[Lake Dogs]

To sauce, or not to sauce, that is the question.

A few years back in the South East, judging MIM (now MBN), we rarely saw sauce.
More often that not (then), when we did, the sauce didn't compliment the meat,
often was overpowering, and generally brought the score down (not always, but
most times).

This past year I noticed a profound change (again, in MBN) and most everything
had some amount of sauce on it.

The sauce you choose should compliment the meat (no matter what sanctioning
body you're entering). If it overpowers the meat, or masks the meat flavor, you're
likely to get scored down. KCBS mentions puddling of sauce that's not allowed. So,
you surely can over-sauce, even if it lets the meat flavor shine through.

I suggest looking at the pics presented now & again around here. The one I liked
the best was plowboys about a year ago; an absolutely beautiful pork entry, with
the money muscle up top, sliced, and what I'd call a medium amount of sauce on
the outside (not drenched, but not extremely light either). He then had a nice
mixture of pulled pork pieces arranged with some bark, then drissled <spelling> some
sauce over the top. Again, wasn't drenched, wasn't on every piece, but there was
sauce poured sparingly over the top.