How to for Competitions

[marty catka]

My boat club is toying (planning on it really, my idea) with the idea of having a bbq competition or throwdown this July. I have the KCBS rules and the rules for the Florida BBQ competitions. We are considering doing just ribs and chicken or another 2 meat combo, or possibly going whole hog and doing all 4 categories. We do a chili cookoff in May using the real chili cook off rules and would like to do it right for the bbq comp.

We are considering limiting the number of teams this first year as we want to have a baseline for organizing the event in the future. Any tips and pointers I/we should be aware of?

 

[dirt guy]

If you're wanting to do it right--and in July, you need to contact KCBS asap. They will have all the literature for you, send people down to conduct a school for your judges, and can fill the gaps for things you don't know or haven't thought of.

Limiting entries might be a good idea--not sure about that one. It would depend on your resources. If you don't think it will be an annual event, maybe you should not sanction and keep it informal this time. There should be some resource people around your area that could assist you in laying the ground work for a great time.

If you think it will be an annual event, I'd suggest doing it through a sanctioning organization to ensure consistency in years to come.

 

[fatback joe]

I think the ribs & chicken is a good idea as they would work well with a quick one day event for the first go around and then build on it from there.

If you were going to do all four, may as well work with KCBS to get sanctioned.

On edit: what Dirtguy said.

 

[mballi3011]

It sounds to me like that dirt guy and fatback has given you some good info after all they compete I believe. It mite be a good idea to keep it small and if you are going to only have one day then chicken and ribs is good for they can be smoked in one day.

 

[bbq engineer]

Dirt guy nailed it...