Comptetion Pork butt Time Constraints Issue - Question

[Habanero Smoker]

I'm a KCBS judge and I know the three categories. I just needed to know how your were being judged before posting the below link. Going to that site will give you an idea of how to prepare your box for turn-in, and what some other teams are doing. I use this site during the off months to tune my skills in the "Appearance" category and get an idea of how my judging is compared to others.

You can view the turn-ins, but only KCBS certified judges can sign in to make comments. It is not the easiest blog to navigate around, but click on "Judge My Box"; you will see the most recent entries. Scroll down and on the right side of the screen you will see links to past entries.

BBQ-Critic

[OTB]

Thank you very much for the link and comments.  I typically don't sauce, other than vaunted vinegar sauce, but I see everybody is saucing.  I am not going to have the time to make my own sauce to put on the pork and if I sauce I would have to use store bought.  Would you recommend a store bought (CA Region).  I was thinking of thinning some sweet baby rays hot and sweet with some vaunted vinegar sauce to put on it. 

[Habanero Smoker]

You're welcome. Saucing is tricky, if there is too much sauce I will mark down on appearance. I like to see the meat; but depending on the individual judge it can go either way. I prefer no sauce. For the pork entries, the contests I have judged (New England, NY, NJ, PA, MD) I rarely seen them sauced, but often seen a sheen on them.

I judged a contest last Sunday, and it so happened a pit master was one of the judges at my table. He wanted to experience the judging aspect of a contest. During discussions between entries he was sharing some of his techniques. He doesn't like sauces, but he likes to give his entries a niece sheen. Just before he sends in his entries, he uses a small brush and paint the meat with a thin layer of warmed Agave, or honey. Sometimes he may thin it a little with apple cider or apple cider vinegar, but don't thin it too much or you won't get a good sheen. If you flavor the meat well enough with the vaunted vinegar sauce, maybe paint it with warmed honey thinned with a little vaunted vinegar to give it a sheen.

[OTB]

I just realized that I never gave a final report on how this turned out.  I as able to get the two 9lb butts in at about 12:30pm.  They came out of the smoker at 3am and into FTC.  They pulled great.  I did my best with the money muscle, but it pretty much fell apart.  Next time I will listen to your 175 degrees advice.  In hind sight I should have just pulled the money muscle instead of trying to slice it when it started falling apart.  I included in the box pulled butt, chunked, and a bad attempt at slicing the money muscle.

This was a unique opportunity to actually meet with the judges and get immediate feedback from them since this was not a sanctioned event.  They loved the taste and texture.  One judge reached into the box and found the one piece of fat I had missed and dinged me on that.  Another judge grabbed a big piece of bark and said the rub had too much pepper.  They all wanted even more of the vaunted vinegar sauce and really loved the flavor it brought and liked the glaze that I made with honey and vaunted vinegar...just wanted more of the honey throughout the meat.

Being tired that morning, I didn't spend a lot of time and effort with garnish.  We laid out lettuce and tried to make it uniform and have three distinct presentations of the meat.  It shifted when we carried it up and we got dinged big time on garnish and presentation.  They said the meats were too close together and that the lettuce was not uniform enough.  They wanted it to look like a perfectly manicured lawn.

All in all, the help and advice I have received here made this a success.  I don't really care that we got dinged big time on presentation for EVERYTHING we turned in.  At the end of the day we took 12th place out of 18 teams.  We were the only amateur team, everyone else was professional and had their rigs. 

The interesting thing was that there were a few folks with custom trailer smokers but 95% of the teams all used WSM's with computer controlled fans etc (similar to our PIDS)

Thanks again for all the help and advice.

[Habanero Smoker]

You did great. It sounds like the judges were overly critical. Sounds like an audition for Pit Masters, though I have run across a couple of judges like that in KCBS events. :) The last several times I judged KCBS events, the KCBS reps. have instructed the judges to ignore the garnish and only judge the meat for appearance. The only thing that we should be concerned with as it pertains to garnish, is to make sure no illegal garnish or foreign objects are in the box. With it not being a blind judging, judges could be friends with or have knowledge of team members who are competing, and that may influence their vote.

For the vaunted vinegar, I usually use about 2 cups (that is for a butt that has an uncooked weight of 6 - 8 pounds). The honey and vaunted vinegar glaze sounds good. I will definitely give that a try.

In the Northeast, more often then not you will see a lot of WMS's, but lately it looks like the Backwoods smokers are becoming more popular.