Christie Vanover published a new book to help competition cooks improve their results. Plus, updates from the KCBS Board of Directors.
Table of Contents
New Competition Scores Log Book
First, let’s start with the book that I just published. So a few episodes ago, I talked about how to read your KCBS score sheets and how to interpret them.
And then I also provided you with a link to a digital place where you can actually log all your scores so that you can track your cooks and hopefully then improve your cooks for the next time when you see what you did well, what you needed to work on, etc.
Well, I realized that not everybody is computer savvy or likes to do things digitally. So that’s why I just launched a new book, which is called the Competition BBQ Score Sheets Log Book. So you can now get this on Amazon. It’s $9.99.
Inside of this book you’re going to be able to log all of your competition scores. So there are sections for each contest that you do. When you go to a contest, you’ll be able to put in the contest name, the number of teams that you’re competing against, the date and the location.
And then there’s an overall score section where you can put your score and you’re ranking for each category. Below that, you can also put in your goals for that competition.
Set your goals?
My number one goal is always to have fun. My second goal is to get at least one call. I know that might be kind of like minor goals. Some people are like, my goal is to win it every time, but I figure if I’m having fun and if I aim to win at least one call, usually I do good enough that I get several calls.
So those are my always like every time goals. And then beyond that, I might set some higher goals for myself, like improve my score in ribs or, you know, be top ten in brisket or things like that so you can put down your goals for each competition. Then the next four pages are pages for each of the categories.
Meat category pages
So the chicken page, for instance, you will have a spot where you can put the judges’ scores for all six judges plus your total overall score.
You can also put your table rank on there. So you can remember did this chicken cook place first on my table or sixth on the table.
Below that, then there’s a note section so you can talk about your cook.
You can kind of put notes for yourself. Did you do thighs? Did you do legs? What rubs did you use or sauces did you use. Did you choose to brine or inject this contest? You know, what other factors were there?
Did you maybe totally switch things up like I did the other day with my Asian ribs? Like, that would be an important note to put on here, because you’re not going to necessarily remember five contests from now what exactly you did during that cook. So with this you can journal that.
There’s a section for chicken, ribs, pork and brisket.
Additional Observations
Then the very last page for that contest section is just your additional observations. That’s where you can put things like. Was it raining that day? Were there weather things that maybe impacted your cook?
Were you at a high altitude? Did that cause some challenges with your brisket mop evaporating too fast?
Or maybe it was the best cook of your life, and there were things that you did differently that you want to put down so that you can remember to do those again. So again, it’s just it’s called an additional observations page where you can just scratch down all the notes that you want.
And there is enough room in this book to do 15 contests. I know some teams do compete more than that, but I would say on average 15 contests, you can probably do one book for each year.
There’s a place on the front where you can put your team name and the year so you can have a book for every year that you’re doing contests, and you can go back and you can just kind of keep track of this stuff.
I’ve never seen one of these online. Maybe somebody has produced one in the past, and I just never saw it. But I thought that this would be a good product for you guys, especially if you’re trying to track scores when you do competition barbecue and it’s something you can leave in your trailer or in your kit.
I realized the digital score sheet is a little bit hard to get to maybe if you’re on the road. So with this, you can just throw it in your bag, throw it wherever, and it’s always there for you, and you can take it at the comp and actually make your notes as you’re going. You know, you might get a little bit of barbecue sauce on it, but you know, who cares? This is barbecue.
KCBS competitions on the West Coast
All right. Moving on. I want to talk to you about the recent KCBS board meeting. I’m part of a few different Facebook groups where people talk about different stuff related to competition barbecue.
There’s one judge’s group specifically where somebody brought up that in the minutes from the meeting, there was discussion about competitions on the West Coast. So I immediately was like, well, I got to go read these minutes.
In case you didn’t know, you can go to the KCBS website, which is KCBS.us and they have a listing of all of the board of directors meeting minutes. So I think that’s really helpful for those of us who really want to keep our ear to what’s going on a competition barbecue, they lay it right out there for you so you can see what the board is talking about.
Regarding the West Coast, what they discussed in the minutes is that they are observing that competitions on the West Coast are on a decline. They actually published a table in the minutes.
In the table, it basically shows ten West Coast states from as far north as Washington, all the way down south and a little bit east to New Mexico. And it lists the number of contests in each of those states from 2018 all the way to 2024.
In 2018, things were going pretty good. We had 49 contests out here in the West Coast. Obviously, things took a huge dip in 2020. We were down to nine contests, but by 2022 things got back up to 40 contests. So we were kind of getting that rise. Back in 2023, we dipped to 26 contests on the West Coast, and in 2024, the projected number of competitions on the West Coast is 32.
So they are noticing that from 49 contests in 2018 down to 32, that that’s quite a decline. And they made a ratio comparison of the number of KCBS members, which includes judges and cook teams that we have out here on the West Coast.
There’s quite a few, but we’re just not seeing the competitions to match the KCBS membership and they want to do something to help about that? Which I think is awesome.
Proposal to increase contests
So what the sanctioning committee proposed is that the board initiate an action plan and actually put it into the budget to fund a program that could sustain and grow KCBS on the West Coast, which includes driving membership and promoting more contests.
I of course I’m stoked about this because I would love to see more contests on the West Coast. I actually had a contest in Hawaii in November. I know I’ve talked about it before. That one just got canceled. I’m super, super bummed about that. There’s also a contest coming up in Utah, but they limited their contest to 18 teams, and that one already filled up.
So I think contests on the West Coast, at least in the southwest area, are actually done until January of 2025, when Slaborama will happen again in Bullhead City, Arizona. So we definitely need some more growth and events out here on the West Coast.
I personally am trying to get a contest pulled together in Las Vegas. I’ve been working on this for over a year and a half.
The hardest part is finding a location because the casinos are such high dollar places. Casino parking lots just to rent them are $5,000 to $15,000 a day. Well, the registration fees for KCBS competitions do not cover that type of an expense. So I have secured a location. Now I’m like 90% secure. That has no location fee, which is amazing.
But, there are still a lot of other expenses involved in putting on a competition. You know, you have the registration fees that come in as income, which is great. But first and foremost, you have to have a great prize purse. You know, nice trophies always help out and then you have to have the other expenses, such as paying for the reps, paying for the sanctioning itself, you know, the porta pots, the dumpsters, etc., etc.
There are a lot of logistics that go behind putting on an event, so I’m working out the numbers, I’m trying to lock in that location and hopefully I’ll have something together.
My goal is anywhere between December, January and February, so December of 2024 or January or February of 2025.
Fingers crossed it all works out. I’m working with Jim Palmer out of California. He throws competitions all the time on the West Coast, so thank you to him.
Otherwise our competition on the West Coast would be really, really slim. So again, I’m excited to hear that the board of directors is talking about West Coast competition barbecue. And it’s really up to the judges and the teams and the reps to help keep this alive. And anything that we can all do to help promote this possible action plan, I think would be great.
Other KCBS proposals for rule changes
A couple other quick highlights from the KCBS minutes that I wanted to touch on. And then I’ll actually be done with this podcast. I told you it was going to be a nice, fast one.
A couple rule changes that they’re talking about for proposals for 2025. One of them is making it consistent between the Backyard Series and the Master Series when it comes to marked turn-in boxes.
Right now, there’s two separate rules for both of those series. So now they’re just looking at taking the Master Series rules and applying those to the Backyard Series. So that’s a pretty simple change.
A couple other things that they are still in discussions about is one, if there is a competition venue where styrofoam boxes are not allowed, they are prohibited by city, county or state law.
They’re looking at what would be the proposal, rule change, what would be allowed for a turn and box. And in an environment like that.
They’re also talking about possible rule changes to accommodate for disabilities.
All-star teams
One of the things that kind of has been all of a buzz on social media is another rule change that they’re just looking at, discussing right now are these All-Star teams.
This is when head cooks from multiple teams come together and form one team, which is considered an All-Star team.
So they’ve got these, you know, top cooks that are getting GCs, perhaps each individually they come together, which makes them more of a powerhouse. So on social media, you know, it’s kind of a buzz because people are like, yeah, they shouldn’t be allowed to do that. And others are like, why not?
I would love to hear your guys’s opinions about that.
We do have a couple teams on the West Coast who have done that before. We’ve even had teams from the Midwest come together and compete as a like All-Star team and compete on the West Coast.
So, I personally I’ll give you my opinion. I don’t have a problem with it. I think that if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.
And if that means that that best team includes two, three, four of the top cooks in the country and you’re able to beat them? Hell, yeah. Like, more props to you. Like, bring your A game and drive at it.
I don’t have a problem with it, but I know that some teams do because I just feel like it’s an unfair advantage.
I think that at the end of the day, you just gotta be the best cook.
Rules committee observations
Two more things that they discussed that I really, really appreciate as a cook is in the rules committee section. They talked about how they are seeing more and more comment cards where judges are writing, “not bite through skin.”
So the committee was reinforcing that the rules are not that it has to be bite through skin, it has to be “easily bitten through skin.”
So it’s okay if your chicken has a little bit of tug to it, as long as you can bite through it. It doesn’t have to be like so soft that it doesn’t even feel like it’s there.
So that’s kind of the discrepancy that they’re noticing. So they want to kind of push that out to the judges to remind them that according to the classes, the judges’ classes and the rules, that it just needs to be easily beaten through so that judges don’t score so hard, if it does have just a little bit of natural resistance to it.
And then one more thing in the minutes that caught my attention is that they have made observations that some reps are improvising the judge’s script instead of reading it word for word when it’s at the judges meeting right before the contest.
So they really want to reinforce that the reps need to read the judge’s script word for word, because it was written a certain way for a reason, so that there’s consistency among the sanctioning body. So as again, as I cook, I really appreciate that.
I respect that. They did say that they are working on some revisions for the judge’s script, which I think is great if it needs it.
But in the meantime, the reps are supposed to stick to the script until any changes are made.
So that’s basically it, guys. Just a few highlights. I’ve got some exciting stuff that I’m going to talk about next week, but I’m going to keep this short and wrap it up for this week.
