Judges and cooks

[little bit of r & r]

I was on Facebook this morning and I ran across a picture that a judge from Alabama posted where she and 6 other judges including a table captain were at a bbq team's house and they did a practice to where the judges told them about the food. I personally do not agree with this because now there are 7 judges that know what this team is turning in this is the reason I have decided not to compete in Alabama this year there was some other problems like at another contest the table captain told a team there entry wasn't the one that got the 180 before awards. How can this be fair?

[Jason TQ]

What!?!?!? What a great idea that is . I wish I could get a few judges over to my place for some direct feedback on my food. Those guys are brilliant.

If the judges are honest then they if they can definitely remember what that team turns in then there is no problem at all I see since they will judge honestly what is presented. And for me while my boxes do have a similar look they do change depending on how the meat cooks and what pieces are best to go into the box. So if they only saw one presentation then chances are they won't see the exact same box anyways as they could change.

But lets say that all 6 judges did it to help the team cheat........then the chance that all 6 are judging that particular competition and all 6 (or even 2-3) are at the same table and that particular table out of all the ones in the judging area happens to get that teams food......chances are really slim. So if all that is true they are really going out of their way to probably not help their scores at all and risk being caught.

This would not cause me to eliminate an entire state from my competition schedule.

[nucornhusker]

To me it would be really tough to have a memory of that long about the way something tasted. And there is no guarantee that the cooks food will even see their table.

I see your point, but it's impossible to regulate something like this. If there is a husband cook and wife CBJ, I'm sure they could cook and judge the same event and they live together. I don't know if there is a rule against that, I've never seen or heard it if there is.

[brownkw]

As a judge, I personally do not have a problem with this. There are enough variables at play with the random placement of judges at tables and the double-blind process (at least in KCBS) that it's highly unlikely that I'll see a particular team's entries.

This may be just me, but I do not remember an entry after judging it. I find that it helps me in being as objective and impartial as possible.

[BBQ_Mayor]

I see nothing wrong with it....in fact I promote it..
It's exactly how the Frostbuster BBQ works.
http://frostbusterbbq.blogspot.com/

[Lake Dogs]

Worse, many of us competitors ARE judges. O M G; the world is coming to an end!!!!

Seriously, I've judged much more BBQ that I have competed in (BBQ, not all cooking competitions combined), and I cant think of a time where I witnessed even 1 judge give something an undeserved score. Plus, judges dont get to choose what comes to their table, so the odds of this happening are extremely low, and then it's only 1 of 5 or 6 judges at that table, so it really matters not.

Frankly, when I work up new recipes (and I've documented it here MANY times), I always bring in 10 of my best friends; that's 12 of us total, and 8 of us are CBJ's. I've always been of the opinion that without other peoples honest, sober opinion and critique it's a crap-shoot as to guessing what works and what doesn't.

Have any of them judged my BBQ in a competition? Not that I know of. I do know that if they did, I'd fully expect them to be as critical of my BBQ as ever and not give any extra vote my way, and frankly if you've judged as much as I have, it's almost impossible to do unless the competitor has THAT unique of a flavor.

[little bit of r & r]

I guess I look at it a little different I see judges hanging out with the same teams that win every weekend it makes me a little suspicious especially when they take pictures of them at their house. What do y'all think about the table captain telling the team their chicken box didn't get the 180

[brownkw]

Originally Posted by little bit of r & r

I guess I look at it a little different I see judges hanging out with the same teams that win every weekend it makes me a little suspicious especially when they take pictures of them at their house. What do y'all think about the table captain telling the team their chicken box didn't get the 180

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong... but in a KCBS contest, the table captain should not know which box belongs to which team. The boxes are renumbered and distributed in such a fashion that the majority of the time, a table should not get multiple entries from the same team. Obviously if this is a smaller contest, this may not always hold true.

And as far as hanging out with teams, there's nothing saying that you can't stop by a team's tent and say hello, wish them luck, etc. It's a whole different ball game, however, going into a team's cook site the day of turn-ins and watching what they are doing. In fact, KCBS is placing an emphasis on judge/cook relations.

[Lake Dogs]

Telling the team that their chicken box didnt get the 180... I dont know, I suppose they were going to find out sooner or later. That the table captain knew... Happens. Should he/she have said it, probably not, but it didnt change anything.

"the same teams that win every weekend"... You know, I haven't seen this, an any series of contests, in any year, across any sanctioning body. Ever. Mind you, the better consistent scoring teams cook and compete frequently and pay wrapped attention to details, and they have this down to a science. But, even of them, I haven't seen one that wins it all every time, not even close. I've seen some have a bit of a streak, but streaks are meant to be broken, and they are. However, dont discount the amount of experience and practice that goes in to it. There's a reason they're consistently scoring high, because they understand that it's about not alienating that 1 judge more than it's about impressing any 1 judge. Same thing in every other cooking competition, FYI.

[Uncle Buds BBQ]

Originally Posted by fnbish

I wish I could get a few judges over to my place for some direct feedback on my food. Those guys are brilliant.

What time should we be there?

[Jorge]

Originally Posted by Lake Dogs

Telling the team that their chicken box didnt get the 180... I dont know, I suppose they were going to find out sooner or later. That the table captain knew... Happens. Should he/she have said it, probably not, but it didnt change anything.

It depends on when, in the process, the system was compromised. More than likely it was during or after data entry. If it was prior to that there is a problem.

[Jason TQ]

Originally Posted by Uncle Buds BBQ

What time should we be there?

Today's butts and brisket will be done by 6pm. If you have no dinner plans swing on by

[tigerpaw]

We did this exact thing with a local restaurant that was going to enter a contest for the first time. I know the owner personally. I like his BBQ OK. But his restaurant BBQ is NOTHING like that in events. In an attempt to help him understand this I gathered 6 judges together I knew. Two were master judges, 2 were cook team / judges as well as contest organizers and 1 was a new judge along with a non master judge. I spoke with a contest rep beforehand to insure there was nothing wrong with this in trying to help a new competitor out. Having judged many times entries from newbies as well as catering companies that had no idea what they were doing I thought this would help him finish at least middle of the pack in the event he entered. And that’s exactly where he finished. He gave us his entries as he planned to do on event day in his restaurant with the usual salad surrounding. He would have been DQ’d on two entries for what we all considered marking of entries that he was not aware of he could not do, one entry was nothing like we had seen before and gave him feedback on how to improve that, and by the time he got to brisket we knew he was confused about what these 6 idiots were looking for.

[Lake Dogs]

Originally Posted by Jorge

It depends on when, in the process, the system was compromised. More than likely it was during or after data entry. If it was prior to that there is a problem.

Yep, true that.

[little bit of r & r]

Originally Posted by tigerpaw

We did this exact thing with a local restaurant that was going to enter a contest for the first time. I know the owner personally. I like his BBQ OK. But his restaurant BBQ is NOTHING like that in events. In an attempt to help him understand this I gathered 6 judges together I knew. Two were master judges, 2 were cook team / judges as well as contest organizers and 1 was a new judge along with a non master judge. I spoke with a contest rep beforehand to insure there was nothing wrong with this in trying to help a new competitor out. Having judged many times entries from newbies as well as catering companies that had no idea what they were doing I thought this would help him finish at least middle of the pack in the event he entered. And that’s exactly where he finished. He gave us his entries as he planned to do on event day in his restaurant with the usual salad surrounding. He would have been DQ’d on two entries for what we all considered marking of entries that he was not aware of he could not do, one entry was nothing like we had seen before and gave him feedback on how to improve that, and by the time he got to brisket we knew he was confused about what these 6 idiots were looking for.

I could see probably doing this with a newbie team that had never entered a contest but this was a team that did fairly well last year