Get Your Grill On

Here are some more of my thoughts while judging the KCBS barbecue contest at the Anheuser-Busch grounds in Merrimack NH.

Scoring Challenges

When I first started judging, I was always the last judge at the table to submit my scorecard. I’m still among the slower judges, because I want to do the best job I can. There’s often a lot of money at stake for the competition teams and there’s always a lot of time and money invested, so I don’t take my responsibility as a judge lightly. The hardest part of judging is having already awarded an 8 and a 9, then tasting something that’s better than the 8 but not as good as the 9. Or tasting something better than that 9. You have to judge each entry in order, without going back and changing scores. Each entry should be judged on its own merit, not in relation to the other entries. I can’t say I don’t consider the scores I’ve already given out when judging the next piece of meat, but you’re not supposed to. To get into the rhythm of assigning scores with speed and confidence, I prepare with 10 minutes of rating the photos on www.hotornot.com. The same scoring dilemmas come up, but with practice, it gets easy.

Can you fry chicken at a BBQ contest?

The most interesting entry in the chicken category looked more like something from General Gau (who’s never been seen in the same room at the same time as General Tso) than something from a barbecue contest. All of the judges silently wondered whether the six thighs were smoked or fried or something in between. They had a light coating of egg wash and flour that enabled them to retain a crisp skin. The rub was unique, with lots of cinnamon, and the faint coating of sauce had a coconut flavor. Highly unusual, but evidently legal. As long as they used wood and smoke and not oil, this was fair game. The flavor was good and the tenderness of the meat was perfect. Usually an entry does well across the board or poorly across the board, with the three scores for appearance, taste and tenderness not necessarily identical but somewhat close. This was a rare example of a 5-7-9 score from me. I don’t think it had a chance to win, but I really enjoyed that chicken and give props to the team for submitting something creative and different.

Should the scores for each entry be similar?

That chicken entry and the unusual way I scored it reminded me of a discussion I overheard the very first time I judged. One of the judges was questioning the credibility of another judge who scored an entry a 9 for tenderness but a 7 for taste, or vice versa. His argument was that if one category deserved a similarly high score, so did the other. I disagree. Take the most perfect ribs (or chicken, or whatever) imaginable. They’d deserve a 9 for taste and a 9 for tenderness. What if those same ribs were pulled from the smoker 90 minutes earlier or 90 minutes later? The tenderness would be shot either way, but the taste would be the same and still deserve a 9. Take those imaginary perfectly cooked ribs, add an extra cup of black pepper and baste them with the fishy water from a can of tuna. The taste would be shot, but the tenderness would be the same and still deserve a 9. I know competition cooks who lament that they’ve cooked two briskets, one with great taste and iffy texture and the other with great texture but a little off on taste. Taste and tenderness are separate categories for a reason.

Times and Temps

For standard KCBS contests, there’s an assigned turn-in time for each meat: chicken is due at 12:00, pork ribs at 12:30, pork shoulder at 1:00 and brisket at 1:30. For each turn-in, the teams have a 10-minute window. Chicken, for example, can be as early as 11:55 or as late as 12:05. Any later and the entry is disqualified. The order that the judges will view and taste the meat is predetermined, so there’s no advantage in trying to turn in the box early to ensure that it will be tasted while the meat is still hot. On the contrary, it’s to the cook’s advantage to turn in the box as late as possible (assuming that it was relatively hot before turn-in) to minimize the time that it sits.

That waiting time between turn-in and judging not only cools the meat but also steams it, taking the bite out of any bark and making chicken skin downright rubbery. My former competition team would always shoot for a turn-in with 1 or 2 minutes to go. It led to some high drama as the clock wound down, but it was worth it. That’s why I found it odd that the first competitor to turn in a chicken entry did so at 11:56, four minutes ahead of schedule and a full 9 minutes earlier than he had to. I then kept track of the times we started tasting each meat (after all 6 entries were judged for appearance and then distributed to the judges’ mats): chicken 12:09; pork ribs 12:38; pork shoulder 1:13; beef brisket 1:41.

Pork shoulder takes the longest to serve, because forks are required to handle the many different pieces. Although we started tasting pork 13 minutes after the turn-in time, the table in front of us started 2 minutes after that. As you might guess, some of the pork was cold; som ribs were too. You’re not supposed to take rubbery chicken skin or cold meat into account when judging. Still, it’s hard not to subconsciously reward a team who manages to keep things warm (as one team’s pork was the last time I judged) and crisp (as one team’s chicken was the time before that).