Speaking of Blues and BBQ...

A sincere thanks to the teams, organizers, and other volunteers who put on a great contest. I'm a judge, not a team member. I'd like to add a few comments regarding the extreme flavor 'profiles' that have become the rage. STOP IT! THE JUDGES DON'T LIKE IT!

Regarding the flavor of the product, most of us judges look for and hope for:
1. The flavor of meat - chicken, pork, or beef - we should be able to identify what we are eating!
2. The flavor of smoke - real smoke, not from a bottle! It's BBQ, not a pot roast.
3. A subtle flavor from the rub, sauce, or other seasonings. The seasonings should enhance the meat, not hide it. Don't smother the product in sauce - a light glaze is preferred and it should be heated to caramelize - no one likes 'raw' sauce.

Most of end up judging:
1. Some bizarre overwhelming flavor of fruit, spices, hot pepper, or whatever the team thinks will set them apart. 'Unique' isn't usually a good thing!
2. Chicken that looks like someone spent more time with a paintbrush and a bottle of sauce than they did tending the cooker. "Appearance" is more than beauty show makeup.
3. Dried out meat - if you take the bone out of the chicken thigh it usually ends up a tough chewy hunk of MacThigh.
4. Brisket that tastes like anything but a piece of properly smoked beef. What teams are doing to brisket borders on criminal. When we do get a properly cooked, lightly-seasoned slice of brisket it's celebration time and scores 9's.

If you want to succeed in the competition, get certified and judge a few contests. Listen to the other judges' comments and you'll quickly figure out what makes a 'wow' product. It's just simple BBQ - not extreme anything.

Actually Jim, I am a certified judge, as is my wife...So I've "been there-done that"...(I believe Andrew is a certified judge as well) and while I personally swing from the same tree that you do when it comes to judging "Q", the fact of the matter is that once you convince the rest of the judges to stop giving winning scores to "rib-sicles" (etc), then everyone will stop cooking "rib-sicles" (etc)....When Franken-Briskets stop scoring well, people will stop turning in Briskets that have more needle marks than a downtown junkie. So as much as I would LOVE to agree with you that "just simple BBQ" is the ticket to a good score, in reality it just ain't so.

A sincere thanks to the teams, organizers, and other volunteers who put on a great contest. I'm a judge, not a team member. I'd like to add a few comments regarding the extreme flavor 'profiles' that have become the rage. STOP IT! THE JUDGES DON'T LIKE IT!

Regarding the flavor of the product, most of us judges look for and hope for:
1. The flavor of meat - chicken, pork, or beef - we should be able to identify what we are eating!
2. The flavor of smoke - real smoke, not from a bottle! It's BBQ, not a pot roast.
3. A subtle flavor from the rub, sauce, or other seasonings. The seasonings should enhance the meat, not hide it. Don't smother the product in sauce - a light glaze is preferred and it should be heated to caramelize - no one likes 'raw' sauce.

Most of end up judging:
1. Some bizarre overwhelming flavor of fruit, spices, hot pepper, or whatever the team thinks will set them apart. 'Unique' isn't usually a good thing!
2. Chicken that looks like someone spent more time with a paintbrush and a bottle of sauce than they did tending the cooker. "Appearance" is more than beauty show makeup.
3. Dried out meat - if you take the bone out of the chicken thigh it usually ends up a tough chewy hunk of MacThigh.
4. Brisket that tastes like anything but a piece of properly smoked beef. What teams are doing to brisket borders on criminal. When we do get a properly cooked, lightly-seasoned slice of brisket it's celebration time and scores 9's.

If you want to succeed in the competition, get certified and judge a few contests. Listen to the other judges' comments and you'll quickly figure out what makes a 'wow' product. It's just simple BBQ - not extreme anything.

I don't disagree -- but I really didn't hear many compliments about the overly seasoned items. The ribs that I judged weren't heavily sauced - that's a chicken issue - but some had such an overpowering rub that it could have just been the wood stick from an actual popsicle! When I can't get my lips to stop burning so I can sample the next entry, I guarantee the score for the 'hot' guy will be low!

I do appreciate the challenges that the teams face, and their frustrations when they see someone win with some odd product. I suggest this, however; the winning entries MAY have been overly sweet and appealed to some of the judges (not me or anyone at my table), but sometimes they are the best of the entries overall (tenderness is a BIG issue when scoring). Have overly-peppered, dried out ribs won? Have briskets that taste like they came from a pot of corned-beef cabbage won? Have any of the briskets with the strangely flavored orange-colored 'sauce' scored well?

I took a cooking class last year in Sellersburg - the BBQ Boot Camp held at Charcoal & More. There were a couple other judges there, as well as some cooking team members. General comments from the judges - "this is what BBQ should be!"

Simple Q - the fanciest seasoning was a splash of Sweet Chili Sauce as a finishing accent on the pulled pork shoulder. I highly recommend the camp - it will be August 11&12 this year. (I am not associated with them in any way - just a happy graduate!)

I apologize for the ranting, but some of this stuff is really getting bad. The teams spend an incredible amount of time and money to enter, and the judges spend a similar amount travelling to events - it really should be an ENJOYABLE experience for everyone.

I took a cooking class last year in Sellersburg - the BBQ Boot Camp held at Charcoal & More. There were a couple other judges there, as well as some cooking team members. General comments from the judges - "this is what BBQ should be!"

No doubt this is a great class to learn how to "Q"...but I wonder how beneficial this particular class is going to be for competition cooks. I mean yeah, the guy has a lot of awards but none more recent than 2004. THAT is back in the days when the gap between good "eatin' BBQ and good "scoring" BBQ wasn't so wide. We started competing in 2006 and the products/profiles that were winning then wouldn't even move the needle now.

BTW...<insert personal plug disclaimer> Should anyone be interested, we'll be conducting a "BBQ 101" class at Cooking at the Cottage on Wed. August 1st. The cost is $55 and includes (what we hope will be) a great meal. We're also conducting a entry level grilling class next Wed...I think there are one or two spots left for that one.

A sincere thanks to the teams, organizers, and other volunteers who put on a great contest. I'm a judge, not a team member. I'd like to add a few comments regarding the extreme flavor 'profiles' that have become the rage. STOP IT! THE JUDGES DON'T LIKE IT!

Regarding the flavor of the product, most of us judges look for and hope for:
1. The flavor of meat - chicken, pork, or beef - we should be able to identify what we are eating!
2. The flavor of smoke - real smoke, not from a bottle! It's BBQ, not a pot roast.
3. A subtle flavor from the rub, sauce, or other seasonings. The seasonings should enhance the meat, not hide it. Don't smother the product in sauce - a light glaze is preferred and it should be heated to caramelize - no one likes 'raw' sauce.

Most of end up judging:
1. Some bizarre overwhelming flavor of fruit, spices, hot pepper, or whatever the team thinks will set them apart. 'Unique' isn't usually a good thing!
2. Chicken that looks like someone spent more time with a paintbrush and a bottle of sauce than they did tending the cooker. "Appearance" is more than beauty show makeup.
3. Dried out meat - if you take the bone out of the chicken thigh it usually ends up a tough chewy hunk of MacThigh.
4. Brisket that tastes like anything but a piece of properly smoked beef. What teams are doing to brisket borders on criminal. When we do get a properly cooked, lightly-seasoned slice of brisket it's celebration time and scores 9's.

If you want to succeed in the competition, get certified and judge a few contests. Listen to the other judges' comments and you'll quickly figure out what makes a 'wow' product. It's just simple BBQ - not extreme anything.

The judges are completely in charge on stopping fads and things they don't want to eat. I don't care to eat any of my food except brisket and even then I don't inject at home like I do at a comp. When the judges start marking down for super sweet ill stop turning it in. I'm not going to be a trend setter and just hope all the other teams boycott it with me. My chicken is very sweet. My close friend tasted what I turned in saturday and used the word discusting. I wouldn't have gone that far but I certainly wouldn't eat a plate of it. It was a near perfect score with every judge giving it a 9 in taste. I would be crazy to change what I'm doing.