I remember a quote from my Catholic school days "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first". Well, I'm going to go ahead and agree with that today. In particular, as it relates to the results of my recent Memorial Day Red White & BBQ competition.
But before I get into that, the real focus on this post is the details of the day. And I should really lead in with just how much fun a day of being in a formal BBQ competition is. I can't wait to do more.
My 2nd ever official BBQ contest
This was the same contest I entered last year. It's an amateur "backyard" contest along side a professional contest. While the pros turn in the standard 4 meats (brisket, pork shoulder, ribs, chicken), they have us amateurs turn in just ribs and chicken.
Once again, my friend Brian joined me as my partner, and he handled the chicken while I handled the ribs. In last year's contest, we came in 12th place (out of 60 teams) overall, with Brian's chicken ranked #12 and my ribs #19. Promising start with room for improvement! Needless to say, our hopes and expectations were higher for this year.
The day started bright and early, as we needed to get to the contest for check-in by 7am. I did plenty of prep work the night before to make the morning as smooth as possible. This included multiple store runs, packing the car (next year, I should just rent a Uhaul!), and most importantly, trimming my ribs. As it turns out, we learned that as long as you don't apply any rubs, marinades, etc to the meat, you free to trim & clean it in advance. Given how much easier this is to do in my kitchen as opposed to the middle of a field, I took advantage of it.
Getting setup for the day
When we got to the contest, we staked a claim to our spot and started setting up. As you can see in the picture above, it basically looks like a tailgate. And quite frankly, we treat it like a tailgate all day long, which is a huge part of the fun for us and everyone else who comes to enjoy it.
Once we're set up, we have plenty of time before the ribs and chicken go on the smoker, so we got to relax for a bit with some breakfast. Pretty sure we were the only BBQ contestants drinking mimosas (thanks to Brian). I also decided to get my smoker going to just let run for a bit to get it to the right temp before my ribs went on it. Standard minion method approach as discussed in
previous posts.
KCBS sanctioned - makes it official!
Around 9am we had the "captain's meeting". This is when we go into the tent with all the other competitors, and the KCBS sanctioned hosts go over all the the rules of the contest. Nothing new, but serves as the kick-off to the contest.
Ribs rubbed up and ready to go on the smoker
After another hour or so of just relaxing - it happened to be a beautiful day - it was time to get my ribs ready for the smoker. My ribs were due to be turned in promptly at 3:30pm, so I wanted to get them on the smoker 5 hours in advance - 10:30am. The above pic is my ribs all rubbed up. Next step was to add some brown sugar and honey on top, and toss them on the smoker around 235F.
Then, as is always the case with BBQ, we wait. Which meant Brian and I had a few beers and played a few games. Late morning, my wife showed up with lunch for us, and ready to help out. She decided to take over on the box preparation, which is great because cutting and trimming a bunch of parsley and lettuce to look good in a styrofoam box, while important to BBQ competitions, is not my forte.
Sous chef working the box prep
Smoker set-up complete
As I always do when cooking ribs, I let my ribs sit directly on the smoker for 2.5 hours. During that time, every hour or so I add more wood and spray the ribs with an apple juice/vinegar combo, to keep them moist.
Ribs getting wrapped
When those 2.5 hours pass, I pull the ribs off the smoker and getting them wrapped. The picture above shows me in action at this point. My approach is to lay out the foil, spread some pepper jelly, brown sugar, and honey on it, and then set the ribs on top of that. Then put a little more pepper jelly, brown sugar, and honey on the other side of the ribs, wrap them up tightly (double-coated foil), and they're ready to go back on the smoker at 240F for another 1.5 hours.
Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of Brian and his chicken, which I don't really have any good excuse for. But at any point, around this time Brian started preparing his butter bath, and getting his chicken cooking in there for a while. I don't recall the exact amount of time he puts the chicken in the bath, but the idea is to add flavor and make the skin better prepared for direct smoking.
Because the chicken is due at 3pm, earlier than the ribs, while my ribs on wrapped and foil and on the smoker for 1.5 hours, thats when Brian takes cares of all his work. By 3pm, he's pulled his chicken off the smoker (at this point the thighs had been on the smoker directly with some BBQ sauce), we picked out the best looking ones, and they went in the box for turn in.
Ribs back on smoker for sauce/finish
At 3pm, I pulled my foil-wrapped ribs from the smoker. I simply take the foil off and throw them back on the smoker directly. I like the smoker to be hotter for this point, so I had it running up closer to 270F. Ribs go on, and I proceed to sauce one side and let it set for 10 minutes, then flip and sauce the other side and let that set for 10 minutes. You can see my doing this in the above picture.
Pre-cut finished product
Slicing 'em up
Still slicing while picking the good & the bad
Once the ribs are finished, around 3:20pm - 10 minutes until turn-in - I start slicing. I find it easier to slice them evenly if I flip the rack over and slice from the bottom. As I do this, I pick the ones that look good and put them in a separate pan from the ones I don't think look as good.
The key to which ribs look "good" is a combo of good amount of meat, good smoke ring, straight looking bones, and uniform looking cut. I think pick out 6 of the "best" looking ribs to put in my box for turn-in. I also sneak a quick bite of one to make sure everything is good. More on this in a moment, but I thought they came out great!
Modeling my completed box
Finished product ready for the judges
And after turning my ribs into the judges at 3:01pm (you get +/- 5 minutes), the hard work for the day is complete. At that point, Brian & I, along with my wife and some friends, enjoyed all the leftover, non-turned in, ribs and chicken. We all agreed everything was delicious, and we were pretty excited to see if we improved on our 12th place finish from the previous year.
Well, as it turns out, the BBQ gods were not with us this year. I always told everyone when I explained how BBQ contest judging works that you never know 1) what the particular judge's taste buds prefer as far as flavoring goes (spicy vs sweet, etc), and 2) for any variety of reasons, sometimes meat just doesn't turn out the way you expect.
To cut to the chase, my ribs got #39/42! And Brian's chicken got #42/42. And overall, we got #42/42.. that's right - dead last place!! The audience of friends I had assembled all felt bad for me and was supportive, telling me the judges don't know what they're talking about - which was nice. But I knew it was just the way it goes sometimes. I actually noticed that a team that got #5 overall last year ended up this year with #38/42. So, as I said, it happens. I bet they were angrier than I was!
In looking at my scores, I scored mostly 7s ("above average") on the 1-9 scale, which really isn't bad. But I didn't pull off many 8s and exactly zero 9s, which make a big difference in the scoring system. And apparently, everyone else did that day.
My appearance scores were my strong point. This made sense as you can see my box above - it looked great! But unfortunately, appearance scores carry the least weight.
My taste scores were middle of the road. I thought the taste was good, but I definitely didn't have the spice that I usually like to have. Not entirely sure why - maybe not enough rub or pepper jelly. But perhaps that's what the judges were missing. This carries the most weight, so it hurts to not get more 8s & 9s in this category.
Lastly, my tenderness scores were the worst. This surprised me because my tenderness is usually great (my high point in last year's contest) and I even tried my ribs and felt good about it. However, as BBQ sits and cools, the tenderness gets worse and worse. It's possible that my ribs were randomly one of the last boxes eaten, and as a result, the tenderness suffered. We'll never know.
Anyway, that's the run down of my second ever BBQ contest. No where near the results we wanted, but still an incredibly fun day. And Brian and I have already decided we need to find more contests to enter! Hopefully the next time I post about one, it's with a better outcome.
