Pellet Fan
All Things Considered => General Discussion--Non food Related => Topic started by: jdmessner on May 06, 2019, 11:39:01 AM
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I could use some advice. A friend of mine moved to Texas a couple of years ago, opened a BBQ place and was doing quite well. He came back to the area a few weeks ago. Another guy I know has a port-a-pit and has a good local following for his BBQ. The three of us were talking and someone mentioned we should have a BBQ contest. Sounds simple enough, but I know there are a lot of details to cover and hoops to jump through to pull something like that off. I have absolutely no competition experience and I don’t think my friend from Texas does either. The other guy has competed, but it has been a few years.
I have talked with the health department in general terms about what it would take to pull something like this off. I do have a licensed kitchen that we can operate out of. It is my understanding that all the meat would need to be purchased together and refrigerated on site. All prep and cooking would need to take place on site the day of the event.
If we try anything like this my hope would be to keep it fairly simple and more of a friendly “backyard†competition. I have no idea what would be appropriate for prizes. If we do it, I would like it to be a fundraiser for our free community dinners.
As I see it now (always subject to change) the plan would be to make it novice BBQer friendly and also invite more experienced folks. I would like to have certified judges do the evaluating. Probably sometime toward the fall would be the best time for this to happen. It could be promoted during our summer festival coming up in July (THE Marcellus Bluegill Frolic)! We are a very small rural community, with some large pork producers in the area. BBQ and bragging rights are big, so it might work.
I guess the question at this point is whether or not an event like this is doable or if I would be better off ridding myself of this crazy notion and running away from it as fast as I can without looking back!
Any input, advice, or suggestions would be more than welcome!
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I have been involved with setting up an event before. The first thing I would do is decide if you want to mimic a type of event. For example do you want it to be like a KCBS event? If you do I would suggest attending that type of event and speaking with the judges and cooks.
The event I was involved in was a preseason event. The cooks loved it as it gave them a chance to pick the minds of the judges.
A few things to consider:
1. Date and location of event
2. Is this a sanctioned event?
3. Will this event be tied to a city/county event? (Need city/county support)
4. Police/Fire/EMS support
5. You will need Water, Sewage (bathrooms), ICE
6. Event scoring
7. Meat that will be cooked. Will the cooks provide their own meat?
8. Awards (If any)
9. Health Department rules.
10. Will you allow the teams to sell to public?
These are just some of the few things off the top of my head.
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I have been to numerous competitions as a cook, judge, and even trained and ran the judging at a backyard KCBS style event several years ago for a four meat, overnight comp. I have also organized and run one day 3 meat "backyard" events. At none of those events did we need a licensed kitchen and teams purchased and brought their own meats. I have never judged or competed at any event where the meat was provided. Teams purchased their own meats and had those meats inspected on site before the cooking began. Inspection included checking the temps of the meats (with one of those temp guns) and making sure meat was packaged and not pre-seasoned or pre-marinated.
If you intend to sell bbq to the general public, then yes, you need the licensed kitchen and health permits and have everything being sold to come out of that kitchen and be to code. We ran a bbq concession for a charity at the BBQ Comp at the Aurtry Museum in, I think, 2006 and made $4000 after expenses, so it can be a good way to raise money since the smells from the teams make folks hungry. The competitors need to be told their meats can't be sold to the GP.
It sounds like you are doing a one day event. So you need to limit the meats cooked to things that can be done in a few hours. Our 3 meat contest were chicken, pork ribs and tri-tip because all had fairly narrow cook windows. Maybe since you have a lot of pork in the area, you replace tri-tip with sausage.
There are A LOT of details, A LOT of planning, and the judging has to be run by someone who knows what they are doing. You need a judging system in place which can be clearly explained to both cooks and judges. KCBS style judging is not practical unless you have access to the KCBS weighted computer scoring program. So you have to come up with your own -- judging categories (appearance, taste, tenderness, not all of these, something else?), scoring, and descriptions.
Where will this be held? Will there be a charge? Can charcoal be used in the area? How will you dispose of live coals afterwards? Do you have access to water and restrooms at the site? Electricity? How is grey water to be handled? What are the fees for using the site and providing amenities and will these be passed on to competitors? Will you have an "Anything Butt" and/or dessert category?
Are you giving prizes, trophies, ribbons -- out how far -- top 3, top 5? Are you having a Grand Champ and Reserve Grand Champ or just winners in the categories? Are prizes going to be donated or come from sponsors or come out of the competitors fees? At our true backyard event, I baked all the prizes but we had no fees to enter because it was held as part of a block party. Also you need a timeline established for when cooks show up to set up, when the cooks meeting is held, when the judges meeting is held, when your turn ins are and when awards are announced.
If I have not depressed or discouraged you, please feel free to PM me and I will share as much info as possible. Setting them up is a ton of work, but it can be a fun day when all is said and done.
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Yes I have. PM if I can ever help with questions.
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Thank you Triplebq, Kristin, and Bentley for your support and sharing your insight as I try to sort out the pros and cons of such a venture. I know enough about these kinds of things to know I certainly don't know every thing I should know before getting involved! That's where your responses have really helped!
If you intend to sell bbq to the general public, then yes, you need the licensed kitchen and health permits and have everything being sold to come out of that kitchen and be to code.
I would like to sell to the general public. We do have the proper liscenses and I have meeting with the health department inspector in a few weeks. I am hoping to have things ready to present to him then.
It sounds like you are doing a one day event. So you need to limit the meats cooked to things that can be done in a few hours. Our 3 meat contest were chicken, pork ribs and tri-tip because all had fairly narrow cook windows. Maybe since you have a lot of pork in the area, you replace tri-tip with sausage.
Yes it would be a one day event The three meats with sausage are great ideas!
There are A LOT of details, A LOT of planning, and the judging has to be run by someone who knows what they are doing. You need a judging system in place which can be clearly explained to both cooks and judges. KCBS style judging is not practical unless you have access to the KCBS weighted computer scoring program. So you have to come up with your own -- judging categories (appearance, taste, tenderness, not all of these, something else?), scoring, and descriptions.
Judging is key. KCBS judging is not practical, but I would like to find experienced judges who would be willing to help judge and set up a scoring system that is workable for contestants and judges. I would like to keep it as objective as possible. I did just discover a group I will be contacting. It's called the Great Lakes BBQ Association. I am hoping they may be able to help with judging.
Where will this be held? Will there be a charge? Can charcoal be used in the area? How will you dispose of live coals afterwards? Do you have access to water and restrooms at the site? Electricity? How is grey water to be handled? What are the fees for using the site and providing amenities and will these be passed on to competitors? Will you have an "Anything Butt" and/or dessert category?
We have a good space for the event. There are public restrooms, we have village water and electricity. Coals would be OK, but disposal is something we would need to think about.
I've tried to think of the best way to organize the event. I'm thinking we would charge an entry fee that would help cover the overhead for the event and possibly prize money. Vendors would then pre-order the number of pounds of meat they would like to cook. We would give the meat to them at cost. In previous conversations with the health department I know they will insist on having all the meat purchased and stored together.
People attending the event would buy tickets. Each ticket would be good for a sample serving from a vendor. Vendors would be able to redeem their collected tickets for cash at the end of the day.
I don't know how the actual numbers will work out, but here is a hypothetical scenario: $50 entry fee - $25 for event expenses and $25 toward prize money. Meat is purchased by the pound at cost and distributed to vendors the day of the event. Tickets sell to the public for an average of $2 each (prices vary by quantity purchased) and vendors redeem their tickets for $1.50 each. To keep it simple I'm thinking contestants will just sell meat and one vendor to furnish all the sides and desserts.
Are you giving prizes, trophies, ribbons -- out how far -- top 3, top 5? Are you having a Grand Champ and Reserve Grand Champ or just winners in the categories? Are prizes going to be donated or come from sponsors or come out of the competitors fees? At our true backyard event, I baked all the prizes but we had no fees to enter because it was held as part of a block party. Also you need a timeline established for when cooks show up to set up, when the cooks meeting is held, when the judges meeting is held, when your turn ins are and when awards are announced.
Prizes are yet to be determined. I was thinking we could use a percentage of the entry fee to go toward prize money. I am sure we could get a few prizes or trophies donated. Probably have prizes for the top 3.
I am not sure about the timeline. Off hand I'm thinking we would have meat available 6 a.m. and start the event and judging around 3 or 4, annucement of winners at 5, go till 7.
If I have not depressed or discouraged you, please feel free to PM me and I will share as much info as possible. Setting them up is a ton of work, but it can be a fun day when all is said and done.
You have not depressed or discouraged, it is all stuff that needs to be thought through and taken into consideration. Thanks for being a sounding board. Still not sure if it is a go or not. I'll need to see what kind of local support we can get. Thanks again for your help, I will be sending out some PMs (hopefully not SOSs) as things evolve.
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jdmessner, I have judged events using scoring from KCBS, MBN, NC BBQ Society, and a few home grown scoring systems. The one thing I can pass along is no matter what judging system you use people/teams will not like it. Remember each judge likes different things and rates things differently. To me this is what makes getting a perfect score in a KCBS event so special. Getting judges at a table to agree that the entry they sampled was "perfect" is very rare. I have worked as a table captain for KCBS events for about 4 years now and have never had a table with a perfect score for an entry.
The last pre-season event I was a part of, we used the KCBS scoring system. Mostly because the teams where KCBS teams. I created the KCBS scoring system in Excel for us to use. All of the judges where active KCBS Master Judges so it made it easier from a judging standpoint.
Good luck and I'm sure you will have success!
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That is the problem with many KCBS judges, they are looking for "perfection" when it is not part of judging. They should be looking for excellent, which is part of the KCBS judging system!
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I am a bit confused -- do you have vendors or do you have competitors? Are you saying that a team competing has to vend? Can you just compete and not vend? When does your vending start? Are teams cooking and turning in and then, after turn ins, you are then vending to the public -- so you start vending at 4 pm or so? What is the public eating before then?
Based on my experience as a cook, there is no way I could be engaged in vending before my turn ins were complete.
What portion size does your $2 ticket buy -- 1 oz, 2 oz? Does the event supply the cups it is served in and forks to eat it with? If so, that all comes out of your 50 cents. If you don't provide, how do you guarantee the portion control by the team vending?
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That is the problem with many KCBS judges, they are looking for "perfection" when it is not part of judging. They should be looking for excellent, which is part of the KCBS judging system!
I don't believe anyone is looking for perfection as perfection isn't possible. Excellence in BBQ is what everyone strives for and the best of the best get a perfect score (180) which is very rare. That is why I put "perfect" with quotation marks.
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I am a bit confused -- do you have vendors or do you have competitors? Are you saying that a team competing has to vend? Can you just compete and not vend? When does your vending start? Are teams cooking and turning in and then, after turn ins, you are then vending to the public -- so you start vending at 4 pm or so? What is the public eating before then?
Based on my experience as a cook, there is no way I could be engaged in vending before my turn ins were complete.
What portion size does your $2 ticket buy -- 1 oz, 2 oz? Does the event supply the cups it is served in and forks to eat it with? If so, that all comes out of your 50 cents. If you don't provide, how do you guarantee the portion control by the team vending?
Sorry, I probably used the wrong terminology. I should have said competitors. The idea would be to have competitors also vend. If they wanted to just compete they could do so based on the ammount of meat they ordered. Having turn ins before opening to the public would be a good idea. Hopefully people would also want to vend in order to make some money. We can provide containers, and come up with consistant portions that everyone could follow. Hopefully supplies would all come out of the entry fee. The idea would be that the group would make a little money on each item sold and also from providing and the selling sides and desserts. The dollar figures I used were not based on any food cost, but more for an example. Most of this is my way of thinking out loud and bouncing around a few ideas. Nothing is cast in stone. I appriciate your pointing things that are unclear and or confusing. I do have to be careful because sometimes the things I say (or write) are not actually what I thought I said!
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Best of luck to you if you decide to go forward with it. Way more than I would want to put time into.
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And that is where we disagree, I think many are looking for just that, they don't know the difference!
I don't believe anyone is looking for perfection as perfection isn't possible.
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And that is where we disagree, I think many are looking for just that, they don't know the difference!
I don't believe anyone is looking for perfection as perfection isn't possible.
Yes we disagree on this.
Hey quick question, do you believe KCBS judge's scores are too high or too low? I have heard people say they believe the scores are too high. Just curious.
Thanks
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Have not judged since 2015, so been out of the game to long to know!
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I think having your "charity group" cooks/booth being the only ones to sell sides and desserts is a great idea. I would also have them control selling drinks as a lot of money can be made on drinks.
If you are going to have teams there that compete on a "big time" level, they may make their own sauces and rubs (I mean in commercial packaging), t-shirts, aprons, etc. and you may wish to let them sell those to the public. Some competitions charge for allowing this. You could do that or just allow it for free as a little extra to the teams and maybe an incentive to compete. Also sometimes gives folks a little extra something to browse when wandering around.
Are you allowing other types of vendors -- you know, the folks with all the little stuff that you see at street fairs (jewelry, kettle corn, etc) to vend?
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Here is a status update on the progress of the competition. It is still in the idea stage and I am not sure if we can pull it off, but for the time being I will keep doing my homework. Thanks in advance for being my sounding board.
Last week I met with the health inspector and he is on board with the overall plan. That’s one step closer!
I also talked with a guy who organized a similar type of competition at the county fair a number of years ago. He gave me a folder with all their forms, judging sheets and scoring criteria, along all their other guidelines. The bonus was they took a lot of very detailed notes describing what they did step by step, with a time line for literally everything that needed to be done. It went from several months out and continued right up to the day of the event. That looks to be very helpful and we will not need to invent the wheel.
We also kicked around some ideas to try and build interest leading up to the competition. One thought was to offer a series of 3 or 4 community classes or forums focused on BBQ and food related topics. They would probably be on a week night and fairly informal. It could also be condensed into one evening session with multiple topics. If we can get people to become involved ahead of time then the cook-off would be kind of the grand finally. It would be an opportunity for people to put into practice what they have learned.
We talked about doing a Basic BBQ 101 kind of class (more of a hands-on, how-to group). Another idea was: What are judges judging when they judge?. It would be a discussion geared toward people who have never entered a competition, but would be interested in learning what's involved. As I see it, it would focus on the different criteria various organizations use for their competitions. We could also use it as a way to introduce how judging will be done at our competition.
The inspector from the health department said he would be willing to do a session on food safety. We were thinking along the lines of: Everything you wanted to know about the health department, but were afraid to ask! He said it could be a good outreach opportunity for his department seen as less intimidating to the casual cook. People could also learn about the new “cottage laws†in our state. They allow people to make certain things at home and sell them at farmers markets and other public places.
Please feel free to list any forum topics that you think might be of interest. For now the plan is to keep plugging away until we reach a point where go/no go decision will need to be made. As of today we are a go! Thanks again for your input and help.
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several years ago I participated (twice) in a church ... just for fun competition. My only caution is to not make this a popularity contest, try to stick with the best BBQ wins. Me being a relative unknown with some solid Q really hurt to be beat by more recognizable teams. It was a downer to participate in the meetings and lead up to the comp and end up losing to more recognizable folks. A difficult ask to be sure but blind judging is the way to go.
DK
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several years ago I participated (twice) in a church ... just for fun competition. My only caution is to not make this a popularity contest, try to stick with the best BBQ wins. Me being a relative unknown with some solid Q really hurt to be beat by more recognizable teams. It was a downer to participate in the meetings and lead up to the comp and end up losing to more recognizable folks. A difficult ask to be sure but blind judging is the way to go.
DK
You are absolutely correct, judging is critical. I would like to have judges lined up early on. My plan is to find people who have some type of certification or have solid cooking experience that people in the community would recognize. I am looking forward to getting together with someone in the next week or two who I believe is KCBS certified and might be able to give sage advice and valuable input on how to proceed.
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I'm more a Chili man, when it comes to competition... and I can sympathize with the whole issue of getting beat by popularity thing. Not that I should have necessarily 'won', but the winning entry for the last 'Chili' cookoff thing I was involved int , was much more like a spicy chowder, than it was chili.
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do you believe KCBS judge's scores are too high or too low? I have heard people say they believe the scores are too high.
Many KCBS Judges feel the judging goes 7,8, or 9!
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Met with what's become our ad hoc committee. Looks like we have some tentative dates in mind. The event is still not for sure, but getting closer.
August 15 we are planning a pre-BBQ dinner. On the menu will be ribs cooked in various ways (pellet, stick, charcoal). My hope is some of the judges for the competition will be willing to help with the dinner and do some of the cooking. The cooks will plate their samples in turn-in boxes.
For those attending the dinner, the meal will consist of a turn-in box from each cook and a selection of sides. This will be an opportunity to see what a turn-in box should look like, and to sample different ways of cooking ribs. This will also give us a chance to talk about different ways of scoring and the criteria to be used for our competition. People attending the dinner will then be given score sheets so they will able to judge the judges! My hope is this will help level the playing field and alleviate some of the concerns that LSJ and DK brought up.
There will be an open forum panel discussion on the "How to's of BBQ". We will also invite the sanitarian from the health department to come that night and talk a bit about food safety.
August 24 BBQ Cook-off.
As it now stands:
*It will be open to a limited number of entrants (need to see how many spots will fit in the yard).
*Entrants will compete in the categories of chicken thighs and/or pork ribs.
*Entry fee will include one pre-BBQ dinner ticket (others could be purchased); and on the day of the event enough meat to prepare for turn-ins along with incidental supplies (clam shells, paper goods, etc.).
*Entrants will also have the option of purchasing additional ribs and chicken to prepare and cook the day of, if they would like to sell to the public and compete for the "People's Choice" award.
*Plaques or trophies will be given out as prizes. Still debating on cash prizes. It all depends on how much we want to charge for an entry fee.
*We will look for sponsors for each plaque given out. Sponsors will get their name on the plaque and recognition in local paper, and on poster/event banner on the day of the event.
It is still very much a work in progress, but it seems to be coming together.