A lot of people that cook at home get told, "Hey, that's pretty good! You should enter a contest!"
But contest cooking is different. I'm a member of the Kansas City BBQ Association (KCBS) and have competed for 35-ish years until I retired last fall, and have judged now for maybe 10(?) years and plan to go as long as I can. KCBS sanctions contests all over the world, and is the largest BBQ association out there. KCBS contest rules are consistent, judge training is consistent, judging criteria is consistent, and scores *should be* consistent. But...rules have changed and teams have found ways to use them to their advantage.
Low-and-slow was always the BBQ "way", but there was no requirement. The only requirement is the flavor profile preferred by KCBS. If brisket A tastes like brisket B, but was cooked at a different time and temp, is that OK? Someone figured - "Hey, why should I take 6 hrs to cook ribs when I can do it in 3?" So they came up with a cooking profile that allowed them to cut their cook time in half. That worked its way around to pork butt and brisket. Chicken, the 4th meat category, has never taken very long to cook anyway so that's not been a big deal.
Now you'll see drum smokers as the majority of cookers. They'll run around 325 or hotter, and tend to roast rather than slow cook. A rule change in pork butt has made a big difference in that category, and the hot/fast method has made a big difference in brisket.
Brisket cooked hot and fast tends to taste and look like roast beef and not the brisket you're used to seeing at your local bbq joint or at home. There's very little, if any, bark. And the briskets that are typically used by the top teams are Wagyu. So, rather than take a cheaper brisket, cook it low and slow to turn it tender and give it a nice bark, you can get a $200 brisket, cook it hot and fast, and end up with something that's buttery tender. Is that better than the old-timers? It's different, that's for sure. It does make for a delicious brisket slice for judging, but is it really the same thing as "bbq"? That's something that's worthy of discussion over a beer or three and there really isn't a right or wrong answer. There are a lot of new teams out there, and this is the only style of cooking they know.
Pork butt in KCBS competitions is something I really need to get in touch with upper management about. I don't like the current rule interpretations, it's almost cheating. I don't have my old rule books laying around in easy reach, so I'll have to paraphrase. Anyone that cooks BBQ knows what a pork butt is. Inside that big chunk of meat are several discrete muscles. One makes for good pulled pork, one will pull apart into "tubes", and another one is called the "money muscle" and is typically sliced into medallions. The MM is considered the delicacy. It's also very hard to cook it just right for slicing. If it's overdone by even a few minutes it will fall apart if you try to slice it. The rules used to say that the butt had to be cooked as a single piece until it reached 165 and then it could be separated. Teams would cut off the money muscle and set it aside while they cooked the rest of the butt to a higher temp for easy pulling. Somewhere over the years the verbiage changed and the rules, or interpretation, now allows for only the money muscle to be cooked. So teams have started doing that. Instead of cooking a butt, they just cook the money muscle and instead of taking 12 hrs or more, they can get that piece done in almost no time at all. Again, is that the spirit of BBQ?
Contest cooking used to be an extension of backyard cooking, but it's turned into a business and a cooking style of its own.
