The Jack Daniel’s BBQ World Invitational has ancillary categories in addition to the four main meats. Pitmaster Christie Vanover, who has both cooked and judged the Jack, shares why you should enter the sauce category along with her secrets for getting top scores.
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Why I took a break
It has been a couple of weeks since I’ve last been in touch with you.
Originally, during my last podcast, I said that I was going to be taking a break because I was going to Key West for the Key West Invitational, and then I was going to come back the following week and do a podcast all about that event.
Well, unfortunately, we had a turn of events and my dog had to be hospitalized and a week later she passed away.
So I took a break. I needed to be with my family. I needed to be with my other puppy. And just take time for myself.
And I actually want to start this podcast by reminding people that that’s okay. We get into the hustle and bustle, the fear of missing out, the importance of, you know, hitting our algorithms and numbers on social media. Sometimes we get afraid to stop because we are afraid if we stop posting on Instagram, it’s going to mess up our whole algorithm game, and then we’re going to stop getting views.
And you know what? That might happen.
I haven’t posted on Instagram for like two to three weeks. I’ve maybe done just a couple quick posts and my algorithms are probably going to go down. But it’s okay because what’s most important is our family, our loved ones, our friends.
And so despite everything that I do that I love for barbecue, they are always going to come first.
So I have taken a pause for the past couple of weeks. I’m glad that I did, I feel refreshed. I’m definitely missing my little puppy girl. But she’s in a better place now. And and yeah, I will always have her memory.
So today I’m not going to be talking about Key West, because like I said, I was not able to make the trip, but the girls team did fantastic.
The Grills Night Out Team and the Grills Just Wanna Have Fun Team really rocked it. They went fishing. They went deep sea diving and they ended up with fourth place overall. So I’m so proud of the ladies. I miss them, I definitely followed them all through Instagram to see their adventures
And I cannot wait until next year. I’m hoping to be back with the ladies to cook up on the beach.
Cookbook and spices update
In addition to all of that, I have also been super busy with a couple of Girls Can Grill projects. I’m excited to announce that this week I finally got my registered trademark, so Girls Can Grill is now a registered trademark.
If you’re looking to do that, it’s a pretty lengthy process. It took about, I think, 16 to 18 months for it to happen for me, but it’s finally official.
Also, I’m still working on my holiday grilling cookbook. It’s got 111 recipes, including appetizers, brunch, beverages, mains, sides, desserts, condiments and rubs all sorts of things to get you ready for the holidays.
Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, even a couple of Saint Patrick’s Day things in there. There are so many recipes that you can cook on your grill to have a really great holiday, so stay tuned for that.
That’s going to be coming out hopefully in just a few weeks.
I am also wrapping things up on my spices. They are almost there. I’m working on the labels and the bottling and all those logistics now, so I also hope to have those ready by October.
Thank you to all of those of you out there who have been patient, waiting for them to get back on the market, I’m excited to bring them back.
And if all of the timing goes perfectly, Jack Daniels has offered to sell both my cookbook and all three of my rubs in Lynchburg, Tennessee, at their hardware store during the World Championships of Barbecue. So that really puts a little fire under me to get everything in place and get it ready and rolling so I can bring that out to everybody in Lynchburg.
My plans at the Jack 2024
And speaking of Lynchburg, that’s what I’m going to talk about today. And actually, that’s what I’m going to talk about over the next few weeks for the BBQ Tips Podcast.
I have competed at the Jack twice now. I have judged numerous times. I’m also going to be an official judge this year. I’m going to be cooking up on BBQ Hill with Certified Angus Beef. We’re going to be throwing down some smoked pastrami beef ribs.
I’m also going to be at the Champions Dinner on Wednesday. There’s going to be so many fun things going on in Lynchburg, but I wanted to give you my perspective on some of the categories.
For those of you who are competing, I can give you the perspective as a judge and as a cook.
The Sauce Ancillary Category
Today, we’re going to focus on the sauce category.
When you compete at the Jack, of course there are chicken, ribs, pork and brisket your standard for meats. With each of those, you also have to turn in seven portions instead of six, which signifies the Jack Daniel’s number seven, the Old Tennessee whiskey. So that’s why you have seven pieces.
But in addition to that, there are three ancillary competitions and then there are two side competitions.
The I Know Jack, which is a grilling competition that takes place the day before. And then there’s also a cocktail contest that takes place the day before.
I actually won the cocktail contest two years ago. Kita Roberts from Girl Carnivore was my mixologist who helped me out with everything. And then I also competed in the I Know Jack last year.
But today we’re going to talk about the sauce category.
So you may think to yourself, oh, I’ve really got to focus on these four meats. I want to be the grand champion. I want to be the world champion. I don’t have time for these side categories.
I understand doing the side categories is a lot, but doing the sauce category is simple, like you should at least enter the sauce category if you don’t want to do any other ancillaries, please enter the sauce category.
You can make the sauce at home, pour it in the cup and turn it in so it’s not going to mess up your timeline. And if you win, first through fifth place gets a barrelhead and money and then sixth through 10th place gets a ribbon.
So if you leave the Jack with a call, especially with a barrelhead, why not turn in sauce. Like give it a go, give it a try.
I’m going to talk to you about my sauce category entries over the past two years that I cooked, what I learned from them, how I finished, and kind of what my whole process was.
The Jack sauce category rules
So the rules for the sauce are pretty simple. You just have to include Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey in your sauce, and they actually give you a whole bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey in your swag bag, so you can use that. You don’t even have to buy any extra whiskey. It’s already there for you.
They also give you an eight ounce styrofoam cup. So whatever sauce you make you pour into that cup, you put the lid on it. You also have a number. You have to make sure that you turn your number in with your cup.
And then they judge it. They judge it on the same categories as they do for regular meats, which are appearance, taste and tenderness.
What does tenderness mean for sauce?
Now, you might be curious how can you judge tenderness when it comes to a sauce Well, basically what they’re looking for is the viscosity of it. Is it too thin? Is it too thick? Is it smooth? Is it gritty?
All of those kind of variables that make it mouth pleasing. So the tenderness portion is really the mouth pleasing part.
What does appearance mean for sauce?
For appearance, I mean, everybody basically gets a cup of sauce, so they’re just pretty much looking at it from the top. And really it’s more about the color.
Is it a beautiful color that looks appealing like something that you’d want to eat? So if it’s like a really black, dark sauce, that may not do so well on the appearance.
If it’s a really light thin sauce or heck, you could even do a mustard sauce if you want, or an Alabama white sauce.
That’s completely up to you. But the judges are going to look at that and think, is this something that looks appealing to me?
For me, I kind of stuck with those mahogany red rich colors. When I was looking for the color, for the appearance of my sauce.
What does taste mean for sauce?
And then taste is always is subjective. So it’s going to come down to is it balancing? Is it sweet, salty, savory, all of those things. Do they mix well together?
Can the judges taste the whiskey without it being too overpowering because that whiskey is a component of it? So the judges are looking for that little hint of the Tennessee whiskey flavor.
So make sure that you’ve got enough in there that they can taste it, but you don’t want it to be too strong, that it overpowers the rest of the sauce that you’re creating.
Plan ahead, make your sauce at home
Timelines for the Jack are a little bit different than your standard KCBS competition. So the sauce is actually the first entry that you’ll turn in. And that turn in is at 11:30 a.m. And you get that five minute window on either side. So really 11:25 to 11:35 a.m.
But as I mentioned, you can make it at home.
How I make my sauce for the Jack
I’m going to share with you the basic concept for the sauce, what I’ve entered in the Jack for the past two years.
I start by taking some apple cider vinegar along with my Pork Rub, and I let that kind of simmer and steep for about 15 minutes on the stove. What I’m doing during this process is just really letting all of the spices kind of bloom in that apple cider vinegar.
Then in another pot, I mix together ketchup, brown sugar, molasses, honey and a few more spices.
Once that kind of simmers and once the apple cider vinegar is done steeping, I combine those two together and let them simmer some more.
But remember, we’ve got to include that Jack Daniels. Now, personally, I don’t just like to pour the Jack right in there and have it have a raw taste. I prefer to cook it down.
So what I do is I mix a little bit of maple sirup with my Jack Daniels Whiskey, and I let that simmer for just a bit again, to just cook off some of the bite of the alcohol.
Then I mix that into the pot with all of the other ingredients, and I let that simmer some more.
Then it’s up to you. But I like to strain it, to take out any of the chunky spices that might have been in there. And I just run that through a fine mesh strainer, and I stored in a jar seal it up, throw it in the fridge and take it to the Jack.
Now it’s up to you if you want to add smoke flavor. If you do, you have a couple of options. You can add just a hair of liquid smoke. Don’t get too much because it’s some pretty powerful stuff.
Or you can take that sauce that you made and you can put it on your smoker with some wood chips or some wood pellets and really kind of infuse that natural smoke right into it.
And then still bottle it up. You could also add that smoke in your final step when you’re at the Jack itself. But again, I find it’s a lot easier to do everything at home and bring it with me so that I can really focus on my meats and my other entries.
Turning in sauce at the Jack
Now, when you get to the Jack, it’s not as simple as just pouring it in a cup and turning it in. I mean, it can be, but you’re probably not going to get a call if you do that.
The first year that I turned in sauce I ended up in 30th place with a score of 171.9. The reason for that is because I got a couple eights and a seven in tenderness, and I’m thinking, how can I improve tenderness? Like what was maybe wrong with it?
Well, here’s what I did. I heated up my sauce, and when I did that, I think it got a little bit too thin.
So when the judges were lifting their spoon into the sauce, I think it was just too thin. It needed to have a little bit more viscosity. It needed to just stick onto the spoon a little bit more.
So after that, I started running some tests at home in preparation for 2023. What you want to do is take a plastic spoon and stick it in the sauce.
That’s what the judges are going to use to kind of look at that, that tenderness or that kind of that overall feel of it.
Do the spoon test
If you stick your spoon in the sauce and all the sauce drips off, it’s too thin.
If you stick your spoon in the sauce and it just stands there, and then it’s so thick that there’s not any movement to it, that’s not going to get a good tenderness score either.
What you want is to stick that spoon in the sauce, and when you pull it out, there’s just a nice coating of sauce that kind of sticks, kind of runs just that nice little medium balance.
So here’s what I did to fix that in 2023. The day before, I took the sauce out of the refrigerator and I let it sit on the counter at room temperature.
Then the morning of the Jack, I poured some of the sauce into a loaf pan, and I put it on my smoker that heated it up. That added a little bit more smoke flavor, but when you heat it up, it will thin out.
So I saved some of the room temperature sauce, and I didn’t put it all in a loaf pan. That way, when I took the sauce off the smoker, I was able to incorporate some of that room temperature sauce back into it.
Kind of stir it around until it was the perfect consistency that I wanted. That results ended in all nines in tenderness for me for 2023.
And my sauce tied for 10th place. Unfortunately, I was 11th, so I didn’t get the ribbon, but I tied for 10th place with the score of 174.8.
So if you’re going to the Jack and you’re going to enter the sauce category, I highly recommend that you make it at home. Play around with the flavor profiles, have your friends and family taste it until you get that perfect combination, and then follow those steps of reheating it.
When you’re at the Jack, reheat some of it. Incorporate some room temperature sauce back into it until you get that perfect temperature, and then test it with the spoon.
Make sure that you taste test it, make sure the flavor is still there and that you can taste a little bit of that beautiful Jack Daniels Whiskey.
I hope this helps you out, guys. If you’re going to the Jack, I can’t wait to see you there. I’m looking forward to judging again and all of the fun and excitement that will be there.
In next week’s podcast, I’m going to talk about Cook’s Choice and the international entries. And then after that I will talk to you all about desserts.
I look forward to connecting with you guys now that I’m kind of back in the swing of things. Thanks so much for your patience while I took a little bit of time off.
Until next time guys. I’ll talk to you later and happy grilling!
