetness, so the reps came up with an interesting twist on scoring the final criteria. Instead of judging for tenderness, we were told to judge each sauce against the other, to comparatively rate the sauces, based simply on which one we liked best. The top sauce was to receive a score of 9, the next 8 and so forth until the lowest rated sauce on your table would receive a 4.

I thought judging the sauces was difficult up to that point, but when asked to lay them out, for lack of a better term, in best to worst, now that was close to impossible. It wasn't that hard to pick out my favorite sauce, it was fairly difficult to pick out my least favorite sauce, and it was close to impossible to rate the sauces in between.

I was glad that my table received only bbq sauces. I know one team submitted a caramel sauce. While I would have liked to have tried it, it raised an interesting question; how do you comparatively rate a caramel dessert sauce against a vinegar bbq sauce? I don't think it can be done. It's really comparing apples to oranges.

But everyone had a good time in the end and that's all that matters.

A final note about this contest. From my point of view as a judge and from my experiences there, this was a first rate, well run event. The reps, the ever lovely, Lovelys did a great job. Talking with the cooks after the event, they told me that everything was great the entire weekend and that the organizers did a fantastic job of making them feel welcome and appreciated. I hope this becomes an annual contest. Connecticut needs one.

Diagram of the cow courtesy of Wikipedia.

BBQ Contests: Judging Pork at Blues, Views and BBQ

So let's talk about Pork. Pork is the third category judged at a KCBS sanctioned event. Pork is defined as Boston Butt, Picnic and/or Whole Shoulder, weighing a minimum of five (5) pounds. Pork shall be cooked (bone in or bone out) and shall not be parted.

I love the wording of the rules for this category... "Pork shall be cooked." Gee, ya think?

Since I've been revealing my personal preferences about the other barbecue meats, I will tell you that pork shoulder is my third favorite of the barbeque meats, but I probably cook it more often than the other three combined. Pork shoulder is very easy to cook, very flavorful and the left overs can be used in many, many ways.

The cooks were very creative at Blues, Views and BBQ when it came to the pork category and it was probably the best of the event. My note taking was very limited this time and I'm only going to focus on a couple of entries.

The first box that stands out in my mind was an entry that included sliced pork, pulled pork and cubed chunks of bark. This box was so full of meat and so heavy that our table captain visibly strained holding the box open for presentation to us. Because there was so much meat in the box, the pulled pork stained the underside of the lid. One of the judges, who is also a competitor, questioned if this could constitute marking. His opinion was that the cook could have put the stain on the underside of the lid as a sign or "mark" to allow a judge to know that this was their entry. The reps disagreed with the marking argument, and we moved on.

The meat in this box was laid out in a fashion that reminded me of an old aluminum TV dinner tray, which each variety of meat segregated from the other by greenery. The sliced pork looked great, the bark looked OK and the pulled pork looked like an orange brick. Now I don't know if that was the cook's intention, or it was compressed when the presentation box was closed, but the pulled pork with its orange color and resemblance to a solid block hurt the appearance score. Based on the appearance only, I had no desire to try that pulled pork.

This entry was unique in my years of judging. Each style of pork was cooked using a different recipe. This cook had cooked at least three different butts for this cook. The sliced pork seemed to be a fairly straight forward cooking method with little spices that allowed the flavor of the pork to shine through. Unfortunately the sauce on the outsides of the slices tasted burned and sooty. The chunk bark presentation was again a different flavor, although my notes don't expand on it and finally the pulled pork was orange with a very vinegary sauce which overpowered the taste of the meat.

Another entry of pulled and sliced pork was again, obviously from two different pork butts, were flavored completely differently from each other. In this entry I liked the pulled pork much more than the slices which were dry and a bit chewy.

There was another entry which in my mind was laid out in a fashion that could have constituted marking in my never to be humble opinion. On a bed of lettuce, the cook laid out thin strips of pulled pork in a single layer. Down the middle of this thin bed of pork, the cook used a squeeze bottle to put a thin line of bbq sauce. This was a presentation that I have never seen before and it wasn't very attractive. The meat looked almost like match sticks and to my eye looked just as dry. Unfortunately tasting the meat didn't change my opinion.

The last box that I made notes about was a box that consisted entirely of bark. The bark is the outer most section of the meat that is exposed to the heat and the smoke of the cooker. On the pork butt, this is the area with the most fat and where the rub of spices is placed. Cooked correctly the bark is flavorful, a bit chewy and a little crisp. Two judges I spoke with thought this was the best entry in the category. I didn't agree. To me a little bark goes a long way. With all the smoke and spices, you really didn't get a chance to taste the pork.

I don't have any notes about the rest of the entrys. For some reason the judging times seemed to go by very quickly at this event. We really didn't have much time between categories to talk or compare meats, which I guess is a good thing.

On to brisket.

Photograph of the pork courtesy of White On Rice Couple.

What'd He Say?

Today's post is on barbecue slang or lingo. It's been a long time since I've put up dictionary about some of the terms used by today's barbecuers. I've touched on this subject before, here, here and here, but there's always room for more.

So today, there's another glossary to check out. This first appeared in 1998 in The Passion of Barbeque by the Kansas City Barbeque Society. Don't worry if some of these definitions contradict other glossaries you've seen. Barbecue slang is fluid. Enjoy.

• Baby Back Ribs - the 13 smallest loin end ribs of a slab of pork ribs, the most tender ribs
• Bamboo Skewers - long pins of wood soaked in water prior to using for kebabs on the grill
• Banking Coals - stacking charcoal briquettes against the wall of the grill to one side in order to grill using the indirect method of cooking
• Barbeque - to slowly cook meat/food over coals with aromatic woods in a covered cooker imparting smoke flavor (Boy, could this be argued!)
• Baste - to pour liquids such as stock, juice, oils or marinades over meats while cooking retain moisture and/or impart flavor
• Charcoal Chimney - a cylindrical metal container used to start charcoal fires without the use of petroleum products
• Closed Pit - a covered barbeque grill
• Dry Rub - a mixture of dry seasonings rubbed into meats prior to grilling or barbequeing
• Glaze - a finishing sauce applied to meats during the final 15 minutes of cooking
• Green Wood - usually refers to unseasoned hickory
• Grilling - cooking over a hot open fire
• Hardwood Charcoal Briquettes - most commonly made from hardwoods such as oak or hickory
• Hoi Sin Sauce - also known as Chinese bean sauce, it is sweet and hot, primarily made from black beans
• Indirect Heat - to cook meat away form the source of heat, i.e., the opposite side of the grill away from the hot coals
• Indoor Barbequeing - cooking in the oven by broiling under red hot heating unit or slow covered cooking in the oven using barbeque sauce or liquid smoke to imitate outdoor barbecqueing (I think this may by my definition of crap or a travesty!)
• Injecting Marinades - using a syringe with a needle to insert marinade into meats prior to cooking
• KCBS Sanctioned Contests - contests that apply for and follow the Kansas City Barbeque Society's criteria, rules and regulations
• Mad Dog - insane canine .. moniker for the co-founder of the KCBS
• Marinate - to place food in an oil-acid mixture to tenderize or add flavor
• Mop - to use a mop or large brush to apply baste to meat while cooking
• Nom de Grills - imaginative names used by individuals or teams who compete in barbeque contests, i.e., The Rib Doctor, Baron of Barbeque, Sir Loin, Girll of my Dreams, to name a few. (Hey! They left out WhiteTrash BBQ and BrooklynQ)
• Pit Barbeque - a large structure for barbequeing large pieces of meat or whole animals that can be closed for smoking. The pit can be a hold dug in the ground or a free standing cement or brick "oven" or a heavy metal structure such as a metal drum
• Pit Boss - person in charge of the barbeque unit
• Sear - to brown quickly over a very hot charcoal fire to seal in meat juices
• Skewer - a long pin of wood or metal on which food is threaded/placed and held in place while cooking. To fasten meat with skewers to keep in shape while cooking
• Slab of Ribs - most commonly refers to pork ribs (a side or slab of ribs)
• Waterpan - a vessel for water placed inside covered barbeque units to provide moisture while cooking
• Water Smoker - commercially manufactured cooking unit where the fire is separated from the meat by a water tray
• Wood - large chunks of non-resinous wood used as a fuel a source as well as a smoke-flavoring agent. Varieties of woods used for barbequeing include apple, cherry, grape, hickory, mesquite, oak and pecan. (For more information on wood, click here.)
• Wood Chips - small chips of hardwood or fruit wood added to barbeque fire to impart smoke flavor to meats.
  

Wow, so many terms there. I'd like to rewrite this list as so many seem to be out of date or confusing to say the least. I guess it's a project for a cold wintry weekend. Talk to you soon.

BBQ Contests: Judging Ribs at Blues, Views and BBQ

Today we continue reporting back on my experiences in judging at the Connecticut Blues Views and BBQ Contest. When we had left off, we had just finished judging chicken.

Next up into the judge's pool comes pork ribs. I always look forward to this category. After chicken, ribs are my favorite barbecue meat.

According to the KCBS rules, PORK RIBS are defined as: Ribs shall include the bone. Country style ribs are prohibited. And ribs must be submitted bone in. So that means that the cooks can submit either back ribs or spare ribs.

According to The Other White Meat, ribs can be back ribs or spare ribs. "Back ribs originate from the blade and center section of the pork loin, which is known for the “finger meat” between the bones. Back ribs also are referred to as “baby” back ribs because they are smaller than spareribs. A rack typically weighs between 1 ½ and 1 ¾ pounds.

Spare ribs come from the belly of the hog and are known for their delicious, meaty pork flavor. These curved ribs are the least meaty variety of ribs, but the lean meat is still full of flavor. Spareribs are typically larger and heavier than back ribs."

So that gives the cook some leeway here. Should they cook baby back ribs, which cook faster and require much less preparation or spare ribs which are more flavorful (my personal opinion) require longer cooking time, and more preparation as a rack would need to be trimmed down to St. Louis style (if that's what the cook wants to do.) Take a look at the picture from the Dizzy Pig, you can see the ribs, cut and prepared St. Louis style and all the trimmings. While the trimmings make good eats, they can't be submitted in a KCBS sanctioned contest.

Up here in the North East, I would say that 85% of the teams submit baby back ribs. According to a poll on The World Famous BBQ Forum, nationally the numbers were closer to 60% spares to 40% baby backs. (If I remember correctly, the current list of past polls ends in July 2008 and I think the poll ran sometime in August.)

I didn't have as much time between categories to write as many notes about the ribs as I did the chicken, so this post will be not so entry specific.

In the rib category, no putting green parsley presentations appeared on my table. All presentations were a mixture of lettuce only or lettuce and parsley. Sauces were very much on the sweet side, no spicy ribs and only 2 entries were sauced with Blues Hog. That's a huge difference from Harpoon were it seemed 80% of the ribs were sauced with Blues Hog.

All of the ribs submitted to my table were baby back ribs. One box had the smallest ribs I've ever seen. They were so small, that many of them didn't curve at all, which is unsual for baby backs. I purposely sampled the smallest ribs in the box to see if they were over cooked, but the cook did a great job. They were tender and nicely flavored. I would like to know who cooked these ribs and how they cooked them and timed them, but as a judge I can't reveal to a team that I've had their food. I can't go around asking "Who had really small ribs?" And since it's blind judging there's no way I can ever find out.

Two of the rib entries were vastly over cooked and dried out. Another looked like it was going to be dried out and tough but turned out to be moist, tender and surprisingly bland. One rib was so tough that I couldn't bite a piece of it off on one side of the bone. On the other side it was OK which helped bring up its score.

I always make sure that I take at least two bites of an entry, on different sides of the entry, before I score it. If my mind is stuck between two numbers in terms of scores, I will take additional bites to help me determine the final score. Some times 2 bites is all you need but usually three or four are necessary. I'll keep eating until I'm comfortable with the score. If the entry is an 8 or 9, well, it usually gets eaten completely.

Overall in the ribs category, nothing really stood out as "excellent" barbecue. But then again, nothing stood out as really bad or "poor" barbecue either. All in all it was a pretty good category. If I had to rate it on the KCBS scale, I'd give it a 7 (above average.)

Congrats to Willie Breakstone and his team I like Smoke n' Lightning for topping this category. Will was estatic with his win. Ya see, it's been five years since he's won the rib category. Good job bucky.

BBQ Contests: Judging Chicken at Blues, Views and BBQ

Yes folks he still has opinions to share! This isn't a photo blog after all. With that in mind let's get down to the nitty gritty of the event; the food. First off, I only judged the KCBS sanctioned BBQ contest at this event. On Saturday, there was a NEBS sanctioned grilling competition and an Iron Chef competition that I don't know anything about. Sorry but you'll have to look elsewhere for that information.

In all KCBS sanctioned contests cooks are required to cook the following four meats: 1. Chicken, 2. Pork Ribs, 3. Pork shoulder (aka Boston Butt) and 4. Beef Brisket.

I was there to judge these foods but the organizers had a surprise in store. We were told that we would be judging BBQ sauce as well. Contest organizers can add additional categories to an event, but without the first four, and many do, KCBS will not sanction an event.

First up in the judging pool is chicken. Now I love BBQ chicken, smoked or grilled, it's all good to me. Chicken is by far my favorite food on the grill. We had some interesting chicken submitted to our eyes, our nose and our palate at this event.

The first entry I tasted was a very nice mellow seasoned thigh. I really liked my first bite. The skin was bite through tender and the spices and glaze complimented the flavor of the meat. My first reaction was that this was going to score very well. Being the dutiful judge that I try so hard to be, I flipped over this thigh and took a bite from the other side. What the hell happened? Was this meat bad? I couldn't believe this was the same piece of meat! How do you score this? What would have been my reaction if I got the bad side first?

Up next was a real surprise; a spicy thigh! In competition judging, you are usually presented with sweet to very sweet seasonings. I was glad that someone decided to take a risk and add some heat.

The next entry had the judges scratching their heads during presentation. It was obviously chicken and the eight or so "pieces" were laid out in the box with flat leaf parsley as a garnish. While that is OK and perfectly acceptable, the skin on the chicken curled up around the edges of each piece! It reminded me of Sally Field's habit in The Flying Nun or worse.

Thinking more about that chicken, it would have been perfectly at home in a Wes Craven slasher flick. Taking it out of the box, the chicken fell apart in my hands. All it needed was some red sauce for blood and the imagery would have been complete. The flavor wasn't bad, but it was very overcooked. Unfortunately, I and one other judge I spoke with were unable to determine exactly what cut of chicken the entry actually was.

Next was a box with chicken that was so badly burnt, all of the pieces of chicken were pitch black. Now I don't think this was what the cook was going for, but whomever he or she was did an amazing job of getting the skin completely and evenly black. It was so dark that if you told me they were spray painted, I would have believed you. Flavor wise, it was burned and dried out.

This box elicited the often repeated comment from a judge, "Why would they submit that?" Whenever I hear that comment I know that the judge is not a cook. Things happen in the pit and the cook submits the best he/she has. Sometimes the only food the cook has to submit is something that is burned, dried out or even undercooked. We were in that position at New Platz when we submitted our over cooked brisket.

Next was another bone in chicken thigh but with a SPICY sauce. To me it was just under the point where the heat overwhelms the meat and other flavors. I was still able to taste the meat, the heat and the tomato base of the sauce. This was the only entry where I ate the entire piece.

I felt it was nicely done, but I could see this seasoning possibly overwhelming other judges. Some judges say that spicy entries dull the taste buds, which affect the judging of the next entry, but i don't believe that at all. Take some time, eat some crackers and some water before moving on (which you should be doing between entrys anyway) and you'll be fine. Part of being a judge is putting aside your personal preferences and trying to determine if the cook obtained the flavor and tenderness they were after, all the while remaining in the world of barbeque. Yes, it's as vague as it sounds.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much about the last entry. I guess it was average competition BBQ. Now before you all go off on me, for all I remember it could have been really good and above average, I just don't remember how I scored it. We're not allowed to take photos and I'm going by some quickly written notes.

I've only mentioned one presentation so far and it was a parsley presentation, and it wasn't the putting green presentation I railed against in a previous post. At this event I only saw one parsley putting green. All the others were a mixture of lettuce and or parsley. Have the cooks changed their ways because of me? Does my blog have so much power and influence? I think not. I certainly hope not! I'm still learning this game.

I'm really glad to see the cooks shaking things up a bit. The putting green presentation is very nice, but in my never to be humble opinion, it's bad for the sport of competitive barbecue if everyone is using the same presentation or flavorings. And I think the scores reflected the judges approval of the new flavors and presentations. Red Planet BBQ won this field followed by some others who usually don't see the top five. Good job all of you.

And that looks like a great place to stop tonight. More on judging the Blues, Views and BBQ Contest tomorrow.

Photograph of the BBQ chicken courtesy of BBQ Info. Photograph of The Flying Nun courtesy of The People Quiz.

BBQ Contests: Blues, Views and Barbeque, The Results

I'm back from judging at the Blues, Views and Barbeque Festival in Westport, CT. Great location right on the river, good bands, good food and good organization. I hope this new competition becomes an annual event.

And the winners are....

Top 10
1. R2BQ
2. TNT
3. I smell smoke
4. Swamp Pit
5. Smoke in da eye
6. Lakeside Smokers
7. Uncle Jed
8. Central Pork West
9. Q Haven
10. ZBQ

Chicken
1. Red Planet
2. Swamp Pit
3. R2BQ
4. Smoke In da Eye
5. I Smell Smoke

Ribs
1. I like Smoke n' Lightning
2. Yankee BBQ
3. 2 Little Pigs
4. ZBQ
5. I Smell Smoke

Pork
1. TNT
2. R2BQ
3. Q Haven
4. Smoken' Dudes
5. Central Pork West

Brisket
1. ZBQ
2. Smoke In da Eye
3. Cork n' Pork
4. I Smell Smoke
5. Lakeside Smokers

Sauce
1. R2BQ
2. Purple Turtle
3. I Smell Smoke
4. Primal Meat Smokers
5. Carolina beau and a Yankee

Iron Chef
1. Yabba Dabba Que
2. I like Smoke n' Lightning
3. B.S. BBQ
4. Carolina beau
5. Smoke N Dudes

BBQ Contests: Blues, Views and BBQ Festival

There's a new barbeque contest coming up in Westport, Connecticut; The 1st Annual Blues, Views & BBQ Festival.

Saturday, September 20 and 21st on the grounds of the Levitt Pavilion and the Westport Library.

This is the state of Connecticut's only KCBS sanctioned barbecue contest, so the winner of this event will be guaranteed an invitation to next year's Jack Daniel's Invitational barbecue contest, which is debatably the most prestigious barbeque contest in the world.

In addtion to the barbecue contest, there will be a craft beer showcase featuring our friends from Butternuts, the makers of Pork Slap Ale.

And in addition to the craft beer showcase, there's going to be a Guitar World clinic with Andy Aledort.

And in addition to all that there's going to be cooking demostrations featuring local chefs and some of the BBQ contestants in the Viking outdoor kitchen.

For more information check out the website or call Bob LeRose at Bobby Q's Barbeque and Grill 42 Main Street Westport, CT 06880, phone 917-446-2921 or drop him an email at rlerose@msn.com

It looks like it's going to be a splendid time for all.

The Pickled Pig

Surfing the net the other day, I discovered a wonderful tool for all you competitive barbequers out there. The fine folks over at the Pickled Pig Forums have put together an interactive map that shows every KCBS sanctioned contest and each team's top ten placements. See where teams are racking up their wins. This application will generate a map depicting the location of contests where the selected team finished in the Top 10 of any KCBS category including: chicken, ribs, pork, brisket, and overall.

Here's the link to my team, WhiteTrash BBQ with our one top ten placement in the one contest we've cooked in so far this year. Over take a look at Cool Smoke's page with all their grand championships highlighted in blue pins! That's where I want to be.

But the folks over at the Pickled Pig, didn't stop with that one tool. Oh no. They also created a "Power Ranking" tool, a "KCBS Contest Results List," "Contest Statistics," interactive "Contest Map," "DIY BBQ Rankings Generator," and finally a "BBQ Power Ranking Widget Generator."

And besides all of that, they've got a pretty good forum that's just starting out.

See you over at the Pickled Pig.

More Meat

Well, we're at the midpoint of the Hudson Valley Ribfest. Chicken's in. Ribs are in. Now it's time for the pork shoulder.

KCBS rules allow pork to be submitted chopped, pulled, sliced, or diced as the cook sees fit, as long as there is enough meat in that box for six (6) judges. That can be as little as six threads of pulled pork to an entire shoulder.

In my experience as a judge, I've seen it all and in many cases the cooks decide to submit their pork both sliced and pulled. I've always found that to be a mistake. Again, this is just my opinion and your mileage may vary, but I've found that if the pulled pork is good, the sliced pork sucked. Now that is a little harsh, but usually one of the meat variations will be better than the other one, which in turn brings down the score. I was taught to only put your best in the box and nothing less.

We cooked two very small bone in pork shoulders. With our delayed start on Saturday, it gave me Friday night at home to create the rubs, brines and injections that we'd use for the contest. I made my usual pork injection and decided to play a little and create a new one. Now my friend Matt sassed me a little about how the serious cooks don't change their tried and true recipes or techniques right before a contest, but hey, I don't do this often enough to have any tried and true recipes or techniques! Let's play!

The pork cooked over a fire of hickory and apple and sat tightly wrapped in a cooler for a couple of hours before we pulled them for presentation. My tried and true recipe pork came out flavorful but a bit dry. The new injection recipe shoulder that was rubbed with Big Daddy's Pork Rub came out moist and flavorful. Both were tossed with our doctored version of Sweet Baby Ray's and taste tested. We went with the new recipe.

And I'm glad we did. This pork gave us our highest score in contest! 9 out of 53.

Judge's scores: 766, 877, 979, 788, 799 (Thank you whomever you were!) 788

Total points: 157.7142 which gave us 9th place. YES! iQue, the first place team's points were: 169.1428. A great showing for guy who hasn't made pulled pork in almost 6 months.

Last entry in any KCBS contest is brisket. The WhiteTrash BBQ team has a real disadvantage when it comes to the brisket category. None of us particularly like brisket. Yes, I admit it. I prefer my brisket corned thank you very much. But here's an even more shocking secret. The last time I came close to bbq brisket that wasn't bought in a restaurant was at last year's Hudson Valley Ribfest and I didn't even cook that one, my buddy Mike did. Pete tells me he's never cooked a brisket!

Even in the best of circumstances brisket will always be my Achilles heel. And this was not the best of circumstances, we only had two flats to cook. In my very limited brisket cooks, I've only made flats once and that wasn't a sucess. Why would I expect it to be different this time?

We cooked our brisket over an oak and charcoal fire. Brisket is notorious for drying out as soon as it's cut so we waited until the window (the ten minute turn in period) before cutting our briskets. Both flats were tough, dried out and hard to cut. One had a little more flavor than the other so we went with that one. It was hard getting six complete slices in the box without them falling apart, but we did. Instead of the putting green of parsley presentation, I created a putting green of lettuce and laid the slices out slightly overlapping each other and basted them with a light coating of our sauce.

Let's go to the judges...

767, 977, 876, 678, 867, 778 (No disrespect, but two 8's for tenderness? What box were those judges eating from because it certainly wasn't ours!)

Total points: 140.5712 which gave us 30th place. Ya gotta be kidding. 50th place should have been more like it. iQue, once again the first place team points were: 166.2858

Sorry, but there are no pictures of the brisket. We didn't have time to take any as we barely got the box turned in before the window closed.

So that's it. My experiences this year. Overall, I'm very happy with our scores. We placed better than some teams that are out there every week, got all our meat turned in, didn't embarrass ourselves and had a good time to boot. Not bad considering I hadn't cooked on my horizontal offset smoker since the last HVRF! I don't know why, but the bbq bug was dormant in WhiteTrash world this season, but it's back with a vengeance now! See you on the circuit.

Barbeque - The Meats

I've certainly given you a lot to read about the Hudson Valley Ribfest, but I still haven't gotten to the meat of the topic - the meat! Well here goes. I'll address the chicken and ribs today. The pork shoulder and brisket will be covered tomorrow or Monday. I don't want to overload you with everything.

I know that there's another post coming about my thoughts about cooking under my own banner for the first time and I might write it tonight, but it won't be up for a few more days. I've teased you all long enough. Tonight we talk about meat.

First up - the results... WhiteTrash BBQ came in 32nd out of 53 teams. Not bad, not great and certainly encouraging enough to want us to compete more. I think we'll be back in October.

Our final score was 579.4280 out of a possible 720. iQue took top place with a score of 646.8570, so you see we have a long long way to go. Congratulations to the iQue team for another well deserved win. If you want to read more about them, check out this very interesting interview with Pitmaster Chris Hart over on PigTrip.

But back to me. First category to be judged is chicken. We cooked 24 chicken thighs for this event. Why thighs you may ask? Well thighs have a good amount of fat and are probably the most forgiving part of the chicken to cook on a smoker. Most teams in the North East cook thighs. We brined the thighs, marinated them, rubbed them with a rub I can't remember and cooked them over an apple wood, hickory and charcoal fire.

Pete did a superb job of trimming the thighs. I was surprised to see how much he knew about trimming chicken thighs. It seems that Pete was schooled by one of the best cooks on the circuit, Steve Farrin of I Smell Smoke on how to trim thighs for competition. I bet Steve doesn't even know that he taught Pete. But he did and Pete created some beautiful little footballs for us to cook. That Pete is a clever little monkey.

We pulled the chicken from the cooker and painted them with a doctored up version of Sweet Baby Ray's sauce and then we firmed it up on the fire. We selected the best looking six, arranged them as best we could in our lettuce only presentation box and handed them off to our runner, the ever lovely Mrs. Pete, Jean.

How'd they do? Here's each of the six judge's scores; the first number is for appearance, then taste and finally tenderness.

755, 888, 766, 877, 988, 956 (In case you haven't been reading previous posts, and shame on you if you haven't, scores run from 2 to 9 in KCBS contests.)

Wow - 2 perfect scores on appearance. I didn't see that coming. I didn't think they looked that good in the box and Matt Fisher of Wildwood BBQ said that they were too dark. The thighs were also on the small side. We could have easily fit another three in the box.

As for the taste, well they were pretty tasty to me but they were definitely over cooked. They weren't dry per say, but they were reaching that point of mealy mouth feel. If they cooked much longer they would have been garbage. If I was judging this chicken, my scores probably would have been closest to judge 3. Maybe even a little lower.

Total points: 140.5714 which gave us 41st place. Sexy Gino's Bare Ass BBQ, the first place team's points were: 169.1430

Next up were ribs. We did spare ribs which I trimmed down to the famous St. Louis cut. I also removed the membrane from the ribs, but I've never had so much trouble getting it off the meat. Out of the six racks of ribs I trimmed, the membrane only came off on the first shot on one rack. Each time I tried to get it off and pulled the membrane shredded. If I was at home, they would have cooked with the damn membrane on them!

We slathered these ribs with a little bit of cheap mustard and rubbed them with Blues Hog. We cooked them over a fire of hickory and cherry wood and finished them with a traditional but not mainstream sauce. I've made them this way at home and the neighbors said they were the best ribs they've ever had. Not so in New Paltz.

Unfortunately, our ribs were undercooked and a bit tough. They needed a little more time on the cooker, but time ran out for us. I thought that the ribs tasted pretty good, but the rest of the team and some visitors to the tent thought they were too spicy. I liked them, first you tasted sweet, then smoke, followed by meat and then a bit of heat. I thought the flavor was spot on and the heat just right.

What did the judges think?

677, 887, 777, 757, 666, 878

Total points: 140.0000 which gave us 40th place. Casual Smokers; the first place team's points were: 170.8572

Poor scores in every category. We need to rethink that category completely before we compete again. Sorry, we didn't get any pictures of the ribs.

This brings us to the middle of the contest and is a good place to wrap up for tonight. Tomorrow we'll talk about pork and brisket. Ya all come back now, ya hear?

Apples

I promise, there will be posts about the barbeque side of the contest, but for today it's a quick review of our apple entry at the Hudson Valley Ribfest 2008.

What you're looking at is a bourbon caramel sauce with honey roasted mixed nuts and apples in a sponge cake tart topped with vanilla icing.

It was the creation of my team mate, Pete. I had absolutely nothing to do with it except for some advice on how to place it in the box. It was absolutely delicious and I thought a sure fire winner.

How'd it do? 39th out of 44. Usually, deep down, you know when your your food deserves to win and when it should tank. This one left me scratching my bald head. If I was served this in a bakery or a restaurant I would have been one very happy WhiteTrash boy.

Looking back, I naturally begin to search for the reasons why the judges didn't like it. The first thing that pops into my head is that underneath the apple/nut mixture, Pete put in a layer of vanilla icing. With the icing on top, was that just overkill? Was it too sweet? Were the apples too tart? Did the filling melt into the sponge cake as it sat in the box making the overall dessert mushy and wet? Did the judges think that using a pre-made sponge cake shell was a cop out? Were the apples not the star of the dessert, but only a bit player? Were there too many nuts and not enough apples? Was the filling too warm/cold? Did the filling get to hard when it sat and cooled?

Who knows. We know we liked it. There's no point in second guessing it. We gave it our best shot. 39th out of 44? You take your licks and you move on. That's part of the challenge and fun of competition. You put out your best and hope the judges agree. Sometimes you grab the brass ring, others you're left grasping air.

3 Days To Go

I don't know if I'm insane or just really busy, but the Hudson Valley Ribfest is Friday and I haven't thought much about it at all. My team hasn't discussed much, but we'll be there. More later.