Sunday, May 22, 2011

Minnesota In May

Paul and I judged our first BBQ contest yesterday.

We arrived in Faribault early in the morning to check in at Minnesota in May,


an annual contest run by the Minnesota Barbeque Society


and sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society



for which we are newly certified judges.

It was an interesting day. We experienced a very professionally organized event. The judging is blind and conducted in an honest and carefully monitored fashion. No talking is allowed during the judging process. Entries are turned in at 30 minute intervals and each entry is judged on appearance, taste and tenderness.

The first entries we tasted were turkey breast, provided to contestants by Jennie-O. I am going to be experimenting with this in the smoker as soon as possible.

We then moved on to the four meats sanctioned by KCBS.

The first turn-in is always chicken.


Second is ribs.


Third is pork.


And fourth is brisket.


Here is a picture of me at work. I found it this morning on the contest website!


As first time judges, we were well mentored and I feel so much more confident about the task. Next time I have to drink more water during the event. Although we only take two bites of each sample, that was much more salt than I normally consume in one day! Our next judging event is in three weeks. At this contest, we work both Friday and Saturday.


We both came away from this contest knowing our nephews, with whom we have experienced contests from the cooks' perspective, are top competitors.

We have a busy week ahead. I have auditions for the children's chorus for the summer show and we host our dinner group next weekend. I'll keep you posted.

5 comments:

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

Oh cool! Did you and Paul compare notes? Big differences in what you preferred at all?

This post makes me crave Kevin & Chad's bbq!

Marlys said...

Curious to know if your choices were winners? Food looks so good, but I, too, miss C & K's BBQ! You are busy beavers!

Unknown said...

Marlys,
We don't know if any of our choices were winners as judges don't have any way of knowing which teams' entries they judged. I don't even know the scores given by the guys who sat next to me. It is truly "blind" judging. We turn our score slips in after each category and they are entered into the computer. However, we did have some discussion at our tables after we finished each category. That helped us to learn if we were on the right track in our scoring.

Abby said...

How fun! Looks amazing. I kind of like the concept that the competition provided the same chickens to all competitors. It just seems more fair in judging the product purely on the rub, spices, cooking/smoking - and not on the quality of the meat.

Marlys said...

Thanks for explaining the judging! I look forward to visiting with you in person about it!