By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com
Slap Yo' Daddy BBQ Tent
This last weekend the show to beat all shows was here in Central Arkansas. I write of the Smoke on the Water USA Barbecue Championship. While it may not have the number of contestants you see in some competitions it does have the largest prize pool with over $100,000 in prizes. The Grand Champion sees $20,000 of that as well! The website for Smoke on the Water USA gives this description:
“From humble beginnings in 2001 with a $5,000 purse, to the richest contest in the world today, Smoke on the Water currently offers over $400,000 in prize money with events in Arkansas – North Little Rock, Hot Springs and Springdale, at Isle of Capri Casino in Lula, Mississippi, plus major NASCAR speedways at Talladega, Daytona, Michigan and Phoenix.”
Jack's Old South BBQ Team
My wife and I traveled down to the competition on Saturday at Noon and paid the ($5) fee to gain entry. They gave us nice yellow bracelets (as shown in some of the photos) and we went about looking around. While most of the competitors were in a separate section, you could see quite a few in the area accessible to the public. I ran across Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ at the very front. If you haven’t seen the show yet, you should search your cable or satellite TV for BBQ Pitmasters on TLC. It’s a show about BBQ Competitions and follows a set of competitors around the Country. Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ is one of those competitors and we also saw Myron from Jack’s Old South BBQ at the event. Cool Smoke, the Reserve Grand Champion winner this year, is on the show also.
I had planned on entering the competition and have been practicing my BBQ recipes for a few months now. Being on a strict diet has made this all the more challenging given I have only been able to eat one or two bites of what I cook. That’s ok though as I have plenty of friends willing to partake of what I have left over. I decided to enter this year on my wife’s cousin’s team but found out that they were not entering (3) days after the entry deadline passed. I now have the opportunity to really focus on my recipes and get my timing down for next year though as I plan to be present as a competitor. In reality I was rushing into it this year and am a bit relieved to have a full year ahead of me to plan for the event.
This competition falls under the Kansas City BBQ Society’s pervue and therefore follows their rules. You pay $50 to join the KCBS and are required to do so if you want to compete in their circuit. They describe themselves as so:
THE KANSAS CITY BARBEQUE SOCIETY (KCBS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and enjoying barbeque, is the world’s largest organization of barbeque and grilling enthusiasts with over 10,000 members worldwide.
KCBS
They sanction over 300 competition around the Country and you can find them handling an event just about every weekend. I looked and there is a competition to be found at every state that surrounds Arkansas over the next few months. If you were so inclined you could drive to and enter every competition around the area and not run out of things to do all Summer long. You may run out of energy though as these things require a ton of work!
I have the rules for the Smoke on the Water USA Barbecue Championship and they are right-on as far as competitions go. You provide your own meat but must keep it packed (non-seasoned) until Friday when it is inspected. Once the meat is inspected you then can get down to business and prepare the meat for turn-in on Saturday morning. This doesn’t give you a lot of time and prevents some techniques from being used given the lack of time. You start meat turn-in at around Noon on Saturday and have a couple of hours over that time to turn-in Chicken, Pork Shoulder, Ribs, and Brisket. If you have ever done BBQ you know that each of these items takes a different amount of time and technique to get perfect; hence, the challenge to winning one of these competitions. When you turn your food in it is done blindly (non-marked) except by number so that judges can’t be swayed by who is doing the cooking. You are allowed to use lettuce as garnish and cannot include anything else with the BBQ such as chunky sauces or vegetables.
BBQ competitions are subjective given the nature of the proverbial beast and since food is involved you can bet the outcome is different at every event. This means that you may be Grand Champion today but place 100th tomorrow. It all depends on the area of the Country you are in and the tastes of the particular judge you run across when you turn your food in. You are judged on presentation, tenderness, and taste. The presentation part is tricky as there isn’t much you are allowed to do with your box. Tenderness and taste is completely up to you though and is where most of the points are awarded.
The Turn In Area
Judges first pass the un-altered boxes around to give points based on presentation. Once all the presentation scores are recorded they then take a portion out of each box and proceed to give points on tenderness and taste. You have to provide (6) portions per box to allow the judges enough to try and as you can guess this means there are multiple judges to handle the hundreds of entries.
Organizing the Boxes
Judges are not allowed to discuss what they are eating during this whole process and can only talk about it when the scores are all complete. Some competitors will watch the turn-in line to see where the “top dogs” are doing their turn-ins and turn their entries in at different tables. This way they hope to avoid directly competing against certain people at judging time. Timing is critical during turn-in as you don’t want your food to be cold by the time it gets to the judges. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid though as the boxes have to be organized and taken to the judging area in the back. By the time this is all said and done the food is bound to be cooled.
Nice BBQ Rig
The whole competition is over fairly quickly given that you start cooking on Friday night and turn in your food on Saturday at Noon. The awards are announced at 5pm and then it’s turn-down time to pack up your items and go home. This particular competition carried a $500 entry fee which alloted you the chance to win and a 20′ x 20′ location to park your tent and/or RV.
Most people bring RVs to these events as you need a restroom, shower, and area to prepare your food. We saw some really amazing BBQ rigs at the show and I would love to own one. Of course I also realize that the rigs are owned by BBQ Restaurants and are not something you could most likely afford to own as a hobbyist. I’ve read that some of the rigs go for over $100,000! There were several smaller rigs though at the show and I saw everything from camping tents to rigs like the one pictured above.
Serial Griller
There was a lot of character present at the show with some funny team names such as “Serial Griller” and “Motley Que BBQ”. We ate some good BBQ while we were there and left after a couple of hours. In order to place in the overall category your scores are added up for Chicken, Brisket, Pork Shoulder, and Ribs. This means you don’t have to be the highest in any of the (4) categories but your total score must be higher than the next person to beat them.
At the end of the day the following were the top 20 in overall placement:
Grand Champion: Pellet Envy
Reserve Champion: Cool Smoke
Overall
1 Pellet Envy
2 Cool Smoke
3 TheSlabs.com
4 Rick’s Pit Stop
5 Big Creek BBQ
6 GoneHoggin.com
7 Smelly Butts BBQ
8 South Pork
9 Bareknuckles BBQ
10 Naaman’s Southern Expose
11 Habitual Smokers
12 Rubbin-it & Lovin-it BBQ
13 The Long Dawgs
14 KC Can Crew
15 Pig In! Pig Out!
16 High on the Hawg
17 Big T’z Q Cru
18 It Aint Prime
19 Redneck Grillers
20 Hog Tide Bar-B-Que
Congratulations to the winners and to everyone that entered this year. Entering these competitions is no small amount of work and every single team that entered deserves respect in my book. I’ll see you there next year, but hopefully as a competitor!
The complete list of winners can be found here.
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