Why very sweet ribs?

Smoking Piney said:

Qualification: I'm not a comp cooker, but I'm curious.

Questions: How did judging evolve to focus on very sweet tasting ribs? Is that even a trend with judges? Isn't tangy, savory, spiced in other interesting ways and still tasting the meat a positive factor?

KCBS seems to be a controlling body in most judging. Is this how they train their judges........."deep red shine like a new car and be sweet with a little back end heat"?

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I'm assuming it evolved to somewhat sweet because that's the least offensive to most people and your trying to please 6 complete strangers and not the 6 people in your backyard. Tangy or "spiced in other interesting" ways is more likely to offend 1 or more out of the 6 than sweet. I've done quite well in the past at comps with savory and the ribs I turn in now aren't "very sweet" or candyish, they're balanced (sweet, heat and other flavors) and you can still taste the meat. I think if you add too much and overwhelm the meat, which you can just as easily do with tangy or interesting spices, you're doomed to low taste scores. The sweet is there, but it's not overwhelming.

As for KCBS training the judges, a friend went through the judging class this year, they don't tell you what to look for regarding color or taste. They offer guidelines, but red and sweet aren't really among those guidelines. Honestly, I don't get the appeal of overly red ribs, I find brown ribs to be more appealing.

After taking the Gateway Drum class this year I moved away from really sweet ribs to a much more balanced recipe, and we've had much better results.

^^^^

I think the sweet notion rumor keeps getting spread from those that haven't tried a bunch of teams ribs. The new gen stuff (from the last few years) that I've tasted aren't overly sweet. Ours are more savory/balanced flavors (though we haven't competed as much the last 2 years).

I still think the first season of pitmasters (which is awesome) did lend a good bit to the "sweet rap" that most people think is true because they caught a few sound bites from the contestants.

To be fair, even "balanced" comp ribs are a good deal sweeter than most restaurant/backyard ribs, at least here in Texas.

Honey for the money.
I cook for what the judges like.

We use plenty of kayro, honey, brown sugar, turbinado in our rib program, but the end result isn't overly sweet at all. Keep the sauce a thin glaze and it compliments the sweet pork flavor rather than cover it up.

shares said:

We use plenty of kayro, honey, brown sugar, turbinado in our rib program, but the end result isn't overly sweet at all. Keep the sauce a thin glaze and it compliments the sweet pork flavor rather than cover it up.

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Same here, we use a very sweet wrap, but the rub and sauce we use aren't overly sweet. I'd say our recipe trends a little to the savory side more so than sweet.

The best advice I got for doing peoples choice ribs at a contest was "if you think your ribs are too sweet, add some more sugar". Now my ribs have sugar in the rub, Karo and molasses in the sauce. It makes my teeth hurt just making them. Last contest 3 weeks ago, I cooked 20 racks of ribs and got 1st place peoples choice ribs :tape:. Somebody likes them sweet but not me.

Comp ribs are probably sweeter than what people cook in their backyards but overall I don't necessarily agree that they are overly sweet. It takes more than just sweet to win.

I want a good bite of tender, juicy, smoky pork. Sweet or savory, I don't much care, although I agree that an even balance of the two is usually best.

If I have to work to gnaw some miserly morsel of meat off the bone, that's not a good sign. Too many of the ribs that I see in competition are cut thin and look dry or even burnt. If they look dry, they usually are dry.

Not sure I've seen many red ribs. At contests around Kansas City, the popular color lately has been Blues Hog dark.

Certain trends go through phases. The candy bar rib was really big a few years ago, but I think the trend is turning toward more savory and complex flavors. I figure it's the same thing as muffin-tin chicken. Lots of folks started doing it after picking it up from other people out on the barbecue trail, but it's rare to see now.

There is another reason sweeter entries tend to do well in competitions, though. If you look into the taste tests between Coke and Pepsi that Pepsi ran in the 80s, most folks seemed to prefer Pepsi. However, it's always based on that first sip. Researchers have actually gone back and studied this reaction and have found that the more participants drank, the more they preferred Coke to Pepsi because Pepsi is a sweeter product, but that initial sip, we prefer the sweetness. Something to do with how we're programmed to seek out calorie-dense foods, but you can find plenty of info on it if you're interested with some Googling.

Food science stuff - sweet/sugary foods release the neurotransmitter dopamine, which tells the body this is good/pleasurable. Add in the psychology sweet/sugary foods are typically one in your memories about pleasurable/good memories ie - reward for good behavior is candy growing up, life milestones such as birthdays, graduations, marriage have some sort of cake/pastry/sweets.

Then add in the typical American diet which is more than 100+ grams of sugar a day, sweet is now the norm. Now when cooking for 6 judges to really make your flavors pop for 1 bite you have to really over exaggerate the flavors. Which is why ribs have turned more "candy" style. I see cooks here saying they use Karo, honey, brown sugar, turbinado sugar on their ribs, but their ribs aren't "overly" sweet. Ask anyone that regulates their sugar intake to the recommended 25grams (6tsp) a day to try a competition rib as described above and they will say the ribs are super sweet/candied. Give it to someone that takes in more than 100grams of sugar a day, and the ribs are just slightly above their "sweet/sugary" tastes and are wow'd by the flavors.

The "overly" sweet concept is very subjective. Over the last 5 months I have avoided added sugar foods. I typically eat lots of whole foods and when I want something sweet I eat fruit. Now whenever I eat a piece of cake, a piece of candy, or even drink a soda. I can only take in a little bit of it because they have massive amounts of sugar in it and I can taste every bit of it. A soda, cookie, cake are all typically very cloyingly sweet too me. A lot of the commercial rubs and sauces used in competition BBQ I find too sweet for me even though my fiance and friends think it is fine. This is why when cooking at home I actually make my own rubs and sauces where I can control the amount of sugars and control the flavors more.

^^Excellent point aawa. I'm glad I found this thread. I thought I might be one of the few trying to comprehend this trend. Case in point: At my 9 year old son's request, we did our first comp last year. I prefer good smoke over sweetness. We didn't place, but got to try the first place winner's ribs. They were shiny like candy, very tender and very sweet, but tasted like zero smoke touched them. So I learned that it's not what you like that wins comps, but it's what wins comps that wins comps. The BEST part of the whole experience was seeing a comment card that one judge left for me. It read: "9.5/10 - Best ribs I had all day. Great smoke and flavor." That guy understood my flavor style.

Here are some of the popular sauces used in BBQ competitions today and different sweetners that are used and their sugar content

Head Country Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 26g sugar
Blues Hog Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 22g sugar
Blues Hog Tennessee red 1 serving = 2tbs 2g sugar
Sweet Swine o Mine 1 serving = 2tbs 14g sugar
Plowboys Sweet 180 1 serving = 2 tbs 18g sugar
(couldn't find nutritional information on other sauces like Next Big Thing, Swamp Boys Original, Butcher BBQ, or suckle busters)

Karo Syrup 1 serving = 1 tbs 16g sugar
Honey 1 serving = 1 tbs 17g sugar
Brown sugar 1 serving = 1 tsp 2.9g sugar (3 tsp = 1 tbs)
Turbinado sugar 1 serving = 1 tsp 4.5g sugar (3 tsp = 1tbs)
Sorghum syrup 1 serving = 1 tbs 15.8g sugar

Soda Sugar Content for Reference
Coca Cola 1 serving = 8oz 26g sugar
Pepsi 1 serving = 8oz 27g sugar
Dr. Pepper 1 serving = 8oz 26g sugar

Candy Bar Sugar Content for reference
Snickers 1 serving = 1.56oz bar 20g sugar
Milkyway 1 serving = 2oz bar 35g sugar
Hersey bar 1 serving = 1.5oz bar 25g sugar

Now think about how much bbq sauce and sweetners go onto competition ribs. Anybody that says their rib isn't "candied" has a very skewed view of what candied is.

I'm not condemning competition ribs. They provide a lot of flavor and the winners are a balance of sweet, savory, and heat. I am just trying to illustrate how much sweetness goes onto ribs compared to Soda and Candy.

I never would have guessed Head Country had more sugar than BH.

Right on Q said:

I never would have guessed Head Country had more sugar than BH.

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aawa said:

Here are some of the popular sauces used in BBQ competitions today and different sweetners that are used and their sugar content

Head Country Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 26g sugars
Blues Hog Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 22g sugars

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Are you sure your calculations are correct on the sugar content above.

The bottles show a much wider gap on sugar content... See labels below

Blues Hog Original 2 Tbs 14g sugar
Head Country Original 2 Tbs 5g sugar

Just trying to see how you came up with your calculations:

I though maybe you accidentally mixed the percentile of sugar with grams, but the calculations are not even near that number. Then I thought maybe you were possibly referring to grains (weight) and not grams but that doesn't match either, 1 gram = 15.43... grains.

Head Country Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 26g sugar
According to the label, a single serving size is 2 tablespoons as you indicated (30 grams) and if it contained 26 grams of sugar that would mean that the sauce is 86.7% sugar, it's just not possible. If it's 5 grams as the label says, then it's 16.7% sugar.

Blues Hog Original 1 serving = 2 tbs 22g sugar
According to the label a single serving size is also 2 tablespoons (30 gram) and if it contained 22 grams of sugar that would mean that the sauce is 73.4% sugar. While it is incredibly sweet and thick, I just don't think the sugar content is that high. If it's 14 grams as the label says, then it's 46.7% sugar.

The label of Blues Hog Tennessee Red also indicates it contains 14 grams of sugar as opposed to the 2 grams you have listed in your post above.

I looked up the nutrition labels online for the different sauces since I don't have the bottles on hand.

I can't see the picture you linked with the bottle labels.

If others could take pictures of the lables of the bottles and post them here that would definitely be more accurate than me googling them.