Well I promised an update.

Chili Head

New member
We cooked in our second competition yesterday at the Paxton swine and dine.
There was a live bands stage at the end of Main Street and vendors and BBQ teams lined up along both sides of the street for several blocks. Thousands of people walking up and down the street checking us out and asking questions. It was awesome! Most of the questions we got were about our cookers made from trash cans ( drums) as one lady put it. I even had several competitors checking out my BPS drum too. I explained to everyone how to get a drum and where to order the kit from. It was so much fun talking with everyone. Almost as much fun as when they announced the winners.

The final tally was close..very close. The top two teams actually tied at 336 points and the tiebreaker came down to taste scores. There was a KCBS judge at every table but not all judges were KCBS certified.

Bourbon smoke BBQ scored 161.714 in chicken and 174.857 in ribs.
We ( smoking buds BBQ ) scored 158.857 in chicken and scored 177.143 in ribs.

The tie breaker taste scores were..
Bourbon smoke BBQ - chicken 39 ribs 43
Smoking buds BBQ - chicken 40 ribs 45

We got our first grand champion with first place ribs and second place chicken!

Not bad considering we tied for last place chicken at our first comp to getting second in chicken this time. We went to work on our chicken after the dismal finish in our last comp. We're getting closer and I have a better idea now of what the judges are looking for. I still need to work on getting the chicken to be more uniform in size. The ribs were perfect! We turned in ten bones all from the same slab. They couldn't have been better in my opinion.

Here's the pics of our boxes. You judges and competitors please let me know if you see anything we could do better.

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Me on the right and my right hand man Tom on the left.
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Chili Head

New member
You got that right BP!
I was so overwhelmed with how well we finished that I forgot we got some dollars to go with it. Hehehe
 

scooter

Moderator
Way to go Chili!!!! Congratulations on the GC! Like BP said, you're hooked now.

OK, some judging critique.
Ribs: I would have given your rib box an 8 in appearance. A score of 177 means you did it right. I would say repeat what you did again next time. My only critique on your ribs would be to finish your cuts on both ends of the rack better. Those little points of meat on the ends shows your knife didn't cut all the way through. Just make sure you're ribs are nicely cut from edge to edge with straight cuts (as straight as possible anyway).

Chicken: I would have given your chicken box a 7 in appearance. As you already noted, trimming could be more uniform in size/shape and your sauce application is a bit gloppy and uneven. You want a nice thin even coat of sauce and you don't want to have sauce puddles on the sides of the box. With a 159 score I figure you took some taste and tenderness score hits as well. You need to get that score up closer to 170 and above.

I'd be interested in how the contest judges scored your boxes.
 
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Chili Head

New member
Thanks scooter!
The scores are supposed to be posted any day now. I'll let you know when they are.
WOW I didn't even notice the cuts on the ribs you mentioned.
I know our chicken needs some work..a lot of work lol

I really appreciate the critique Scooter. Thanks!
 

scooter

Moderator
I was assuming your contest was a KCBS santioned contest so the scoring I gave your boxes was a KCBS 2-9 scale score. I see it wasn't a KCBS contest so I don't know how they scored your entries. The 1st place ribs with a 177 score sounds very much like KCBS scoring to me so will be interested to see how you were scored.
 

MoHuka

New member
Chili Head,

I have been to a couple contests here in the KC area and I see several competitors cooking the chicken thighs in muffin tins to achieve the uniformity you want....
 
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