KCBS Judge for BBQ Cookoff - PICS are in

I am officially now a certified KCBS judge, and will be judging my first cookoff tomorrow at the 2007 Southwest International BBQ Cook-off at Rawhide in chandler, AZ. www.swibbq.com

Looks to be a cool event! Fifty-four teams are competing this year and I'm going to be at the recieving end of things. How great is that?

I'll update this thread over the weekend with some pics and observations. Hereeee pigggy pigggy!

Congrats on becoming a Judge. You da man!

Rawhide, huh? So is part of the contest to find out who cooks the best rattlesnake?

Congratulations, desertdog! One of my goals is to become a certified KCBS judge. All that free BBQ!

LOL.I got halfway through my original response and realized that though unintentional it would probably be misunderstood. Sounds as if you're in for a great weekend, congrats on "Here comes the Judge", you the man.

Congrats DD. Remember to keep those doggies movin this weekend.

DD,

You'll be eating better barbecue for free than you could ever pay for. Unfortunately, you can't have beer with it.

I'm looking forward to your report.

Jim

You can have beer with it later. During judging, you only take a bite or two of each of your six barbecue item samples, giving you about six bites of brisket, six of pork shoulder, six of chicken, six of ribs, etc. They give you styrofoam containers so that you can take your mountain of leftovers home with you. It ain't bad cold, believe me.

I was a judge at the Houston rodeo for a few years ... I learned there is defiantly such a thing as bad BBQ.

Enjoy.

quote:

Originally posted by desertdog



I am officially now a certified KCBS judge, and will be judging my first cookoff tomorrow at the 2007 Southwest International BBQ Cook-off at Rawhide in chandler, AZ. www.swibbq.com

Looks to be a cool event! Fifty-four teams are competing this year and I'm going to be at the recieving end of things. How great is that?

I'll update this thread over the weekend with some pics and observations. Hereeee pigggy pigggy!

I'll see you Sunday1

Here are the pics from last weekend's cookoff. Had a great time judging some absolutely outstanding BBQ and the entire event was for a great cause.





I arrived in style, of course.





As soon as we signed in we were, for the most part, sequestered in the Judging tent until the competition was over.





We were able to go out on the event grounds but were not allowed to mingle with the contestants on BBQ Row.





I did find a little time to "horse around" shortly before judging began.





There were a total of 51 teams competing for Grand Champion. We were a total of 48 judges, six sitting at each of 8 tables.

The BBQ was brought to us in containers with at least six pieces in each container.





We were not allowed to take pictures of the entries, so these entry photos are the entries from the Soul Fusion Kitchen Team's entries.





We got to sample and grade six entries from each of four categories: Chicken, Ribs, Boston Butt, and Beef Brisket.






Everyone has their own techniques of course, and smokers that ranged from little Webers all the way up to some pretty fancy rigs.





There was also a people's choice award going on, so most of the Teams were handing out samples of their Que throughout the day.










It was nice to be on the receiving end of the best of the best, however. Since I usually only took one bite of each entry, I had leftovers which we were allowed to take home.

I have found uses for them, in fact I cooked up some pretty mean Chili last night with the pork and brisket.


My friends over at the BBQ Magic Team ended up winning 5th in the BBQ Rib category. Marty and his team did a great job, and I enjoyed drinking a couple cold ones with them after the judging was over with.





All in all, a good way to spend a Saturday. I have already signed up for upcoming cookoffs in the area, who knows, maybe I'll even get my own team together someday. (With John A's help, of course! )

DD

That picture made me smile......

The little one with the medal, our future World BBQ Champ!

Looks like a great day ... Thanks for the pix.

Even with only one bite, how did you keep from overeating. After about a dozen small bites, I would have been super stuffed.

I saw your other post where you made chili con carne with some of the leftovers. very good idea.

How do you keep from having preconceived opinions? I am partial to moist and sweet and that would have swayed my opinions.


Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Awesome!

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

Even with only one bite, how did you keep from overeating. After about a dozen small bites, I would have been super stuffed.

I saw your other post where you made chili con carne with some of the leftovers. very good idea.

How do you keep from having preconceived opinions? I am partial to moist and sweet and that would have swayed my opinions.


Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

We actually had breaks between entries, so my day went like this:

Six bites of chicken - 1/2 hour break - six bites of ribs - 1 hour break - six bites of pulled pork - 1 hour break - six bites of brisket - done.

We were well schooled at the certification instruction class. We were encouraged to grade each entry on it's own merits, not to compare with the other five pieces. Also, it was important to grade on the chef's ability to accomplish the criteria of taste, texture, Moisture.

In the end, you try to be impartial, but there are flavors I like better than others, that is why there are 5 other people at your table grading the same entry.

DD

All we have to do is get a FE/CS 100 and let it do the work DD

Great shot of the Saturday Evening sky at last weekend's event.





A professional photographer was stalking the event all weekend and took some great pictures.

DD -

Congrats! Hope to hear more about KCBS from you in the future.

quote:

Originally posted by desertdog


Great shot of the Saturday Evening sky at last weekend's event.





A professional photographer was stalking the event all weekend and took some great pictures.

Yes he did, that's a great one.

DD Welcome the the brotherhood of BBQ. Becoming a judge is one of the greatest things eating wise I have done. Hope to see you on the circuit someday...

Tony

Glad you had a good time and some great food. If you really want to get an inside look into competetive BBQ, ask a cook team if you can cook with them one weekend. It will also give you a greater understanding of what we do to give you those 6 pieces of food for you to eat and make you a better judge. Hopefully we will cross paths some day.

Bubba
Team Bub-BA-Q and restaurant

When I judged at the Royal in October, they wouldn't let us take pictures of the entries:-(

Keith

Sfreader,

We were also not allowed. As I stated above, those pics are from a team that took photos of their own entries.



Hey Bubba,

I am doing just that. In fact, I will be taking a BBQ "class" put on jointly by the California and Arizona BBQ associations.

It is actually many teams with varying experience that get together and critique each others Que, and offer advice (when asked) to each other.

Something fun to do during the winter lull to keep the team techniques sharp for the coming season. We sure got the weather for it this time of year.

I do have a team I will be helping in the spring at a couple different comps. really looking forward to it.

Where do you normally compete?

I live just north of Atlanta and primarily compete in the southeast. I am looking to spend 3 to 4 weeks out west next summer competing. Gonna make it a family road trip.

Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

quote:

Originally posted by Bub-Ba-Q

I live just north of Atlanta and primarily compete in the southeast. I am looking to spend 3 to 4 weeks out west next summer competing. Gonna make it a family road trip.

Great! Be sure to let me know when you folks are out here. If you want to keep an eye on or sign up for upcoming events out here, the two best sites for Arizona and California are:

www.azbarbeque.com

www.cbbqa.org

They even talk about surrounding events in Colorado, Nevada and Utah. It's a great way to keep up on the BBQ world in the Southwest.