Competition Barbeque ~ Cooking My First Comp ~ KCBS Master Judge
NEED TO GET ON BOARD WITH SPELLED OUT NUMBERS OR DIGITS.
SHOULD 2009 FIRST COMP BE CHANGED TO 'FROM FIRST COMP TO MASTER JUDGE'?
I took a KCBS Judging class on a Thursday back in August of 2009, two days later I judged my first competition and I was hooked. Competition 'barbeque' in the KCBS world is way different from the backyard "Bar-B-Que" as my grandmother referred to it in the 1960's and the 'on-sale' meats or wild game my Grandfather smoked almost every Saturday with his neighborhood buddies Bo, Sonny and Joe. I liked judging so much, the next logical step for me was to take a competition cooking class, which I did a couple of years later. This is an important step for future competition cooks, plus it really opened my eyes to some of the nuances that can take good barbecue and improve it. In the meantime every contest where I judged or did a 'volunteer' assignment (being a Table Captain, or helping with one of the other tasks) counted toward my Master Judge certification. The Master Judge requirement is to have 30 signatures from KCBS Reps, with at least one as a volunteer, cook with a team at a sanctioned contest, and take an online examination. I officially became a Master Judge in October 2021.
Fast forward about 5 or 6 years to a Friday afternoon happy hour with some of my cookin' buddies. One happened to also be a Judge and we were talking about a new competition starting in our town. Someone mentioned forming a cooking team and the idea stuck. Not only would this be fun, there would be no travel involved and two of us would get a 'team cook' credit toward becoming a Master Judge. We set our sights on 2019 so we would have plenty of time to practice. We had all the equipment, and a cargo trailer so the ball started rolling.
The four KCBS barbeque meats are chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder and brisket which are turned into the Judges in that order every thirty minutes starting at noon. At first we thought a 4-man team would work best, and each person would take the lead on their favorite meat. We had a lot of interest but in the end we wound up with 3 cooks, so one of us would have to pick-up the last meat. I got the first pick and chose brisket. The next pick was pork shoulder, and the third man chose ribs. This left chicken available. Because chicken is the first 'turn-in' at noon, and brisket is the last turn-in at 1:30, I offered to take the chicken category.
The hardest thing for a new competition cook is to forget how they cook barbecue at home. Family and friends tend to be very polite and are usually not critical to your face.... so you may get rave reviews or brag that "everyone loves my ribs", but they are probably not competition grade ribs. Competition barbeque must look appealing, have a well balanced savory flavor, and as perfect of a tenderness as you can get. The flavor in fact tends to be a little bold, as a judge is only required to take one bite, and the cook wants to get the judge's attention. My buddies sort of got this...., but it would take some test cooks for this to sink-in. A picture is worth a thousand words, so before making any more plans I saved about 100 turn-in box photos from various online sites to a thumb drive and we did a little show and tell. People usually don't post photos of sloppy turn-in boxes, so I was able to explain the logic and presentation of many boxes. Seeing what they would have to cook and mimic for the competition didn't scare my buddies away.
The Rules - This is the starting point for any competitive activity. The KCBS contest rules are short and to the point, with very little wiggle room. They describe the legal cuts of meat, when and how they can be prepped, the minimum amount of meat to be turned in, the legal garnishes which may be used, how sauce is defined and used, and a list of things that are not legal to use, and things in the turn-in box which could be a penalty or disqualification. Cooks should know the judging rules and procedures too, so I did a review using my CBJ Handbook.
The How To - Combined with my competition cooking class notes, a handful of YouTube instructional cooking videos were our main source for hands on demonstrations, tips and tricks. We watched more Harry Soo videos simply because they are very detailed. Butcher BBQ has a couple of great brisket prep videos. I also cruised the Competition Forum archives on the BBQ Brethren forum, and asked a lot of questions there.
The Game Plan - One of the best tips for a first time team was to keep it simple, stick with standard presentations, and use products that have demonstrated success among barbecue competitors. I'll break down the exact products below when I discuss each meat. Our early practice cooks focused on taste and tenderness, and we all kept very good notes on cook times and pit temps. Each of us picked out a couple of turn-in box photos we wanted to replicate, and I had enlargements made. Later, when we included assembling the turn-in boxes to the practice runs, we used the photo's as a guide. And.... we took the photos to the competition and and had them taped to the wall of the cargo trailer.
Practice Time - If your friends and family aren't complaining, you are not practicing enough. Chicken was the hardest because thighs might look like perfect clones before cooking, but they change during cooking. I could usually get 4 or 5 that would match up.... getting the 6th one was hard. Rib practice was mainly for cook time and tenderness, the flavor was very good from day one. Pork Shoulder practice was not too bad considering the pork cook had never smoked a butt until we began practicing. Here is where the YouTube videos paid off, he didn't have to learn from his mistakes. Brisket may have been the easiest practice cooks because I had been using competition methods on my backyard brisket for years. I did experiment with several injections, and decided on pre-trimming for box-width, instead of trimming after cooking. On sound advice from several cooks, we decided early on to only turn in slices and serve the burnt ends to the friends and family that showed up to cheer us on.
Best Tips For Contest Day - We had a running list of every item we used when practicing, we took all of it to the competition. Other than knives, injectors, thermometers, timers and the like, we used a lot of disposable things. Paper towels, gloves, wipes, foil pans, even disposable cutting boards.
Cost and Budget - We were lucky because we didn't have to buy any equipment. Besides registration, our costs for practice and contest day were meat, rubs, sauces, injections, foil and other supplies. We did not even consider wagyu briskets or Duroc pork, but did wet age some prime briskets. Our ribs were Smithfield and we bought family packs of thighs from Sam's club.
Chicken - After a few test cooks I decided on bone-in thighs, six in the box on a bed of chopped kale. Using 14 thighs, I did a traditional trim, first squaring up the thigh and skin, then removing obvious fat. I also cut off part of the knuckle. I filleted the fat off of the skin, then weighed each thigh as I wanted them at 4 ounces each. Chicken can be prepped at home but can't be seasoned until after meat inspection on Friday. Saturday morning I injected each thigh with Kosmo's Chicken Soak and rested, then seasoned with The Slabs Birds & Bones. For cooking I used a 275° drum smoker with the butter broth bath method. They cooked uncovered for 20 minutes. Next, they were sprayed with Parkay and covered until they were tender, about 20 more minutes. The final internal temp was around 180°. Saucing was a thinned out Blues Hog Original sauce, and glazed on a rack. As I boxed each thigh I seasoned the bottom side with a fine grind of Birds & Bones.
Ribs - The rib cook decided on St Louis spare ribs with a 4 on 4 (8 ribs) arrangement in the box with kale as garnish. For prep, the membrane was removed and all three racks were sized to 4.5" wide. The rub was Cimarron Doc's and the ribs were hung in a 275° drum smoker for 2.5 hours. They were sprayed with water with a shake of Worcestershire early in the cook, then spray butter, then toward the end a mix of water, guava nectar and apple juice was used. Wrapping was in foil with brown sugar, honey, guava and rice wine vinegar for about 90 minutes. The Harry Soo competition rib video showed about fifteen potential ingredients when wrapping ribs. The ribs were sliced with meat side down, then the best ones were put on a rack and sauced with a thinned out Blues Hog Original sauce and the sauce was set in the smoker in about 5 minutes.
Pork Shoulder - The cook taking the lead on pork had never cooked a pork butt before we started practicing. He pretty much used tutorials by Harry Soo, Chef Tom, and Girls Can Grill as a guide for prep and cooking. He had a recently purchased Treager, which is legal in KCBS competitions, and the presentation would be money muscle slices and some pulled meat from the tubes or the horn muscles which are around the bone. The selected injection was Kosmo's Pork, the rub was Cimarron Doc's and sauce was Blues Hog Original cut with apple juice. The butts were cooked in foil pans at 275° and sprayed with water and spray butter several times. At about 160° some smoked pork broth was added to the pans and they were covered for the meat to tender up. A pork turn-in box takes the longest to build, but there is a lot of meat to work with.
Brisket - I had the lead on brisket and the night before I trimmed two flats down to 7" wide and four pounds in weight. I also butterflied two points, but we had decided on slices only for turn in. I planned on 7 or 8 slices on a bed of kale for the turn-in box. My injection was Kosmo's Reserve Blend, the rubs were Smokin' Guns Hot and a Prime Rib Blend purchased at a local market. I did a hot and fast cook in my drum smoker at 300°, then a wrap with butter and Minor's AuJus along with a tablespoon of Worcestershire.
The Scores - We finished 11th in Ribs, 19th in Chicken, 20th in Brisket and 26th in Pork. Looking back, our seasonings/sauce could have been a little bolder as the Taste scores were sometimes 1 point lower than the Tenderness scores. Overall I was happy with the scoring. There were seven new teams cooking, and we finished ahead of them.
