I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in the judge's room at the leftovers table for King of the Smoker 2016, and MAN OH MAN! some of the best bbq I have tasted. I swear I had the best job at the entire event- no cooking, no scoring/judging, just EATING! Unfortunately, everything is double blind in the judge's tent, so I didn't know who's BBQ I was tasting.
bellyrubbbq what a great write up and pictures! I wish I knew you were there, we could have met up! I was in the back behind Myron's tent for his demo. I was looking for myself in the background of some of your pictures.
Smithfield and Sterling/Big Poppa smokers are really making an investment in the BBQ world and it's paying off. Some of the Smithfield reps were hanging out at the back of the judge's tent and this very friendly lady asked me to put together samples from leftover boxes to make samples so that the Smithfield reps could simulate what it was like to be a BBQ judge and they were taught how to score, etc. Those scores obviously didn't mean anything but little did I know this sweet lady I was making samples for was Carolyn Wells. See also: BBQ Hall of Fame. She co-founded KCBS. What an honor it was to meet her.
Here are a few more cool tidbits about the event that I learned while I was there:
-No electronics are allowed other than the Thermapen. The pitmasters truly needed to be a PIT master, no stokers, pellet grills etc. And the wind was VERY gusty the night before. As we all know, this makes managing a pit very tricky. When this is the case, it seems that Jambo Pits are the hands down favorite. At least 10 of the 24 teams were cooking on Jambo Pits. Also saw a lot of Gateway Drum smokers too. I had the chance to speak with Jamie Geer (Jambo pits) for about 20 minutes. Man, he was such a nice guy and his pits are a work of art. A friend of mine who is a Master KCBS judge welds his own pits and was drooling at the one Jamie uses for comps.
-All team members are provided with a meat box that is raffled off at random, so everyone can be on a level playing field! The box consisted of 2 whole chickens, Smithfield Spare Ribs, Smithfield Pork Butts, and 2 SRF briskets. All briskets were in 1lb. of each other and the meat was luck of the draw! The chicken boxes were fascinating. Since you cannot fill a box with thighs from 2 whole chickens, they turned in all kinds of other samples that were amazing (breast, pulled, wings, lollipos etc.) ! It was so cool to see 24 of the top pitmasters chicken boxes.
-A lot of the teams are SO good about giving to charity. Iowa's Smokey D's won $8K in prize money and donated it to the Casey Lee Ball foundation (Pediatric Kidney Research). Then, Big Poppa Smokers has competitions among their BPS elite teams. BPS donates to the children's charity of their choice based on their results. For the BPS elite challenge Iowa's Smokey D's won the overall points 3 of the 4 categories this year so BPS donated $16,000 to Central Iowa JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) and Iowa's Smokey D's matched it for a total of $32K donated. I think it's so awesome that a lot of the ambassadors of competition BBQ are giving back to their community. A lot of wonderful people in the BBQ community.
It was such a great event and I will be making it an annual tradition! If anyone will be coming out to CA for it next year, please let me know! I may have some space at my folk's house in Joshua Tree which is less than an hour away from the event.
KOS was such a great event, and a great way to elevate the branding of BBQ. As crazy as it sounds, this was not the highlight of my weekend. See Part II!
bellyrubbbq what a great write up and pictures! I wish I knew you were there, we could have met up! I was in the back behind Myron's tent for his demo. I was looking for myself in the background of some of your pictures.
Smithfield and Sterling/Big Poppa smokers are really making an investment in the BBQ world and it's paying off. Some of the Smithfield reps were hanging out at the back of the judge's tent and this very friendly lady asked me to put together samples from leftover boxes to make samples so that the Smithfield reps could simulate what it was like to be a BBQ judge and they were taught how to score, etc. Those scores obviously didn't mean anything but little did I know this sweet lady I was making samples for was Carolyn Wells. See also: BBQ Hall of Fame. She co-founded KCBS. What an honor it was to meet her.
Here are a few more cool tidbits about the event that I learned while I was there:
-No electronics are allowed other than the Thermapen. The pitmasters truly needed to be a PIT master, no stokers, pellet grills etc. And the wind was VERY gusty the night before. As we all know, this makes managing a pit very tricky. When this is the case, it seems that Jambo Pits are the hands down favorite. At least 10 of the 24 teams were cooking on Jambo Pits. Also saw a lot of Gateway Drum smokers too. I had the chance to speak with Jamie Geer (Jambo pits) for about 20 minutes. Man, he was such a nice guy and his pits are a work of art. A friend of mine who is a Master KCBS judge welds his own pits and was drooling at the one Jamie uses for comps.
-All team members are provided with a meat box that is raffled off at random, so everyone can be on a level playing field! The box consisted of 2 whole chickens, Smithfield Spare Ribs, Smithfield Pork Butts, and 2 SRF briskets. All briskets were in 1lb. of each other and the meat was luck of the draw! The chicken boxes were fascinating. Since you cannot fill a box with thighs from 2 whole chickens, they turned in all kinds of other samples that were amazing (breast, pulled, wings, lollipos etc.) ! It was so cool to see 24 of the top pitmasters chicken boxes.
-A lot of the teams are SO good about giving to charity. Iowa's Smokey D's won $8K in prize money and donated it to the Casey Lee Ball foundation (Pediatric Kidney Research). Then, Big Poppa Smokers has competitions among their BPS elite teams. BPS donates to the children's charity of their choice based on their results. For the BPS elite challenge Iowa's Smokey D's won the overall points 3 of the 4 categories this year so BPS donated $16,000 to Central Iowa JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) and Iowa's Smokey D's matched it for a total of $32K donated. I think it's so awesome that a lot of the ambassadors of competition BBQ are giving back to their community. A lot of wonderful people in the BBQ community.
It was such a great event and I will be making it an annual tradition! If anyone will be coming out to CA for it next year, please let me know! I may have some space at my folk's house in Joshua Tree which is less than an hour away from the event.
KOS was such a great event, and a great way to elevate the branding of BBQ. As crazy as it sounds, this was not the highlight of my weekend. See Part II!
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