Not dismissing anyones experience, but
thirdeye
has the most comp experience I know of here and has given me some awesome guidance. Maybe he’ll swing by!
Thanks for the kind words. Most of my comp experience has been judging KCBS events, this is my 13th year. And during that time I've cooked with a few teams, entered backyard style events, and also some charity events.
I'm thinking about entering my first rib cookoff on memorial day weekend. This will be a small rib cookoff near our hunting camp in Arkansas. Each team will be given their rack of ribs at 7am. The ribs will need to cooked and ready to be presented by 12 (Noon). That's roughly 4-4.5 hrs cook time. I have an offset smoker, a MES-40 smoker, & a Traeger pellet smoker at my disposal. I'm curious, which smoker and technique would you use for the cook duration to give you the best chances of placing? I appreciate any feedback..
This is totally doable and with a couple of practice runs you will be all set with a time table. On one hand, it's a good equalizer that all the ribs will come from the same source.
Are they back ribs or belly ribs? Also,
are there any printed rules you can share? And,
who (and how many people) will be doing the judging?
This might sound crazy, and no disrespect intended... but you should cook with the judges in mind. For example, one of the hardest rib events I cooked at had celebrity judges (the food editor from the newspaper, the chief of police, a disc jockey, and a bank VP that was a sponsor), so a huge cross section of people. And this will sound
really crazy, but you are not trying to impress every judge, but rather not offend even one because one low score can knock you out of the running where 4 above average scores might be a win.
Excess is what offends people.... too smoky, too salty, too spicy, too sweet, too tough & chewy and sometimes too tender.
The best way to describe a high scoring rib is one that looks appealing and makes you want to eat it. And when you do eat it, it should be tender, moist and have a balanced flavor (think savory) between the smoke, seasonings and the sauce.
The basic technique is to season, smoke, wrap, and glaze. The smoke step is for flavor. The wrap is for tenderness, and the glaze is for appeal and to seal the deal. It's up to you which competition tips and tricks you want to use based on the 'rules' and the 'judges'.
Here are two videos that cover it all. The Harry Soo video covers many approaches that work. The Montana Outlaw video explains a very common method that even backyard cooks often use.
Be advised: at the pro level, judges usually take one bite then score before moving to the next rib. So pro cooks use a tick more of everything to get their attention. If your judges will be eating full ribs, you might want to tone things down a bit.