rib tips in competition

rookiedad

is Blowin Smoke!
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Location
patchogu...
i make rib tips from the trimming of st. louis ribs using kind of the same process as burnt ends. i was thinking about incorporating them in a rib box like burnt ends with brisket. has anyone tried this? interested in what judges would think if they got this in a box along with the ribs.
 
I think that you'd better check with a Rep on that one. I know that ribs must be turned in with the bone attatched, one of the pointers that I heard Mike Lake give to a new judges' class was that if the ribs were de-boned & then put back in the box, then the bones would be legal but the meat would be a "foriegn object" thus making it a DQ. Maybe if the cartalige were left in it would work ???
 
I wouldn't do it. Rib tips are a pain to eat if you leave the cartilage in, illegal in the box if you don't.
 
Cartilage is not bone so it's illegal. Now if you cooked a full spare and left it whole and put in 6 bones with tips attached that would probably be legal but I doubt it would score well.
 
I think you would die a fiery death with that one. :becky:
 
I know it is definitely illegal down here in the FBA because you can only have whole ribs in the box. Based on my understanding of the KCBS rules, the juice definitely wouldn't be worth the squeeze there either.
 
rib tips rock! one reason I cook spares
but...I always thought they were more of a Chi-Town thing.thought everyone else considered them scrap..even if they were legal in comps I wouldnt take the chance
 
If I remember correctly this same question was raised at our CBJ class in February, and Mike Lake said that they would not be legal. I may be mistaken but it sticks in my head for some reason...
 
I'm not sure how it could be illegal, if you have at least 6 bones (ribs) in the box. If you have the 6 bones and add rib tips, how is that illegal? Don't get me wrong, I would never do that, but looking at the rule, I do not see how it can be illegal.
 
Here's something else to consider: We had a conversation with a judge last weekend in which he stated, "If you put it in the box, I'm going to try it and score you on it".

His point was that you could theoretically lower your score, say if your ribs are great, but your tips aren't so hot. He would try both and "combine" the scores. I'd never thought about it that way before he mentioned it.
 
Woody's judge is correct. You get an overall score on all the items in the box, assuming their is enough for each judge to get a sample. And you always want to have enough of each type of meat for every judge to try, otherwise you can get really weird scores that are hard to interpret.

For a hypothetical example, if you turn in a box with three slices of brisket and three burnt ends, what can you deduce if your scores vary widely from judge to judge?

The "bone in" rule applies to each item in the box. All KCBS meat rules apply to all portions not just some. So if you had boneless rib tips included, the box would be deemed a DQ, just as if you had a pork box that had pulled from a wholely cooked butt plus slides from a parted and then cooked butt.
 
Last edited:
Ribs shall include the bone. Country style ribs are prohibited. That is the rule. I had the CBJ class last Saturday with Mike Lake and asked this exact question. He said "Rib tips don't have a bone. Ribs must have a bone. You may get it by the judges with tips but I wouldn't take that chance in a competition." So you can take that at what it is worth. But I won't be adding tips in my turn in box. Why take the chance.
 
If you really wanted to include them, you can just leave them attached and go with the entire spare, not St. Louis. That would be legal.
 
Back
Top