Judging Question

[BrooklynQ]

Charlie brougth up an interesting point...

Chefs choice in Windsor VT was interesting because they were required to use the Harpoon beer in their sauce. Of the 6 I tasted everyone used IPA which made it a very difficult judging for me because I do not like the taste of IPA at all. It would have been nice to be a the table that had the Dark or wheat beer oh well. I put my dislike aside and tried to be fair about the results but on some it was really tough to do.

So how do you fairly judge something that you just don't like the taste of?

[nancee]

we used munich dark. guess we didn't hit the right table<g>

AND we had a Fing incredible porterhouse...

[Sawdustguy]

I know they don't do this but it would be nice if there were alternate or standby judge to judge in this situation. If someone doesn't like something an alternate could be called to the table to judge that sample only.

[LostNation]

We turned in ABT's with a chipotle ranch,Oatmeal Stout sauce. The turds came in the top 5 and were pretty good, I must have eaten 10 of them.

[smokincracker]

We turned in ABT's with a chipotle ranch,Oatmeal Stout sauce. The turds came in the top 5 and were pretty good, I must have eaten 10 of them.
Nice presentation & good color
I bet they were awsome.

[CharlieBeasley]

Damn I was at the wrong table all the way around. Rob I think it is like sauce or other things we are asked to judge that is not our favorite. I think I was successful at putting the IPA taste aside and judge the quality of the remaining ingredients as presented. Was I perfect probably not (Believe it or not I am human) but this was a required ingredient so I know they used a Harpoon beer in the ones I had and as it was everything on my table I was at least consistent not to devalue or over compensate. Rambling but it was how I handled it?

[BrooklynQ]

C'mon guys - this is a serious question. Give it some thought.

How do you judge something fairly if you don't like the taste of it?

I don't like coffee, if it's in a sauce or rub it becomes the dominant flavor for me. Cilantro can do that to me too.

Parrothead doens't like mustard and can taste it when I can't. (Easy now) At one of the Grill King contests we did a rack of ribs with mustard and he picked it out right away. I remember him saying how the mustard cut thru everything else for him.

THe published judges instructions by KCBS don't give a lot to go by and leave a lot of room for personal interuptation.


"Judge the sample the way it is submitted.
Judge each item on its own merit.
Score all the samples for appearance of the meat
Score each entry for taste and tenderness/texture"

So I ask again, How do you judge something fairly if you don't like the taste of it?

[parrothead]

Too be completely fair, my tastes have to be taken into account. If mustard lands in front of me I will give it a low score. I don't like it so I don't like the ribs or whatever. You can have the best ribs in the world but if they are too hot for a wimpy judge he will not score it very high because that is his personnal taste. That is why there are lots of competitions. If it didn't matter who got your ribs then there would be one competition every year and that would be the end of it.

[Sawdustguy]

I think the KCBS expects this to happen. Maybe thats why the lowest score is thrown out.

[djmarko]

Having 6 judges judging the entries should negate situations like that. Does it work all the time? Probably not. Does it work most of the time? I hope so.

[Westexbbq]

Excellent thoughts all around, 6 judges, multiple tastes, they even try to break up teams of couples, friends etc to not be at the same table, low score thrown out, judges reviewed if their scores are consistently off from the rest of the numbers, so fairness is most likely to be there most of the time.
However, if the product really is bad, no matter what the assorted and varied personal tastes and or biases might be, it'll still get a low mark.
If I don't like it and it so bad that the rest of my table feel the same way, hey, maybe it's time to try another recipe.
Wes