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Discussion / Questions for Competition BBQers

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    Discussion / Questions for Competition BBQers

    This weekend, I traveled to Laurens, South Carolina to attend the KCBS Certified BBQ Judging (CBJ) class, and the Table Captain's class.

    KCBS representatives taught the classes. They did a very good job. The BBQ was excellent, and I really enjoyed myself.

    But I learned two things that kinda shocked me, and I'd like to discuss with competition BBQers, and anyone else who has an opinion.

    1. Garnish is Completely Optional

    KCBS says garnish (turn-in box lining, usually parsley) is optional, and that a judge cannot deduct points if a cook doesn't use it. So I have a couple questions:

    1. (for competition BBQers) Why do you use garnish when you aren't required to do so?

    2. (for KCBS reps) Why do you even allow garnish to be used in the first place? It seems like it's more trouble than it's worth, for everybody.

    KCBS proclaims that judging is "all about the meat", but then spends 30 minutes of every judging class going over and over the legal and illegal types of garnish. The list has recently changed, and is more complicated than ever. Even the guy who taught our class has had trouble identifying legal/illegal garnish. One time during a contest, he said he had to take cell phone pics of garnish and send them to KCBS headquarters for a disqualification ruling. This just seems way too complicated.

    It seems to me that eliminating garnish altogether would simply everyone's life without sacrificing anything. It simplifies life for the cooks, the judges, the Table Captains, and the KCBS reps. Without reducing the appearance or quality of the meat.

    During the CBJ class yesterday, we were presented with several turn-in boxes of meat to judge. Some boxes had garnish, and some didn't. To me, the ones that didn't have garnish looked just as good as the ones that did.

    2. Chicken Skin is Completely Optional

    KCBS does not require chicken skin to be included on chicken entries. And if it's not present, judges are not allowed to deduct points.

    And if it is present, there are absolutely no guidelines on how to judge it based upon texture. It is not required to be bite-thru. It is not even suggested to be bite-thru. And if it's rubbery, and comes off all in one bite when a judge samples it, the judge is not allowed to deduct any points. The only KCBS rule involving chicken skin is that if it is present, the judges must taste it, but they are not required to swallow it.

    Our KCBS instructor told us that both of these things (garnish and bite-thru chicken skin) are matters in which the BBQ competition community have put undue pressure on themselves. It's become the defacto standard, but not because of any requirement or encouragement from KCBS.

    I've read/heard stories (some credible, I think) about competition BBQers spending hours scraping chicken skin, and hours preparing garnished turn-in boxes. So I was pretty surprised to find that these things aren't even required.
    Last edited by TBoneJack; February 26, 2017, 04:27 PM.

    #2
    Lol interesting... Can't wait to hear what CandySueQ has to say since she is the competition BBQ queen around these here parts.

    my guess is it is one of those things that you don't want to be the only one not doing it out of fear that you won't stack up. They don't want the competitors getting the edge on them whether it truly counts or not.

    Comment


      #3
      Like I said in one of the other threads. The meat should be presented on, Host provided, wood planks. Then covered with stainless or foil lids. Then it is truly, just about the meat.
      I saw a competition one time, they were doing whole hog. Some of the whole hog entries were surrounded by pounds of lettuce, pineapple, oranges, cherries and all kinds of other stuff. I understand they want, "presentation" but c'mon. In my opinion, if you need all that to dress up your cook, your in the wrong line of work.

      Thanks for sharing your experience.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Nate View Post
        Lol interesting... Can't wait to hear what CandySueQ has to say since she is the competition BBQ queen around these here parts.

        my guess is it is one of those things that you don't want to be the only one not doing it out of fear that you won't stack up. They don't want the competitors getting the edge on them whether it truly counts or not.
        Yeah, I guess trends naturally develop over time. Like with anything else. As a newcomer, I find it all very interesting, and I wonder how things evolved over time to shape the KCBS competition world.

        As for the history of KCBS itself, I found it very interesting. I'd recommend it as a reading topic for anyone here.

        In reality, I don't know if I'd make a good judge. But I enjoyed taking the class.

        Comment


          #5
          I'm liking your competition threads TBoneJack
          Having judged a lot of competitions, and competed in a few, let me sum up answers to your 2 questions with my thoughts regarding garnish and chicken skin. It's great to judge, because they encourage conversation amongst the judges after the scores are done. This conversation into how others judge is very insightful -
          Even if they tell judges not to deduct for certain things, the judges will. It's their personal preference and for some competitions, they don't get all CBJ's.
          Here are a few to note:
          1. If you don't use garnish, you will score low on appearance.
          2. If you don't use sauce (depending on your area the sauce will vary, but usually it tends toward the sweeter sauces) on your ribs and pulled pork, you'll not do as well.
          3. If you don't have skin on your chicken, you won't score well.
          4. If your skin is rubbery, or comes off in one bite, you won't score well (and scraping skins is a pain, we got a call on our chicken in a pretty big comp without scraping though, so I've since stopped, I just clean them up and scrape enough to make them even, but if you don't scrape, you need crispy, not rubbery skin).

          Comment


            #6
            Lots going on in this thread! Garnish is the one thing that makes KCBS sanctioning different. IBCA, FBA, BCA don't use garnish. In fact, IBCA and BCA mandate how the meat is positioned in the box, lined with a sheet of foil. I believe that garnish will not go away in KCBS -- it truly is optional and in my opinion, really good judges don't judge greenery. I got to look over the shoulder of a top FBA cook (Kevin Bevington, HomeBBQ) at a KCBS contest when he made his brisket box. Greenery consisted of 3 sprigs of parsley! He pulled strands of brisket out of the point and used that as a base to display slices, burnt ends at top and bottom, parsley in three corners. It won brisket that day!

            Personally, I don't spend a bunch of time greening up boxes. 2 bunches of green leaf lettuce will generally work for me for all 4 boxes. I do have a plan going in as to how I'm going to display the meat.

            Another benefit of greenery is it allows juices to flow thru and not puddle around the meat. Puddling of sauce is illegal. Puddling below the greenery is not visible.

            I've seen cooks who burnt skin, pull it off, apply sauce and end up walking to the stage to pick up a check. Cooks obsess about skin, but judges don't. You don't want skin to slap the judge in the face, that's why bite-thru is sought. Crispy skin can become rubbery skin inside the turn-in box. Just not tasty. Used to be that about half the judges would pull the skin off before eating a sample. Or, pull the chicken away from the bone to see if it's done. Here in the South, there's been a trend toward cooking legs instead of thighs. I can cook either and sometimes throw a sliced breast in to throw the judges a new one.

            Sauce -- just use it! Blues Hog does amazingly well and is incredibly versatile. Original, Smoky Mountain, Tennessee Red or the new Grand Champion, it's all good.

            With that said, I don't like to sauce brisket...

            Judging is a completely subjective process. Sometimes a cook gets lucky and sometimes not. Best advice I've ever gotten was to "nail the texture" and adjust the flavors next. Cooks that are winning tend to have a pretty middle of the road product, but the texture is spot on.

            Comment


            • Craigar
              Craigar commented
              Editing a comment
              Very interesting. Out of curiosity, what is the KCBS definition of puddling?

            • TBoneJack
              TBoneJack commented
              Editing a comment
              Thanks Candy Sue. I kinda figured that originally, garnish was added to BBQ boxes for the purpose of hiding puddled sauce/juices. And soon it became so commonplace that cooks and judges expected to see it. Just a guess.

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