Do you have the guts to take a risk? To be bold? To be different? In this week’s BBQ Tips Podcast, Pitmaster Christie Vanover shares why she’s getting a little bit bored with competition BBQ. Find out why and what she plans to do about it.
We’re going to talk about risk taking when it comes to competition barbecue. Do you have the guts to take a risk. To be bold, to be different?
That’s the whole topic of today’s conversation. And the reason I want to talk about this is because I’ve been in kind of a rut myself, and I’m honestly, for the past year or so, getting a little bit bored with competition barbecue.
I love the sport of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love being with my friends and family. I love the challenge of cooking barbecue, to please the judges, to try to get those calls.
There are so many aspects about competition barbecue that I would never give up and I love doing it. I’m still going to be on the circuit, but what I’m getting bored with are the flavor profiles.
Table of Contents
The endless cycle
Here’s what happens. There’s amazing teams out there. They perform well, they get GCs. They get their top points, and then they share their tips and techniques. I mean, I’m guilty of sharing my tips and techniques as well, but what I try not to do all the time is necessarily share my flavor profiles.
Because what happens is when people share their flavor profiles, then everybody who watches those videos or goes to those classes are cooking the same flavor profiles.
And who can blame them? I mean, I’m guilty of it myself. I’ve taken several classes. I’ve taken those techniques I’ve taken. I buy the ribs while I’m there, by the sauces while I’m there, and I test it out and they perform well. They hit well on the circuit and the judges love it. So it makes sense that we’re in this loop.
It makes sense that we’re doing this. But what I love about cooking and what I love about barbecue, is that barbecue is not just one flavor profile.
There’s so much diversity in barbecue. Personally, I love Asian components when it comes to flavor profiles with barbecue. But there’s different regions of just America itself where you have your Texas flavor profiles, obviously your Kansas City, which is what we’re mostly sticking to on the circuit.
But then you’ve got your Carolinas, you’ve got Memphis, Pacific Northwest. There’s just such a wide range of flavor profiles that we could be playing with on the circuit that we’re not.
We’re really just sticking to that heavy, thick tomato based, really sweet, sugary molasses, you know, sometimes glazes and honey and stuff. But we’re sticking to that really traditional Kansas City style.
And I know why we’re doing it. We’re doing it because it wins. We’re doing it because it performs.
The judges have come to expect it. They like it. If they score it, you get a call, you get some money, you go home and you do it all again. Again, we’re in this loop.
The loop is what I’m bored of. The loop is what I want to change. But the reason I’ve been too scared to change is because of the risk. Am I willing to take the risk?
Why we don’t take risks
I spend, you know, well over $1,000 at a competition. Once I buy the meat, the rubs, the sauces, all the stuff. Drive their pay my registration fees, all of that.
So am I willing to take a risk and do something different, knowing I could end up dead ass last because it’s a different. Like are the judges going to like it?
Are they going to be like, what the heck is this? This isn’t KCBS barbecue. So let’s dive into that a little bit.
So I, in addition to competing, as you guys know, I’m also a judge. So I get to be part of this monthly judges‚Äô call that KCBS judges all join in on from around the country, even around the world.
I think that there’s some people from Canada and stuff and maybe even Australia who I’ve attended sometimes, and these are all certified judges. A lot of them are master judges.
So Brian DeCoud hosts these meetings and any CBJ can attend and listen on the zoom. And what’s cool about it is he usually brings on different guests. They talk about the spice industry, the competition side of things, how to run a barbecue restaurant. It’s it’s really diverse. It’s really cool.
But this month’s meeting was a little bit different.
It was kind of an open forum among all the judges to just talk about things on the circuit, what they’re seeing, what their experience and questions they may have.
One of the judges asked a really intriguing question to the group, which is what sparked me to make this my topic this week.
He asked: When teams go to compete in another region, why aren’t they changing their flavor profiles? For example, if a team from Kansas City travels to the Carolinas, why aren’t they changing their flavor profiles to more of a Carolina style barbecue?
And on this call, there’s a mix of judges and there’s a mix of teams. So a couple teams spoke up and said, well, I do really well cooking the flavor profile that I cook, which is, you know, more traditional Kansas City style. Again, that sweet tomato based sauce.
Why would I change a formula that wins if I know that it wins wherever I go? I’m just going to keep cooking that formula because I know it performs well. So that was a fair point.
Another person said, well, why would we change our flavor profiles just because we go to the Carolinas? Not all the judges are going to be from the Carolinas because judges travel all over the country and all over the world as well. So you’re not just getting North Carolina based judges who just want North Carolina flavor profiles. You’re getting judges from Kansas City, from Nevada, from wherever.
So they all like all sorts of barbecue. So it’s really hard to pinpoint your flavor profile to the location where the competition is.
And that makes sense. But it also doesn’t make sense. We are cooks from across the United States. We have all sorts of varying cultures and backgrounds. We do not all live in Kansas City. So why are we all cooking Kansas City style barbecue?
The judges are from all over the country, some from all over the world. They have a diversity of palates. They like barbecue of all flavors. So why are we only giving them Kansas City style barbecue? Why aren’t we changing things up? Why aren’t we being more creative? That’s the part of barbecue that I really miss is the creativity.
So my response to the judges is the reason that cooks stick to this plan is because we are afraid. We are afraid that if we give the judges something that is out of the ordinary, that is not a shiny red piece of chicken, that the judges have expectations and they’re going to score us down. And that’s not really fair to the judges, because the rules are they’re not supposed to have expectations.
They are not supposed to insert their opinions of what they want in the box. It’s purely supposed to be, does this meat look like it looks good, like it’s going to taste good? Not is this look like what I was expecting? I wanted my red shiny chicken thigh and that’s not what I got. So I’m going to knock it down.
So we have to have faith that the judges are going to be open minded. And that’s what I said on the call. And most of the people on the call were like, yeah, we’d love to try something different. But I still wonder, will they? And maybe those on the call will. But maybe a brand new judge who just took the class and was taught, look for that red shiny piece of chicken thigh and they get something different.
You know, maybe they’re they’re too new and they’re going to knock you down. That all comes down to the table captains. It comes down to the reps. You know, are the reps giving good instructions before the event? I would say in most cases when I’ve judged, they have. So I feel there’s confidence there. But again, being creative comes down to fear.
A judge who made me think
So I was at Smoke Slam in Memphis in May and I smoked up some party ribs, which are individually cut ribs. I’ve actually posted like two years ago. Does anybody have the balls to turn party ribs in in a KCBS box? Like, I don’t know that anybody’s ever done it.
You know, maybe a couple people. I don’t know if it would score. Well, I’ve never had the balls to do it, but I do like individually smoked ribs because you get bark in every bite. Well, anyway, back to Smoke Slam. I cook these individually cut ribs and I glazed them with a Filipino barbecue sauce. I also seasoned them with an Asian Pacific island rub that had ginger, turmeric, annatto seeds.
Like it was definitely not Kansas City style barbecue.
People at the event who had tasted my ribs told me that they were the best ribs that they samples that day, which meant so much to me because I was doing something different. I was doing a Filipino style or Filipino inspired rib. Well, then a KCBS judge came up to me and said, whoa, these are great. I wish I would have had these ribs in Hawaii.
I said, tell me more. What do you mean? He said that he traveled to Hawaii. I don’t remember where he was from, but he’s not from Hawaii. But he traveled to Hawaii to judge the KCBA competition there, and he was hoping that he was going to get some type of barbecue that had Hawaiian influences, which a lot of the times are Asian influences.
But he said what he got was boxes of KCBS meat over and over and over again, which is fine. And he said, you know, we enjoyed it. It was good. But he was just hoping there was going to be creativity and variety.
Well, I’m going to be cooking in Hawaii this year. I decided to sign up for the competition, which is in November, and in my mind, I’ve been wondering, should I change up my flavor profiles? I know how to cook Hawaiian barbecue and with Asian flavors, I do it all the time at home.
But I’ve never done it at KCBS. And I wondered, who are the judges going to be? Are they going to be judges from the islands? Are they going to love that flavor profile, or are they going to be people traveling there from all over, and they’re going to want the KCBS style? Well, when I was on the judges call, it turns out a lot of those people on that call were actually going to be going to Hawaii.
So that answered the first question. The judges going to the competition in November are not all going to be from the islands, so they are going to be those who judge the KCBS flavor profiles most of the time, that Kansas City style.
But that’s exactly what that judge from Smoke Slam did. He traveled from somewhere in the continental U.S., went to Hawaii and was hoping for Hawaii flavor profiles. So now I have a decision to make. When I go to Hawaii.
Do I pull out my Asian flavors or do I keep it traditional? It’s going to cost a heck of a lot of money to go to Hawaii, fly there. The hotels are not cheap. I’ve got to figure out what grills I’m going to be cooking on. I’m working on that process. Registration fees weren’t too bad, but bringing my meat there or buying it locally. You know, there’s there’s so much that goes into it and a whole lot of money.
It is the only KCBS competition in Hawaii. So the winner gets an automatic draw to the Jack. So it’s big. A lot of money into it. A lot of like prize at stake in addition to the bragging rights. You know, the auto draw to the Jack and the invitational to the Royal. So it’s big. Am I willing to take a risk?
I don’t know, but I want to I really, really want to.
Why it’s the perfect time to take a risk
And here’s where I’m at this week. So the window for the Jack draw ends at the end of July. I have one competition left June 29, this weekend for a chance to get a draw. I don’t have a GC yet for this season, so if I don’t get the draw then obviously I’m not cooking the Jack.
But really at this point I’m okay not cooking the Jack this year because I’m going to Hawaii and it’s just a couple weeks later, so that would be way too much travel for me to go from one end of the country to the other.
So this year I’m planning to judge the Jack again, which will be great because I haven’t done that for a couple of years since I’ve cooked it the past couple of years.
All that being said, what that means is when I cook this weekend, I don’t have to GC. Everybody loves the GC. We like the money, we like the prize perks. But I don’t have to, I don’t. I’m not chasing points.
My scores in 2024 have not been like points chase-worthy. Again, I don’t need the draw because it might be too hard for me to cook it and do Hawaii anyway, so this is the perfect opportunity in my competition career to maybe experiment, to maybe get creative, to maybe try things that are different.
But again, do I have the balls?
I don’t know, the competition is a couple of days away and I still have not decided. Am I going to go with my traditional cook or am I going to try something totally zany out of the box just to see what happens?
Refresh of the rules
Before I go to outside of the box, I wanted to make sure that I was within the rules. So I went back and looked at the KCBS rules one more time.
When it comes to taste, all the rules really say is that the sauce or seasonings need to complement the meat. They shouldn’t be too overpowering, and they should be pleasing to the palate.
It doesn’t say that they have to be Kansas City style, tomato-based sweet barbecue sauce. It just has to be something that tastes good. Also, you can use a chunky sauce, but any chunks inside, whether it’s fruit or onions, have to be diced at least one eighth of an inch or smaller.
So keep that in mind if you have some sort of variation. But again, the rules allow it. So the only restrictions are what we’re placing on ourselves.
And I’ve talked about this before, but we also have diversity in the cuts of the protein. So for chicken we can turn on any part wings, you know breasts, legs, thigh,s Cornish hens. With pork, you know it’s pork butt, pork shoulder basically. But we can do dice. We can do chopped. We can do pulled. We can do the money muscle slices.
Brisket. We have a little bit of variety of how we slice it or shred it. Ribs are pretty standard. It’s just got to be like sliced bones and six servings of that. But one thing I saw on the rules that I guess I overlooked for years is that chicken can actually be breaded.
In the rules it specifically says chicken may be cooked and served breaded. So that was something that was a little bit different for me.
I’m not sure how breaded barbecue chicken would taste, but it still it makes it makes my creative juices flow so we have wiggle room to make some changes.
Changes I could make
So let’s talk about what some of those changes maybe could be.
I think the category where we have the most wiggle room would be in the chicken category, because we can do so many cuts including wings. And a lot of people are turning in wings right now, but they’re mainly doing the Kansas City barbecue style wings.
But nothing says that we can’t do Korean sticky wings or lemon pepper wings or Alabama white sauce wings, or even Alabama white sauce chicken legs or chicken thighs.
Like, there’s so much variety out there that makes me, like, excited to try it. So, I don’t know, maybe I’ll experiment with chicken a little bit this weekend. I better decide soon, though, because like the comps literally in like 2 or 3 days.
Ribs, like I said, doesn’t have as much variety in the presentation of the cook, but there is so much variety and seasonings. Again, Asian sticky ribs or when I was at Smoke Slam, Cookin Wid Kunchi did these Jamaican jerk ribs that everybody loved. They had a jerk marinade, they had a jerk seasoning and then no sauce on them.
And they were phenomenal. Like, why not? They taste good. Why not turn those in?
So yeah, definitely some variations there with ribs we could do. When it comes to pork, you know, we’re all doing again the Kansas City style super sweet maple syrup glaze. What about doing something like with Pacific Northwest flavors?
I’ve got some friends up in Oregon. They run the website Vindulge. They have a bottled barbecue sauce that has a red wine base to it.
What if, instead of braising money muscles in brown sugar and honey and maple syrup, you did something with more rich flavors with, you know, maybe even a little bit of beef stock and then some red wine and then finished it with their beautiful sauce.
Like, I don’t know. The possibilities out there. Like somebody just needs to try it.
And then brisket, you know, for me, I don’t think I would vary too much on brisket. I love a good Texas beefy brisket, but what I have been playing around with is my presentation.
So I’ve done slices forever. I’ve done burn ends forever. But recently at a competition I did instead of burnt ends instead of the cubes of the point, I did some mini little slices of the point, and I actually want to do a box with just point slices if the point turns out beautifully.
But I’ve even thought about doing shredded point like we do shredded in our pork boxes. Why not in our brisket boxes? Because shredded point, if you cook that meat so much that it’s just like, so tender and all that fat is rendered out and shredded beautifully in season it. It’s so delicious. So that’s that’s the variations I think I would do with brisket.
Beyond that, I’m not going to add too many weird flavor profiles to brisket because personally I’m pretty much a salt, pepper, garlic girl when it comes to that.
Save room for dessert
This contest that I’m doing this week and also has dessert categories. We’ve got a cream pie, we’ve got a fruit pie and we’ve got a cake. I have been playing around with those like for the past couple of weeks, and I’ve actually been loving it because I can be 100% creative on those.
I mean, I know that people like cheesecake, and cheesecake will probably win the cream pie category, but I’m not doing cheesecake. I’m into something different because I like to be creative. I don’t want to just be in that loop and in that zone anymore. I want to be different. So I don’t know, I think this weekend I’m going to try something different.
You guys have to be sure to follow me on the socials to see if I had the guts to go there. I’ll share my turn in boxes like I always do, and you’ll be able to see if it’s something that’s out of the ordinary or that typical red, shiny Kansas City style barbecue. We’ll see what direction I go.
I would love to hear from you guys, though. I want to hear if you’ve ever turned in something out of the box and how it was perceived, did you score well? Do you think if not, was it scored bad because you just didn’t make it well? Or did it score bad because you think the judges just were like, I don’t know what to do with this.
It’s not Kansas City style barbecue. I would love to hear if you’ve had that experience. I also want to hear, like, what flavor profiles would you rather be cooking if not Kansas City style barbecue? What risks would you like to take but you haven’t had the guts to take? I don’t know, maybe I’ll take that risk for you.
I’m ready to just shake things up and try things different and and make this more creative and fun. So I think I’ve got I think I’ve got the guts to do it. I think I do, yeah, maybe, I don’t know. Like I said, we’ll see.
