Winder, GA pictures and judge report

Winder is a cute little town off of I-85 not too far from Atlanta. I ran up there on Friday night to visit with some teams. The name of the the contest is Jug Tavern which goes way back in history somewhere.







































There were lots of food vendors.


























Doug built the Dawg smoker himself. He also built a 7' chicken smoker that weights 700 lbs!!!!




Our wonderful contest reps...Phillip & Kathy and Ernie & Linda.

Judge report.

Lot's of experienced judges. When the rep asked for any first time judges? No hands went up which is unusual.

Chicken
Our table got 5 entries all bone in, skin on, thighs. 3 entries were dark in color and 2 were noticeably lighter. Each box contained 6 thighs.

All were above average in taste and tenderness! As we talked after scoring we all agreed that they were collectively "awesome". One of the lighter entries had a mustard taste which caught us by surprise but we all liked it.

One was a little salty which I'll attribute to a brine.

Ribs
Again only 5 entries. All spares. 2 were bland..no taste. 2 were good and 1 was awesome. We all agreed that we would kill for a plate of these!

Pork
5 entries. One box had money muscle, pulled, and chunks. One had only MM. 2 had MM and pulled and the last one had pulled and chopped.

One had an over powering taste of vinegar. You could smell it when the table captain opened the box. I did not score it well. The other 4 were just OK on taste. 3 entries were mushy.

Overall we were disappointed.

Brisket
5 entries. 3 were slices and burnt ends and 2 were just slices. One of the just slices box was tough to the point that I could not pull test it. One of the boxes with BE the slice was just OK but the BE was great so it pulled up the taste score from me.

None of the entries "wowed' us.

Due to the impending rain I didn't wait around for awards. Overall impression is that Winder does a great job and cooks and judges I talked to were happy.

Oh...one note....during the rep. talk before we started we were told to curb any fraternization with the teams on Sat. We were told that talking to teams is OK..just don't stop walking. Something different.

DawgPhan said:

heard several judges grumbling about the awful food this weekend. dont know what was up with that. We cooked solid food and took home so low scores for the trouble.

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What is your team name?

DawgPhan said:

I cook with Terre and Chris on Kudzu Q.

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Yea I noticed you guys were down in the ranking for chicken and pork.

DawgPhan said:

why can't I disagree with the cards? If I had gotten a card in chicken that mentioned the skin, I would have agreed. When I saw the 2 7's in tenderness in chicken, I knew exactly what it was and knew that we got lucky with the 1 9 we got in tenderness.

Ribs being way way overcooked is something I would have noticed when I sampled, handled, and boxed those ribs. Combine it with a 7 in AP and I know that the guy was off. Follow that up with a little second hand story about what happened on 1 particular rib table, with 1 particular judge and I think it paints a pretty clear picture.

All anecdotal, some second hand, but I know when the food is good, bad, or really bad. The ribs maybe were not perfect, but they were not way way overcooked.

6 ribs, in a row from the same rack.

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Would you be willing to post the actual scores from the 6 judges? I am curious to see them.

Pigs on Fire said:

7-8-5
8-8-9
9-9-9
9-9-8
8-9-8
8-7-7

We got two cards on being overdone. One card looked EXACTLY like Hicktown's...almost like they were printed at home prior.

So that's three 9's in taste, two 9's in tenderness, two 8's in tenderness.

Looking at the Rib scores, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that two competitors in the top 6 overall were at the same table.

It's over, it wasn't our weekend. BTDT...

The ribs this past weekend were just as good, if not slightly better in taste, than Kennesaw. Tenderness was probably equal.

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Thanks for sharing your scores.

For others out their viewing this post...I'm a cook since 2007 who decided that this year I would try to judge 30 contests to get my masters. I'll come up short my about 8 contests!

With that..I'm trying to figure out what others turn in and what the AVERAGE judge likes. So...this is my opinion....

1. Judges like to hide their score card (myself included) but from what I have seen a 2 point swing is VERY common. The 7 in taste from judge 6 has the largest impact but since there is no standard to judge by...he thought the taste was just "above average" where 2 judges thought "excelent".

2. The 7 from judge 1 in appearance maybe questionable but again without a standard what does he judge by? As a cook I tend to give a lot of 9's where my table mates give 8's.

3. The 5 from judge 1...who knows??? I can tell you that this year I have bitten into a rib and get a clean bite...while the judge next to me gets a complete pull away.

Maybe...just maybe...with the new KCBS scoring system that will track scores by table and judge will be useful in the future. It's hard to tell until there is enough data available.

I know it doesn't help much...but...that's what I think.

This weekend instead of judging I'll be competing at Atlanta so if any Brethren want to stop by we can bitch about those dang judges together. :-D