Welcome!


This is a membership forum. Guests can view 5 pages for free. To participate, please join.

[ Pitmaster Club Information | Join Now | Login | Contact Us ]

Only 4 free page views remaining.

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Judged My 5th KCBS Contest Today

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Judged My 5th KCBS Contest Today

    I judged my 5th KCBS contest today. It was a 47-team Backyard event in Florence, AL. And it had some teams with great reputations. Some teams came from as far as Louisiana.

    This was the best contest I've judged yet. It was held on the banks of a nice river. There was a classic car show, numerous vendors, several live bands, and a bunch of nice people and good food to judge. I always like walking around looking at the various smokers, and the smell of apple and hickory wood was great.

    Participating in the KCBS judging process has been fun.

    Some notable takaways from today:

    1. I got a really nice tee-shirt for judging.

    2. A team got disqualified in ribs because they missed the turn-in time by several minutes. And I must wonder, how can a team miss a turn-in time by several minutes? It's hard to believe.

    3. There was a rib entry that got bad scores all around in tenderness because the cook left the membrane on the ribs. The texture was hideous.

    4. Bite-thru chicken skin is a lot more important than I thought before I became a judge. Trying to bite into rubbery chicken skin gives me only sauce. And when I remove the skin and bite into the meat, I get no sauce or rub. Bite-thru chicken skin is very important.

    5. Pork shoulder/butt is my least favorite meat. But the pork entries today were good. A couple were over-cooked and mushy, but several were excellent. My taste preference in pork shoulder/butt is nice bark, sweetness, and finish heat. Money muscle is good too. But to me, pulled pork with no bark is kinda boring.

    6. I stopped at Publix on the way home and bought a rack of St Louis spare ribs to smoke tomorrow.

    #2
    Awesome! Thanks for the great write-ups of your experiences. Always good reads! 👍

    Comment


      #3
      Glad you are enjoying it. Nice to have some insight.

      Comment


        #4
        Thanx. I also enjoyed your write up.

        Comment


          #5
          Agree with all responses above^.
          So Cool to share in yer' perspective, an in yer experiences!

          Comment


            #6
            Thanks again for the learning opportunity!

            Comment


              #7
              Went to a BBQ contest once with a judge. It was awesome! We had dinner with one of the teams (he wasn't judging that night). They had smoked turkey for dinner. The best!

              Comment


                #8
                I've enjoyed all your judging write ups...thanks! I have my CBJ class next Friday. Hopefully I'll be half as lucky in getting the opportunities you've had to judge. Judging slots in this area seem to fill up quickly.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by T-bone View Post
                  I've enjoyed all your judging write ups...thanks! I have my CBJ class next Friday. Hopefully I'll be half as lucky in getting the opportunities you've had to judge. Judging slots in this area seem to fill up quickly.
                  Yeah, judging opportunities can be difficult to get, especially this time of year. I looked on the KCBS website last night, and there are already contests for 2018 being advertised. Other judges I've talked to say they start applying for contests in December for the following year.

                  I got an email an hour ago saying I have been selected to be a judge at my first State Championship (Professional) contest later this year. I applied for that opportunity back in February, just after I completed my CBJ class.

                  Comment


                  • T-bone
                    T-bone commented
                    Editing a comment
                    Good info and congrats on getting selected for a State Championship!

                  #10
                  A couple additional takaways from the contest yesterday that I meant to include in the original post.

                  1. One team turned in ribs that were laying on their side in an otherwise empty box (no garnish). The lack of garnish was fine, but the ribs laying on their side were not attractive at all to any judge at my table. I've never seen ribs look so unappealing. The ribs were light-gray in color, and everybody was looking for a nice deep red or mahogany color. I can't imagine what the cook was thinking.

                  2. As you can imagine, the BBQ judging crowd has some "big" folks among its members. And some are very big. And the chairs provided for judges to sit in are those metal fold-up picnic chairs. And yesterday while we were judging, one rather large judge at my table had his chair collapse (flattened, shattered, in pieces) and he fell hard to the ground. And it took 3 men to help him get back up. I hope he's OK.
                  Last edited by TBoneJack; April 30, 2017, 11:17 AM.

                  Comment

                  Announcement

                  Collapse
                  No announcement yet.
                  Working...
                  X
                  false
                  0
                  Guest
                  Guest
                  500
                  ["pitmaster-my-membership","login","join-pitmaster","lostpw","reset-password","special-offers","help","nojs","meat-ups","gifts","authaau-alpha","ebooklogin-start","alpha","start"]
                  false
                  false
                  {"count":0,"link":"/forum/announcements/","debug":""}
                  Yes
                  ["\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads","\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads\/1157845-paid-members-download-your-6-deep-dive-guide-ebooks-for-free-here","\/forum\/the-pitcast","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2019-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2020-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2021-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2022-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/current-2023-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/current-2024-issues","\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads\/1165909-trial-members-download-your-free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-here"]
                  /forum/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads/1165909-trial-members-download-your-free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-here