Judging Rings and Garnish

jmoney7269 said:

Let me refine my words a little. That was when I first strarted experimenting With TQ a while back. If you put a thick coat of rub on, you will get a minuscule smoke ring when cooking H&F. Furthermore half of my comps are unsanctioned and the right use of TQ helps. It's not my problem people aren't serious about BBQ as I am. Further than that, if we weren't technologically advanced as we are now, and someone didn't spill the beans, you would still be scoring brisket with a pretty smoke ring high. Hell, this one was cooked in the oven!

And in just sayin BRO that if your a judge and your marking down scores on something your told not to judge on in the first place, I'm glad I don't compete in your sanctioning body. Down here there is no appearance Because appearance makes no difference on how it tastes, makes no difference on how tender it is, makes no difference on the overall enjoyment of the meat being sampled by the judge.

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jmoney7269 said:

How about this one? Chappel hill VFD grand champs SANCTIONED! 1st ribs out of 108 entrys! 3rd chicken 9th brisket and we used TQ on the damn thang! Oh gotta throw in 2nd chefs choice. That serious enough for you bud? Where are your major GC trophys? I got plenty of them? Remember I only been a contributing member for a few months on here and txbbqrub forum.




The same rib that won that won the Bellville country music festival 38 teams non sanctioned


What else do you wanna see? Oh I got more
140 teams. Used my Famous rib glaze and bean recipe. 1st beans btw which were a core Categeory


Washington county fair king of coals sanctioned. 28 out of 30 possible sanctioned 1st ribs and brisket, 3rd chicken


Now that we got that out of the way of me and our team Being crappy cooks Because half of our cookoffs are non sanctioned. What now! Are we worthy now ti give our opinion on what good bbq is? I obviously know what the heck I'm talkin about. If I missed something, please fill me in!

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jmoney7269 said:

Amen brotha! I'm not there to get judged on perception, Im there to take home
Money Because my chit tastes good!!! No BBQ snob here! And any of to that think that you have the right to judge down on a smoke ring when your directed not to judge on at all to begin with, you definitely need some
Re education on morals also. Teams spend $1000's on cookoffs. Don't cost you a thing to judge

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jmoney7269 said:

2, one dry, one glazed. Not my problem I used the allowances to my advantage.


Dude I got so many trophies from cookoffs, bowling, archery, and Billiards I sometimes debate throwing them all away and starting over. Good catch though I didn't even notice it

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jmoney7269 said:

we got our invitational papers also,just declined after we figured we would spend over $1k in gas, and they wanted like another $1k to upgrade our spot to hold our RV. We considered it, now we are not. We have no sponsors like Pitmaker and texas pepper jellies do to go to an event and cook All that food and give it all away. I go there to cook my food, take a walk of fame or take the walk of shame. Done plenty of both.

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Counselor, I think you are going to have a hard time being certified as a expert witness in the court of public opinion. The more you told us how good you are, the more difficult it became for me to swallow.

You participated in taking this conversation from garnish and smoke ring as it relates to scores, to lack of sponsorship for yourself and what others receive. Besides the fact that it's not relevant the argument borders on nonsense. Texana, aka Craig Sharry, aka Texas Pepper Jelly is paying his own expenses including the pits on the back of his trailer. He had the same choice you did, and chose to spend the money. I've got no clue what the deal is with Pitmaker, because it's not my place to ask George or Victor about their financial arrangements nor do I care. They've put themselves in the position to have the funds to do it, it wasn't given to them.

You received the most input, that was not supportive, from fellow Texans? As a Texan that has cooked both in Texas and KCBS I've formed a general opinion based on your posts in this thread and others....beginning with your desire for a showdown with Johnny Trigg. Opinion, stated as fact does not fly with many members of the jury. Until that changes I'm afraid that I'll perceive you as "J Let Me Tell You How Good I Am Money". Talk less, cook more, let your results speak for themselves and that experience will translate to credibility.

JS-TX said:

Who and what bbq org says to ignore a smoke ring or no smoke ring? Like I've said BEFORE, Tx. gulf coast and IBCA don't even mention it. The only thing on appearance they say is "Does it look appealing, BBQ you want to eat?" A fake looking smoke ring that overshadows the overall appearance is not very appetizing IMO. But if your chit is good then you have nothing to worry about (re-read what I've already posted) and why focus on a smoke ring anyway? You keep saying judges are told to ignore it anyway. Don't get pissed, just keep doing what you are doing, most judges don't know you can fake a smoke ring.

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KCBS. The reason is that it can be artificially created using TQ and similar products.

Oh my, oh my. We recently heard a great deal of similar talk in Texas, at an invitational rib contest. "Salad" was not allowed. We were told repeatedly that "if it needs sauce, give it a toss". Having never cooked in Texas before, we of course knew that Texas is the only *real* bbq, and that Texans *know* good BBQ.

Imagine our surprise when we won. :shock:

Back to the OP...
I'm a comp noob with no credentials to speak of. The garnish issue is totally hypocritical, IM lowly O. I'm of the understanding that the garnish, or lack thereof, shouldn't affect a cook's score. However, when you scan the criticisms on this site along with BBQcritic, almost all will mention the garnish. How can a judge comment on the garnish if they were supposed to ignore it? I see comments like too low, too sparse in an area, not an even "frame," etc. For something that shouldn't matter, it gets a lot of attention. It is obvious, to me anyway, that judges are looking extensively at the garnish. It takes effort for a judge to determine if your garnish "frame" is uneven, for example. If a judge is actively comparing the size of the top row garnish to the bottom, he/she is burning calories on criteria that shouldn't influence their opinion. I have a hard time believing that a judge who has evaluated the garnish to this level of detail is just going to discard his evaluation. It WILL influence his score.

So the message that garnish is immaterial is not resonating with the judges. I think that this falls on KCBS training.

Knowing this, a cook can whine/bitch/complain (sorta like I did above) and lose, or adapt and pretend that you are being scored on presentation and not appearance. Because you are.

The reality is, you get so little time to really judge a boxes appearance, it walks by you, and sometimes rather quickly, maybe a few seconds to see the entire thing. If the meat really rocks, it hardly matters what the greenery looks like, as the judges (all meat eaters) will be looking at the meat. If the meat is blah, then their eyes will wander. But, sometimes, despite your best efforts, the meat does not really rock, that is when a few points, or fractions thereof, just might lift you up a spot or two.

And you can control garnish absolutely with some preparation. There is rarely a reason for a bad garnish. Meat appearance is much tougher. Since the rules allow garnish, and really, you pretty much have to do it, why not work at getting the easiest thing to control right. I happen to think it looks nice to have it in there. Although, show me a box filled with really nice ribs or great chicken, I won't see the greenery at all.

DivaHerself said:

Oh my, oh my. We recently heard a great deal of similar talk in Texas, at an invitational rib contest. "Salad" was not allowed. We were told repeatedly that "if it needs sauce, give it a toss". Having never cooked in Texas before, we of course knew that Texas is the only *real* bbq, and that Texans *know* good BBQ.

Imagine our surprise when we won. :shock:

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But how was the Tex Mex?

Tex Mex was awesome, of course, and I've spent this week reverse-engineering a wonderful green sauce we had. The boys have gone through a half-gallon so far!

Its the education systems fault.. you know we are required to take Texas History like 3 times....

Hub said:

Currently, the only feedback to judges is via the Table Captain who, in some circumstances, inform new judges if their scores are high or low compared to the rest of the table. New software will allow for judge tracking in the future.

Hub

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KCBS table captains are NOT suppose to tell the judges how to or how not to score.... that is how I was taught anyway.....

landarc said:

If I am going to judge a piece of meat, or a box, or a plate of food, I am going to take a look to see if it is appetizing, and if there is a smoke ring, or not, it all comes into play if the food looks good. For me, I don't need to see a smoke ring for a piece of meat to look good, but, there has to be something. I might well judge down for a piece of meat with a large smoke ring, not because of the ring, but, because overall, it just doesn't do it for me.

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"I might judge down for a piece of meat with a large smoke ring"... So, you are not judging for what is presented to you, but to what you like or don't like? That is a no-no... judge what is presented to you ! ! !

landarc said:

The reality is, you get so little time to really judge a boxes appearance, it walks by you, and sometimes rather quickly, maybe a few seconds to see the entire thing. If the meat really rocks, it hardly matters what the greenery looks like, as the judges (all meat eaters) will be looking at the meat. If the meat is blah, then their eyes will wander. But, sometimes, despite your best efforts, the meat does not really rock, that is when a few points, or fractions thereof, just might lift you up a spot or two.

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When I table captain, I wait until I get the nod from the judge that he/she has had a good look at the presentation before them, and then go to the next. It might take a couple of extra seconds, but I know that they have had a chance to judge properly.

kwas68 said:

Back to the OP...
I'm a comp noob with no credentials to speak of. The garnish issue is totally hypocritical, IM lowly O. I'm of the understanding that the garnish, or lack thereof, shouldn't affect a cook's score. However, when you scan the criticisms on this site along with BBQcritic, almost all will mention the garnish. How can a judge comment on the garnish if they were supposed to ignore it? I see comments like too low, too sparse in an area, not an even "frame," etc. For something that shouldn't matter, it gets a lot of attention. It is obvious, to me anyway, that judges are looking extensively at the garnish. It takes effort for a judge to determine if your garnish "frame" is uneven, for example. If a judge is actively comparing the size of the top row garnish to the bottom, he/she is burning calories on criteria that shouldn't influence their opinion. I have a hard time believing that a judge who has evaluated the garnish to this level of detail is just going to discard his evaluation. It WILL influence his score.

So the message that garnish is immaterial is not resonating with the judges. I think that this falls on KCBS training.

Knowing this, a cook can whine/bitch/complain (sorta like I did above) and lose, or adapt and pretend that you are being scored on presentation and not appearance. Because you are.

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My take for what it's worth Kwas....

When you go to an art museum, all the paintings, or at least most, are in frames, correct? Now, not too many folks will pay much attention, if any, to the frames, but usually, the frame is picked so that the art it's framing "pops"

So, if I'm looking at a painting, and the frame does it's job and makes the art look better than if it weren't there, it's done it's job. But I'm not going to critique by saying they should have used knotty pine instead of cedar

On the other hand, I don't think I'd lose sleep if KCBS did away with garnish, but I don't see that happening

As to the whole smoke ring thing, I always cook comp briskets hot and fast, and always have at least a 1/4" smoke ring on them, without any chemicals other than what naturally occurs in the meat, and coals. I've tasted a number of briskets that were exposed to TQ (cook told me it was in the rub) and it tasted crappy. But technically, using TQ isn't against any rule. But other than adding color, what's the point. Brisket doesn't need curing unless you're making corned beef (edie: or sausage!)

jmoney7269 said:

It leaves a hammy taste if left on too long from the curing process. I can see why it would be horrible if left on the whole cook

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But if all you're using it for is an artificially enhanced smoke ring, what's the point?

TQ is for making cured meat. Other than corned beef or sausage, it really has no legitimate place in a brisket preparation

S&S, I agree. Good garnish does make the meat look better.

I think the analogy doesn't work completely because there are a disproportionate amount of comments on garnish vs. a painting's frame. When I've gone to the museum I have never commented on a frame. I would think that the majority of people are looking at the painting or "meat" in this analogy. My guess is that if you went to a painting critic website, they would talk about colors, brush strokes, lighting, shadows, etc. I highly doubt the frame would get as much press as garnish does in BBQ critiques. One could argue that the frames in museums are done well and therefore aren't commented on. But BBQ critics will even compliment good garnish.

I'm not saying it is necessarily wrong, but it is hypocritical. For something that is supposed to be ignored, it gets way too much attention. Something that is getting that much attention has to be affecting scores. So just call it what it is - presentation - and be done with it.

I also wanted to make the point that "appearance" is the easiest judging category to nail down. In my first comp, my appearance scores averaged a point over my taste and tenderness scores. That's because I knew what was expected because I was able to get very valuable feedback on my practice rounds. Not knowing that a sloppily garnished box is going to score poorly just indicates the cook didn't do his homework.

I would think that the majority of poor appearance scores are due to unappetizing appearance of the meat. :hand:

No doubt, but, as others have pointed out, at least in KCBS, it's unlikely garnish will be going away. I know what you mean though, all the tutorials for perfect putting greens, etc. Sometimes it seems like the meat becomes an afterthought.

But I think, right or wrong, one of the things that separates the elite teams, who win week in and week out, from the rest of us, is their attention to every little detail, and, for better or worse, garnish IS a detail, and likely an important one, at least in KCBS
We can debate fairness or judge re-education all winter long (but lets don't!) it won't change.

As to the smoke ring, that's one that, in my opinion, should be open to some instruction from a rep where appropriate. KCBS rules say it is not to be considered, and using that criterion, if a judge is heard saying he judged down because it "looked fake", or up because it "had such a beautiful smoke ring" , should receive an onsite rule refresher. If I were a table captain, I would certainly at least mention such a comment to a rep.

S&S...Right on. Why would you want to lose a point from a judge or two if a good looking green would get it for you? It is all the details and that is why my wife prepares and mows the greens. I am not a decorator, she is. I actually think she takes a lot of pride in them. She always wants me to take a picture of it before I place the meat on it. :biggrin1: Maybe that's so she can say...hey what was wrong with the appearance of the meat you cooked if we get a low appearance score?