A barbecue adventure, the saga unfolds.

Breakdown...

Well, next time I'm procuring the tri tip. A couple were of good quality and tender, and the other two less so, plus a greater portion was more rare than I wanted and hence tougher as well, due to the thawing issue. I mean, overall I would rate success, but definitely not my best work. I would say I did a good salvage effort.

There were also pork and chicken sausages, but those are no brainers.
 
asicer said:
I dunno, my grade school classmates used to claim that sausages have brain meat.
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And they likely have. The pork sausages went quickly. The chicken ones were hardly touched.

When I was a GI stationed in cold war Germany (just before the wall came down) I was sent to live with a German farm family as a cultural exchange program. In other words, a free GI who will work your fields in exchange for room and board. Dinner was wurst and veggies. Boiled wurst and veggies. Boiled huge wurst that was cut in to thin slices and you could pretty much identify the specific organ that the pig and/or cow donor gave to it. I think the most mystifying was either pancreas or brains. I never thought to ask, alcohol was involved.

I think that's why Germans drink so much.
 
Matthew said:
No worries there about the chicken sausage.
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Yep, just mechanically debone leftovers after the main meat cuts are removed. Efficient really, and the same process is used with most processed meats, better to produce cheap food from the scraps than throw it away, but I sill prefer to eat actual cuts of meat.
 
Probably not going to be the real thing, like when Sac cooks it, but it’s going to come close.

Burnt Finger BBQ makes a pretty good seasoning I like on burgers and steaks, and tri tips.

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That looks really good! I'm fittin' to do the same here in a bit. Tri tip and drumsticks.
 
Matthew said:
It worked. A nice med rare on most parts and med on others.

That wine came from Auburn, in the foothills.

Pico just seems a perfect side for tri tip.

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I had... the most incredible time of my life this morning, beginning at roughly zero six thirty am in Auburn, Ca....

It's twenty minutes away from me.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I had... the most incredible time of my life this morning, beginning at roughly zero six thirty am in Auburn, Ca....

It's twenty minutes away from me.
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We hit a handful of wineries there when we visited our daughter when she was living there for a little while on a work project.

Edit:

Pretty sure it was the PaZa winery where I chatted with the owner. He’s from somewhere in OK and is a pilot. So he’s cool.
 
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Matthew said:
We hit a handful of wineries there when we visited our daughter when she was living there for a little while on a work project.
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Wish I had a heads up. I could have met you guys for a glass of wine or beer.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Wish I had a heads up. I could have met you guys for a glass of wine or beer.
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That was a few years ago. She lived in Roseville. Her jobsite was somewhere just outside of Yuba City. She’s a field engineer and goes where the job sends her. That Yuba City job was to replace/upgrade the stacks at gas generator power plants, those “peaker” stations that dot the countryside. She wasn’t there very long. We went out for a quick visit and I was able to sign up and judge the Lodi BBQ contest.

Beautiful countryside out there. We spent most of a day in Big Trees park, that was way cool.
 
A bit off topic, so feel free to ignore, but... Does anyone have a homemade beef jerky marinade recipe they like and would share? Asking here because I'm pretty convinced that bbq and halfway related meat products seem to be pilot oriented, and because people on this forum seem pretty serious about whatever they're interested in.
 
Albany Tom said:
A bit off topic, so feel free to ignore, but... Does anyone have a homemade beef jerky marinade recipe they like and would share? Asking here because I'm pretty convinced that bbq and halfway related meat products seem to be pilot oriented, and because people on this forum seem pretty serious about whatever they're interested in.
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A drinking buddy of mine who was in to jerky just used Teriyaki sauce as a marinade. His jerky was always really good.
 
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I came home to find skewed meat and veggies with a note saying cook however you like. Iron Chef Sac brushed them with Greek salad dressing and threw them on the grill.
 
Well this Saturday's bbq session is ribs again. I set aside a personal 1.70 lb tri tip and some chicken to opt for a 4 lb baby back rib. I applied some Schilling "Beef Barbacoa" slow cooker seasoning as a dry rub. Things are actually smelling pretty good right now. I'm using my standard single slab rig, e.g. Weber with coal holders and also some hickory chunks.
 
My local place already has Honeysuckle turkeys for 88¢/lb. I’m thinking of getting two: one for Thanksgiving and one for the smoker.
 
Matthew said:
I’m checked in now to judge at the Royal.
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Keep us updated! I'll be following this closely.

I've got an entry in on another virtual BBQ contest, this one's theme was simply 'poultry', with no further guidelines. It didn't do well in the popular vote, waiting now for the announcement of a secondary prize awarded by a 3-judge panel.

Diwali feast! Tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices and smoked over cherry wood. Homemade yellow lentil dal, and crispy green beans with garlic. Served with basmati rice, garlic naan, and mint chutney.
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GaryM said:
Keep us updated! I'll be following this closely.

I've got an entry in on another virtual BBQ contest, this one's theme was simply 'poultry', with no further guidelines. It didn't do well in the popular vote, waiting now for the announcement of a secondary prize awarded by a 3-judge panel.

Diwali feast! Tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices and smoked over cherry wood. Homemade yellow lentil dal, and crispy green beans with garlic. Served with basmati rice, garlic naan, and mint chutney.
View attachment 134844
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432 judges today (72 tables of 6).

There will be the 4 meats plus 2 ancillaries, turkey and sausage. Usually not many teams do the ancillary categories so I may not get any of those.
 
GaryM said:
Keep us updated! I'll be following this closely.

I've got an entry in on another virtual BBQ contest, this one's theme was simply 'poultry', with no further guidelines. It didn't do well in the popular vote, waiting now for the announcement of a secondary prize awarded by a 3-judge panel.

Diwali feast! Tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices and smoked over cherry wood. Homemade yellow lentil dal, and crispy green beans with garlic. Served with basmati rice, garlic naan, and mint chutney.
View attachment 134844
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Ok, got home to a cold Modelo and a recliner.

I think you’re a KCBS judge(?), you really need to judge the Royal sometime. I was the only local at my table. A judge from Saskatchewan, another from somewhere in TN, another from Lincoln NE, the others from wherever.

We ended up judging 6 categories, including the two ancillaries. The biggest problem the teams had was the heavy, cold rain that kept killing their fires. Teams had to really stoke the smokers to keep the heat and you could taste the off flavors from the raw charcoal they dumped in.

The turkey entries were OK. One was a roll - turkey rolled up in a spiral around bacon and cheese. Some were slices. The one I really liked was tenderloin cut into chunks about the size of small meatballs and glazed like the chicken usually is. That was outstanding.

Chicken was a mixed bag. One entry was drumsticks. I really wanted to like that one. It looked great and was nicely cooked, but it had a bad smoke flavor and the dry rub was way too peppery for poultry. Two entries were wings, the others were thighs.

Ribs were another problem. They all looked good. Most were a little overdone, one was undercooked. The one rib that was cooked just right had a bad smoke flavor.

Pork was more consistent. But I did have one that was really burned on one part of the bark and another entry that was mushy.

Brisket was rough. I had one entry that I gave a perfect score. Others were very tough or very mushy. All of them looked really good, though.

Finally sausage. This contest changed their rules this year and several entries were DQed. I got one that had jalapeño and cheddar ground in. The other judges liked it, and I wanted to, but it also had a bad smoke flavor. One sausage was chorizo. I thought it was great but judges from other parts of the country that don’t do chorizo didn’t like it at all.

Overall experience: great. It’s a cool venue and something with that many people shouldn’t go as smoothly as it did.
 
Matthew said:
I think you’re a KCBS judge(?), you really need to judge the Royal sometime. I was the only local at my table. A judge from Saskatchewan, another from somewhere in TN, another from Lincoln NE, the others from wherever.
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I am a KCBS judge, though my judging experience is a whopping two days. I think we had 6 judging tables; hard to imagine a contest so large it required 72 tables.
We did have some great entries; we were told the previous year's Team of the Year was there, plus two more that were also at the top of the points chase for the current year. Of course, I have no idea which team's entries were judged by my table, but I tasted some spectacular BBQ.

Now that I'm in northern Idaho, there doesn't seem to be any KCBS activity within a day's drive. But a longer road trip for the right contest would be a hoot.
 
GaryM said:
I am a KCBS judge, though my judging experience is a whopping two days. I think we had 6 judging tables; hard to imagine a contest so large it required 72 tables.
We did have some great entries; we were told the previous year's Team of the Year was there, plus two more that were also at the top of the points chase for the current year. Of course, I have no idea which team's entries were judged by my table, but I tasted some spectacular BBQ.

Now that I'm in northern Idaho, there doesn't seem to be any KCBS activity within a day's drive. But a longer road trip for the right contest would be a hoot.
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There were a lot of judges at the Royal that were first timers, including one at my table. Two of us were Masters, 2 were experienced but not Masters, one maybe had 2-3 contests and another was judging for the first time. When they need nearly 500 judges they don’t worry too much about experience.

Even though this contest is pretty much in my backyard, this was the first time I’ve done it. I think it’s going to be a regular event for me now.
 
One of the teams, a KC area BBQ joint, posted a picture of their dessert entry at the Royal Invitational contest on Sat (I judged the Open on Sunday).

This is what 4th place looked like:


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More teams are starting to post their pix. This is 25th place pork at the Invitational, about 150 teams.

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This is typically what chicken looks like.

One thing that weighs heavily in scoring, “Is the skin bite-through?”

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Brisket from the top teams is almost always a Wagyu. The “hot and fast” cooking method gives it that dark, roast beef, color. It’s usually dipped in the juice before boxing. (22nd out of 450)

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Is the judging weighted to include presentation or is only on taste? (I ask because the best tasting food I’ve ever eaten consistently came with zero effort on presentation, it was so strong on its taste merit alone that they didn’t have the time to waste to “plate” it and keep up with demand). Granted that is at a few stake houses that don’t take reservations, but have lines of people every day they are open 20 minutes before they open and have most people driving over an hour to get to them. The branding iron in thompson iowa is one of them, now “nobody goes there because they are always too busy” but their prime rib is out of this world.
 
Flatiowa said:
Is the judging weighted to include presentation or is only on taste? (I ask because the best tasting food I’ve ever eaten consistently came with zero effort on presentation, it was so strong on its taste merit alone that they didn’t have the time to waste to “plate” it and keep up with demand). Granted that is at a few stake houses that don’t take reservations, but have lines of people every day they are open 20 minutes before they open and have most people driving over an hour to get to them. The branding iron in thompson iowa is one of them, now “nobody goes there because they are always too busy” but their prime rib is out of this world.
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It’s scored on 3 things:

Appearance (NOT presentation, it’s appearance of the meat itself. Ancillary categories like dessert are pretty much wide open to interpretation) weighted at 0.56

Taste - the flavor profile weighted at 2.2972

Tenderness - how well is it cooked weighted at 1.1428

Scores are 2 (inedible- like undercooked chicken), then 5-9. Whole numbers, round up to give the team the benefit of the doubt. 6 judges, drop the lowest score. So a 9/9/9 from a judge is 36 points, 36x5 is 180. 180 is a perfect score. The dropped score is used as a tiebreaker.

A 1 is given for a DQ. The only way to get a 0 is if you don’t turn something in.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I notice that a central theme is heavy on the glazes. Is that the general rule for prize winning entries?
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The KC “style” is a sauced rib, with a sauce that’s been set. The ribs have been “candied”. It’s not a rule, but whenever something wins then everyone else copies it. If you want to get close to that look, use Blues Hog and add honey. It’s super sweet. Then put the ribs back on for another 20 min or so.

Chicken is an interesting entry. I’m old school, I’ve competed since the late ‘80s and KCBS has been around since the mid-‘80s so I’ve seen a lot of evolution in the contest entries. Chicken thighs were normal then as now, but dunking them in sauce is something that started about 10 years ago. You’ll never see that in a restaurant, it’s too much effort. It used to be a dry rub and then either some sauce painted on it or apple juice sprayed on it for a shine. It also used to be the skin wasn’t judged for tenderness, now it “shall”, so there’s a lot of work done to make that skin bite through instead of dry or rubbery. Usually cooks will peel off the skin, scrape off the fat, trim the knuckles off the thigh bone, then wrap the thigh back up. Then put it in a pan of butter and smoke it. Nobody likes cooking contest chicken, it’s way too labor intensive. But if you figure it out and win, that’s money. In one contest my team used to do we got 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in chicken in 3 consecutive years. Then everyone else went to the sauce dunking style and we dropped way down in our scores. The saying, “you eat with your eyes first”, is real. And what looks good, really good, might gain you an extra point in taste or tenderness. This weekend I marked down some entries on taste but said to myself, “Man, I REALLY wanted to like that one.”

I have marked down for too much sauce. It’s hard to judge the meat on appearance when you can’t see it. Judges can fill out a comment card for the teams to explain their score.
 
Pretty cool! That scoring system, however, is more complicated than a scoring system I'm aware of to hire people into 6 figure IT jobs. Although 6 figures isn't what it used to be, and that bbq looks pretty good.
 
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