Pork shoulder presentation help

[Notsob17]

I have my first competition next week in Alabama. For the pork shoulder competition do most people put pulled and sliced? Should I slice the money muscle, and include some chunks, and pulled? This is not a sanctioned event or anything, its is more a backyard competition, but there are 50 teams involved. We have turn in boxes, but garnishes are not allowed.

 

[Notsob17]

If anybody has pictures of what a typical turn in box looks like, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[chilerelleno]

There are pics and videos of presentation boxes all over YouTube

 

[Notsob17]

I value the opinion of an experienced bbq'r on here as opposed to someone on google or youtube. If we turned to google and youtube for everything we wouldn't need this forum. Thanks for your help

 

[Johnny Ray]

My team cooked on the KCBS contest trail for 14 seasons. My cooking partner has pictures of every turn in box we had. I don’t have a single picture.

With that being said, put your best meat in the box. If the MM, chunks and pull all turn out PERFECT then by all means put some of each in.

If some of these do not turn out PERFECT then do not put them in.

You will be judged by what you put in the box. Don’t let a less than great entry drag your score down.

My .02 worth,
Johnny Ray

 

[chilerelleno]

I value the opinion of an experienced bbq'r on here as opposed to someone on google or youtube. If we turned to google and youtube for everything we wouldn't need this forum. Thanks for your help

There are several BBQ competition champions that have videos posted of such to help other folks.
Don't disregard their value.
And never limit yourself to just one source of information.

 

[bbqbrett]

My team cooked on the KCBS contest trail for 14 seasons. My cooking partner has pictures of every turn in box we had. I don’t have a single picture.

With that being said, put your best meat in the box. If the MM, chunks and pull all turn out PERFECT then by all means put some of each in.

If some of these do not turn out PERFECT then do not put them in.

You will be judged by what you put in the box. Don’t let a less than great entry drag your score down.

My .02 worth,
Johnny Ray

Listen to this right here. I don't have anywhere even close to the comp experience listed here only having done a couple. I do know good advice when I hear it though.

 

[unclebubbas bbq]

I have judged 13 KCBS contests to date. Most competitors will do pulled, sliced money muscle and also the horn. That said don't put anything in the box you don't think is great. Judges are taught to only judge on what is presented to you not what is or isn't there. We are also told not to judge based on what our preferences are, just on it's own merits. Also go to utube and check out a video bt Harry Soo, he does a great job of teaching how to prepare, cook and present turn in boxes

 

[thirdeye]

The best "first contest" advice I got was to find box photos we liked (I went to BBQ Critic) and then send a copies of the photos to Walgreens for a glossy enlargement to have in the cook area when building boxes. This really helped. We kept the pork box simple and used chunks from the horn, and slices from the money muscle end (the MM and one of the large tubes).

Smokin D@wg@77, an online friend on another forum started competing last year in a backyard division in Florida, and they can't use garnish, which is harder than you think. His team is really kicking it and his boxes are looking better every contest. I think this is from his 5th contest. I also like the contrast of the black boxes.