Last week, Pitmaster Christie Vanover teased that she might go all out and get risky with her competition BBQ turn ins. Well, she did just that at a competition in California. Find out what changes she made and how the judges reacted.
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Table of Contents
I hope you listened to last week’s podcast. If you did not, you definitely want to listen to that one before you listen to this week, because last week I talked all about how I’m getting a little bit bored with competition barbecue because the flavor profiles are all so similar, and that I’m ready to shake things up and make some changes.
And I mentioned that I had a competition on June 29 where I had the opportunity to do just that.
So for today’s podcast, I’m going to talk to you about how it all went down. The risks that I took, what the judges thought about those risks, what the other teams thought about those risks, and my overall like thoughts about whether or not I’m going to keep pushing forward with risks or not.
Chicken results
So let’s dive right into the first category, which was chicken.
I took a couple of risks with chicken this week. Usually I do chicken thighs. I’ve been running chicken thighs for seven years. I tried chicken legs a couple times, like I think in 2021, maybe 2022, and they just didn’t quite hit. They didn’t score well for me. So I decided to pass on those and I just stayed with thighs.
Well, this time I tried legs.
The other risk that I took with chicken was the seasoning. So many of you probably know that I had a spice line with Spiceology that’s being phased out, and I’m going with a new company. Well, the new company just finished the formulations on my pork, brisket and chicken rub. And the chicken one straight first time try is perfect.
And I like it so much more because there are not as many clumpy herbs in it. So I tried the chicken legs and I tried the new rub.
Personally, I thought that the legs were delicious, usually with a thigh. I’ll take a bite, maybe two bites and I’m like, okay, that’s good. And then I move on. With the leg. Though I kept wanting to eat it more and more.
It was really juicy. I will say my husband thought it was a little bit salty, and that might have reflected in the judges scores. That might have been what they were tasting. Also, I think, though, that that didn’t have anything to do with the rubs that I used. I think it was the brine. Either I brined it a little bit too long or I need to work on that concentration just a little bit.
All right, let’s break down the scores.
So for appearance, I had five nines. One judge, for some reason, gave me an eight in appearance. I’m not really sure why I thought the box looked beautiful, but it is what it is.
From a taste standpoint, that was kind of all over the place.
I had three perfect nines, which made me feel good. That means that the judges, at least three of them, really did like that new taste flavor profile that I’m putting out there. Two of them gave me an eight, and one of them gave me a seven. That same judge that gave me an eight on appearance gave me a seven on taste.
I don’t know what they didn’t like. Again, maybe it was the saltiness of the brine. We never know unless there’s a comment card. There wasn’t in this case.
From a tenderness standpoint, I didn’t do too bad. I had four nines and two eights, so I agree. I thought it was really tender. I like the texture a lot more than when I usually cook my thighs. So the the scores kind of reflected that. So the judges were happy with legs I would say overall, actually my chicken score was higher at this competition than it’s been in about a year, so I’m really happy about that.
I think the overall score was like a 174. It wasn’t enough to get me a top ten call though. I landed 13th place in chicken, but I’m happy with those risks. They weren’t too out of the box, but they were different than my normal cooked profile.
Pork results
The next category would be ribs, but I’m actually going to talk about ribs at the end because that’s where I went pretty wild and changed things up a lot. So we’re going to touch on that at the end. So let’s skip forward to pork. Pork super surprised me. Pork was the one category that I didn’t change. I didn’t take any risks.
The only thing I did different was I didn’t turn in bacon. I didn’t even cook bacon. I only cut three muscles really tight and sculpted, and I smoked them and flavored them the exact way that I do every single time.
To me, I thought it was a really good pork cook, so I’m really not sure what happened. I think what boggled my mind the most is my appearance scores.
I had four nines and two sevens. Like who gets a seven in an appearance? I don’t understand how my box was a seven in appearance. These are the moments where we sometimes questioned did they actually judge my box?
Because I thought it was really pretty. I had a nice row of money muscles, and then I had some chunks in there and everything was glazed beautifully.
The only thing I can think of is that the money was like splitting a little bit, but to me it still looks like something I’d want to take a bite of and something I’d want to eat.
And that’s what they’re supposed to judge it on. So not just one seven in appearance, but two sevens in appearance.
You tell me what your appearance score would be. Is it worth a seven, an eight, a nine? I don’t know, I think it’s a nine, but I wasn’t a judge that day. So to each their own.
Let’s move on to taste. I didn’t change anything about my taste profile. It is the exact profile that I use all the time. That gets me top ten calls all the time. So I don’t know what happened here. I had three nines, two eights and one seven. So somebody not only didn’t like the appearance, but they really didn’t like the taste either.
Tenderness. That was where I really got hit. I had two nines, three eights and a seven. So again, they didn’t like it. I don’t know what they didn’t like about it. Again, maybe it was a little over. I didn’t think so. I thought that it had really nice texture and integrity to it. It wasn’t too mushy in my opinion.
But perhaps there was some fat seams in there that just didn’t render, didn’t feel right in their mouth, I don’t know. Obviously it was more than one person who didn’t like the tenderness, so obviously something was wrong with it.
And taste was kind of a mix of scores. But appearance just blew me down with those two sevens. That was crazy. So my overall score was a 169, which is low for me for pork. So it was only good enough for 18th place.
Brisket results
Moving on to brisket. Boy, did I take a risk here. And it wasn’t necessarily a risk I planned on taking, but it was a risk that I needed to take based on how my cook went. So I cooked a Snake. River Farm’s black. I had a black in the freezer. I didn’t cook a gold, so I just cooked a black.
I always cook the flat and the point, and I had gone into the competition thinking I’m going to do flat slices, but instead of burnt ends, I’m going to do some pulled point. Some shredded point.
The reason I wanted to go that route is because sometimes when I turn in burnt ends, I feel like the judges just don’t appreciate them maybe as much as I do.
I’m not quite sure what texture they’re looking for.
I just really like it when a burnt end kind of melts in your mouth. But some of my burnt ends don’t always hit well. So I thought, why don’t I try the shredded point? Because that’s going to have a little bit of integrity with it, with the bark.
So it’ll have a little more texture mixed with the meat. That’s like really beautifully rendered. So that was my plan.
I started probing my flat towards the end, and I think I got in my head just a little bit. It was probing at like 205, 206 from a temperature standpoint, and I usually take my flat to like 210, but it felt like it was soft. It had a teeny teeny bit of resistance. But I thought, well, it’s early, I’m going to put it in the cambro.
It’s going to have some carryover cooking and it’s going to be fine.
So when it was time for brisket turn in I went ahead and started processing my point meat. First I did some slices and I started shredding it. And I loved it. I love the flavor. It just needed a little pop of flavor. So I added some finishing dust. I didn’t cut it all and slice it all or shred it all, so I left some of it there, kept it warm and then got out my brisket flat.
As soon as I put my knife into my brisket flat, I could feel the resistance. I could feel that it was tight. It looks really stunning though. I was really pleased with the bark and the smoke ring and everything else about it. It looks juicy.
Everything else about it was great, but I could just tell that texture wasn’t going to be perfect.
So I took out a slice and I started to give it a tug. And that’s when I realized, yeah, this is not this is not going to be great. It bent great. It had a beautiful bend test, but it just when you pull it apart, there was just a little bit too much resistance. I took a bite. Same thing.
The mouthfeel was off. It just it like it probably needed like 15-30 more minutes on the smoker and it would have been perfect. But
it didn’t have that and there was no more time left. So I had to make the call. I realized me as a judge, if I were to judge that slice of brisket, I would probably give it a seven in tenderness.
Maybe even a six in tenderness. That’s how much I didn’t enjoy the texture and the tenderness of it.
So I was kind of on the fence about what to do.
I’ve like, brainstormed about turning in a burnt end a box before. I just never have done it. I’ve never had the guts to do it, but I was at this point where I was like, do I turn in these slices of flat just because I know that’s what the judges want, even though they’re not good? Am I going to get penalized more for turning in bad meat, or more for turning in something completely different?
And I just made the call right there. I was like, I’m not doing it. And my family was surprised because I’ve never turned in a box without slices. But I just made the call. This is the day I’m risking everything, so why not just risk it for the brisket and leave those slices out of the box and that’s exactly what I did.
So I had the shredded point, and that wasn’t enough to make a very pretty box. So I did have enough point leftover to get six burnt ends out of it. I think I got like 8 or 9 burnt ends. so I slice those up, sauced them, threw them back on the smoker to get just a little bit of caramelization on that sauce.
And I built a box with two rows of three burnt ends with the shredded in the middle. I figured we do that for pork all the time with our money muscle slices and shredded in the middle. So why not? So that’s the box that I turned in. I thought that the flavors were awesome and it was fatty. It was rich.
It was unctuous. Like, that’s what I love about point meat so much. But I knew that some judges are going to open that box and go, what the heck is that? Hey, we have never seen anything like that.
So here’s what happened on my scores for brisket.
Right off the bat appearance. I did get four nines, which is great, but I got two eights, so two people thought, what is this? Either they thought in their minds, like there’s no flat in here, so I’m not going to give them a nine. Or they thought they didn’t want to taste burnt ends.
I don’t know, I don’t know why they gave an eight, but there you go. Two people gave it an eight right off the bat.
Now when it came to taste, it was so weird. Three, nines, one eight and two sevens. So it’s so odd to me that like, three people can say, this tastes perfect and two people can give it a seven. I that’s the part of barbecue that’s challenging when it comes to judging is like, how can they be so far off?
That’s like having three teachers give you an A and two teachers give you a C on the same essay that you turn in for a class project. Like it’s just it’s bonkers.
One person did give me a comment card, though, and they did say that it was too salty. So the person who gave me a seven said it was too salty.
So there’s that. Perhaps it was a little oversalted for their taste buds. Again, I thought it was good, and on a hot day, I tend to go a little bit saltier because judges seem to like that. But that’s what they dinged me for on the taste was the saltiness.
Moving on to tenderness. They weren’t really super fans. I got two nines, but I got three eights and a seven.
So the one judge gave me an eight in appearance, a seven in taste and a seven in tenderness. So I don’t know, I think from the get go they weren’t sold on the box because that’s why they gave it an eight versus a nine an appearance. And I think once they went in they just they weren’t loving the shredded or they weren’t loving the burnt end or they were missing a flat piece.
Or maybe they thought, oh, this person can’t didn’t cook a flat slice properly. Therefore I’m going to dock them, which they’re absolutely not supposed to do. You’re just supposed to put your best meat in the box. And that’s exactly what I did. It was a risk. I think I’ll take that risk again. I still want to try shredded with slices instead of just all point.
Because again, I think that the texture of the shredded is a little bit nicer than a burnt end for those judges who don’t favor burn ends.
And speaking of that, the comment card that I got that said it was too salty, also said it was too mushy and too fatty.
That’s kind of what a burnt end is. And I cooked Snake River Farm’s black, so it wasn’t as fatty as gold, but it’s definitely got a lot more fat into it, which is why I fully rendered it like I cooked the heck out of this to where it was just melted in your mouth again, to them I guess melt in your mouth is mushy.
So there you go. Super risky brisket box. Overall, it scored a 169 which is below average for me. and it landed 18th out of the 35 teams.
Ribs results
All right. It’s time to move on to ribs. And I’m excited for this category because this is the one where I took the most risk because I completely changed the flavor profiles. I did decide to go with Asian ribs, so I did the Saint Louis style ribs. I used my normal injection, but I changed up my ribs. I used my API rub, which is an Asian Pacific Island rub, kind of inspired by some of the flavors of the Philippines.
So that was my overall rub. I hung them on my Hunsaker over Cowboy Charcoal, spritzed them like I always do.
And then in my wrap I used butter, but I also use a Kalbi sauce and more of that API rub. And then once I sauced them, I made a homemade Korean barbecue style sauce with really Asian forward flavors a lot of soy, some gochujang, brown sugar, sesame oil, a lot of those flavor profiles.
I was super, super stoked when I bit into them. The tenderness to me was on point. Flavor was exciting and new and fresh, and I was just so thrilled to put them in the box. I also did a different box arrangement. I did five in the back and one really meaty one up front. Instead of stacking like three on three or four on four or five on five.
So that was a change. and I would say I wasn’t anxious or nervous. I was just excited to see what was going to come back from the judges.
So here’s what happened on the scores.
Appearance I got five nines and one eight. Not sure why I got the eight. You couldn’t really tell at that point that the ribs were any different, that they were Asian ribs. They just looked like standard ribs. But anyway, one judge gave me an eight.
Then when it came to taste. This is where things got weird.
Three judges gave me a perfect nine, two gave me an eight and one gave me a six. So there’s one judge out there who is not a fan of Asian flavored barbecue ribs. Now, I don’t know if they gave me a six because they were like, what the heck? This isn’t what Kansas City barbecue is supposed to taste like.
Or if they just have an aversion to Asian flavor profiles, I really don’t know. I wish that they would have been required to do a comment card. Usually for a six, the table captain tries to have them do a comment card because I’m super perplexed what they didn’t like. In my mind, I’m going to guess that it wasn’t what they expected or what they wanted, which is not what they’re supposed to do.
So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they just didn’t like the taste. But, yeah, it’s unfortunate that they went with a six and that’s at this risk. You know, that’s the fear that we have with taking risks, is that a judge is going to be like, no, this isn’t normal barbecue. I don’t like it as opposed to actually appreciating the flavor and the difference.
As soon as the competition was over and I got my scores from the reps, I immediately looked at ribs and that six just jumped out at me. It kind of made me black out from everything else because I was like a six. Like I was so excited to be trying something different and somebody gave me a six. Like, are the thoughts true?
Are the thoughts true that a judge isn’t ready to accept something so different? Or did my ribs taste bad? So then I decided I need to look at the other scores.
Did all the other judges think that my ribs tasted bad? No. I had three perfect scores. Three, nine, nine nines. So there were judges out there who loved it, appreciated it, maybe valued that it was something different and bold. So that got me excited. So this one judge gave me a six. Three gave me perfect.
When it came to tenderness, I had four nines and two eight, which I think is fair. If anything, they were maybe a little bit over a little too fall off the bone. So an eight. I’m not mad about. but again, I was super stoked to get the three nines. I was shocked, but also kind of not surprised to get the six.
Overall, my score was 173. I was second on my table. The person who took first on my table actually won the Grand Championship, and I landed in ribs at 11th place, and I was only 0.02 points away from getting a call in ribs. So although I’m a little cranky about the judge who decided to give me a six in taste, I am super stoked that they actually performed well enough to almost get a call again, that I was second on my table.
So am I going to try these ribs again? You’re darn right I’m going to try these ribs again. I’m excited that there were several judges who were open to the concept of a rib that tasted different than traditional Kansas City style barbecue.
Dessert results
So with all the meats, I didn’t get a call. I was 13th in chicken, 11th in ribs, 18th in pork and 18th in brisket, which landed me 16th overall. So a little disappointing from that aspect that I didn’t get a call on stage for meats, but I did get several calls in the dessert category.
For the cream pie category, I did a banana pudding pie that got eighth place. But for the fruit pie category, I got second place with my triple berry pie. Surprisingly, the first place fruit pie was a pecan pie, and several of the competitors were like, wait a minute. Last we checked, pecan‚Äôs not a fruit, but it’s fine. It is what it is.
I got second in the fruit category and then in the cake category. I actually took first place with my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. And I got a perfect 180, which was enough to get me the dessert Grand champion. So I did get some calls on stage. They just weren’t in the meat categories this week.
So there you go. I took some risks this week, and I’m so happy that I did, because the feedback that I have gotten since talking about all of this is that other teams are getting excited about making changes themselves.
I heard from some teams who actually heard the podcast and made some changes of their own before the competition. I also heard from teams who are just waiting to find out how I did and how the judges responded, because they have ideas of different things that they want to do, but they too are a little bit nervous to like, shake things up.
But now that they’ve heard me talk about this, they’re kind of intrigued and interested in trying it themselves. So that makes me excited. I’ve also heard from several judges who didn’t necessarily judge my food, but who know all about what I’m doing, and they’re excited. They’re like, yes, we would love to taste new things out there.
So I hope that this is kind of starting a movement, and that more and more people are going to try to be a little bit adventurous, still make good barbecue, but find those flavor profiles that can be different, that are fun for you to create and just get out there and shake things up.
I will say that’s one of the most fun competitions that I’ve done in a while, because I just enjoyed the cooking process. It was different. It was me. I was putting myself in the box and that’s what I had so much fun about. So I really encourage you guys to switch things up to try new things. Whatever you’re passionate about, put that in your box too.
Now, I’m not saying you won’t get that odd six every now and then like I did. You know it’s possible, so be prepared for that. But I think that if enough of us are trying new things and introduce the judges to new things, then they’ll start to be even more open minded to what they receive, and then they’ll judge it based on its merits instead of its expectations.
Unfortunately, I don’t have another KCBS competition until November, which is going to be in Hawaii. So I will still continue to mix things up when I go to Hawaii and whatever next competition I have after that.
As I’m playing around with flavor profiles, I’ll be sure to share some of those recipes on my website.
Leave me a comment, let me know if you’re ready to take a risk. What those risks will be. I love hearing from you guys.
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