Do you love barbeque? Do you enjoy going to BBQ
competitions? Have you ever wondered how BBQ teams score big with a Grand
Championship and prize money? You might have the “Right Stuff” to become a
Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) Certified Barbeque Judge. KCBS-sanctioned
BBQ teams across the country (and the world) put their expertly smoked meats to
the test to prove that their BBQ is the best. A tent full of certified judges
are the jury and score per current KCBS rules and regulations.
Carolyn and Gary Wells and Rick Welch founded KCBS in
1986. Kansas City competition BBQ was just starting with only three contests in
the metro area. The first KCBS sanctioned event was in 1987 in Oak Grove, which
included making rules and regulations, writing a computerized tabulation
program, and establishing judging procedures. In 1995, Ardie Davis and Ed Roith
established a Judge’s Certification program, now known as Certified Barbeque
Judge (CBJ).
Here are KCBS Stats:
- Over 20,000
members
- Sanctions over
450 contests a year across the U.S.A., Canada, Caribbean, and Europe
- Certified more
than 26,000 judges
- Combined prize
purse of over $4,000,000 per year
- Considered the
gold standard in the competition barbeque world
- Largest
organization of cooking contests in the world
If you are lucky, KCBS Contest Rep and Master CBJ,
Kelly MacIntosh will be your class instructor and moderator. He knows barbeque
inside and out. He is also a great speaker and storyteller. The class starts
with an introduction of what KCBS is and what it means to be a CBJ. The cooking
teams depend on the skills you learn in this class as they cook to the rules
and standards of KCBS. The teams layout hundreds of dollars for meat and
supplies and spend long days with no sleep to be at these competitions. It’s
serious business!
As with any organization, there is a code of conduct
that needs to be maintained during an event. This applies to any participant
whether you are a judge, table captain, contest official, contestant, or a KCBS
official. KCBS is an anti-discrimination and anti-harassment organization with
rules just like you would have at your workplace. Breaking these rules can be grounds
for expulsion.
When judging, it is much different than when you are
eating at a restaurant where you eat what you like and taste what you perceive
as really good barbeque. Once you attend BBQ competitions and start to judge,
your mind set will change not only when judging, but when you eat at
restaurants too. You’ll learn what to look for in great barbeque from
presentation, taste, and texture.
Another misnomer is interchanging barbeque and
grilling. This is how the U.S. Government defines barbeque: “Barbeque meats, such as product labeled
‘Beef Barbeque’ or ‘Barbequed Pork’ shall be cooked by the direct action of dry
heat resulting from the burning of hard wood or the hot coals therefrom for a
sufficient period to assume the usual characteristics of a barbequed article,
which include the formation of a brown crust on the surface and the rendering
of surface fat. The product may be basted with a sauce during the cooking
process. The weight of barbequed meat shall not exceed 70% of the weight of the
fresh uncooked meat.” (The Code of
Federal Regulations, Title 9, Chapter III, Part 319, Subpart C, Section 319.80,
revised 1/1/1985, issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety
and Inspection Service) When you are out in the backyard making hot dogs,
hamburgers, and steaks, you’re likely grilling not barbequing. Barbeque is all
about low and slow!
KCBS Basic Four Categories are chicken, pork ribs,
pork shoulder, and beef brisket. Here’s a quick meat anatomy lesson on where
these cuts of meat are from.
- Chicken is
defined as chicken, Cornish game hen, and kosher chicken. It can be prepared
whole, half, or in parts. Most cooks use thighs and every team has their own
technique to get the meat juicy and the skin just right.
- Pork ribs are
spare ribs, St. Louis style rib, and loin rib (also known as baby back ribs).
Most cooks use St. Louis style ribs due to their uniform shape for a better
presentation in the box. A misnomer is fall-off-the-bone tender. This actually
means that the pork is overcooked, but the public loves a fall-off-the-bone
rib. For KCBS, a clean bite can be taken from the rib without the rest of the
meat coming off while still having a moist texture and good flavor.
- Pork shoulder is
Boston butt, Boston roast, picnic shoulder, or whole shoulder, weighing a
minimum of four pounds. This is a meat that tends to get overcooked. The
texture must be tender and not mushy. It can be turned in sliced, pulled, or
chopped. Look for the money muscle!
- Save the best for
last! Beef brisket is the underside chest muscle of beef cattle. The whole
brisket, point, and flat can be used. Corned beef is not allowed. Looking for a
smoke ring is not important as it can be artificially produced.
KCBS Scoring System is based on three criteria:
appearance, taste, and tenderness. Scores are 9 to 2:
- 9-Excellent
- 8-Very Good
- 7-Above Average
- 6-Average
- 5-Below Average
- 4-Poor
- 3-Bad
- 2-Inedible
A score
of “1” can only be issued if something is wrong, i.e., pooling of sauce,
unapproved garnish, not enough samples in the box for the judges, etc. You’ll
learn about these in the class.
- Appearance is
scored when the table captain presents it to the judges. The entries are scored
from the visual presentation and not to be compared to other competitors’ entries.
Each entry is judged on its own merit.
- Taste is
something that is hard to teach but you learn more as you judge. The sample should
have a balance of flavors – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
- Tenderness is
based on how perfectly cooked the meat is. Meat should be moist, not dry;
tender, not tough or mushy.
Judging tables require six judges per table plus one
table captain. The scoring calculation is ultimately done by computer, but
Appearance, Taste, and Tenderness each have different weights (Taste is
weighted the highest, followed by Tenderness, and then Appearance). The lowest
score for each entry for that table is thrown out. Only five judges’ scores
will determine the final result of any entry.
Some important rules to avoid receiving a “1” from the
judges:
- Rule 9 – Meat
cannot be sculptured (made into a discernable shape or rosettes), branded, or
presented in a way to make it identifiable.
- Rule 12 – Garnish
is optional. It is limited to chopped, sliced, shredded, or whole leaves of
fresh GREEN lettuce, curly
green kale, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, and/or cilantro.
- Rule 13 – Sauce
is optional. It needs to be applied directly to the meat and not pooled or
puddled in the container.
- Rule 15 – The
container cannot be marked in any way to make the container unique or
identifiable.
- Rule 16 – Each
contestant must submit at least six portions of meat in an approved container.
After the lecture part of class is over, it is time to
start the mock-judging. It’s time to chow! Using the information given during
the lecture, the newly trained judges put their eyes, noses, and mouths to the
test. A team of seasoned barbeque competitors made 72 boxes, compared to a
normal competition day of just 4 boxes from each team. Two different
mock-entries were turned in for each category. Normally, it will be up to six
entries per judging table. The cooks either had to make it as perfect as they
could or flub it up by breaking one of the rules above. Plus, they had to make
it as consistent as possible while working with many different meats – more
than one chicken, more than one piece of brisket, more than one slab of ribs,
and more than one pork shoulder. Some entries had pooled sauce or not enough
samples. It is truly amazing how it all worked. That’s the sign of a good
catering team to feed the masses.
If you think you have what it takes to be a CBJ, check
out KCBS’s website to see when the next class is coming to your area.
Class Schedule
