Breaking Into Comp Cooking

Come cook with us this weekend in Seaside, load in is Friday for a Saturday Sunday contest

Hi John. I think we met yesterday at the Atlantic City competition. I recognize your name and the cookers in your signature.
I usually recommend that you attend a few competitions and talk to teams about competing. Then at some point you need to just dive in and try your first contest.

You'll find the BBQ community as a whole more than willing to help out newbies. Just ask Don't be shy.

Here is also a good place to start.
[ame]https://www.amazon.com/Startin-Fire-Everything-Starting-Competition-ebook/dp/B00M77BAZI/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505785301&sr=1-4&keywords=george+hensler[/ame]

Excellent idea to hook up with an experienced team that will let you come to a comp and help out. However, you will soon learn that the job ain't called a bar back! :wink:

This past July I competed in my 1st comp in Colorado. I was nervous as heck. I had competed in non sanctioned events with some success. Most of those were like community cook offs. When I went to Colorado I realized how inexperienced I was. Box building skills = 0, chicken skin skills = 0. The other competitors were super helpful. They showed my wife how to build the boxes and they turned out great. The team that showed her had her bulid their chicken box... they took 6th. The teams that I meet asked if I was coming back and I said hell yes. As a matter of fact we have 5 planned for 2018. I would say jump in there and get your feet wet. If it's something that you are wanting to try, then do it. I'm wanting to take a judging class and a cooking class also. Just not a lot of them in the southwest.

Shadowing (and helping out) a seasoned team is a great idea.

I'd also suggest finding a backyard or patio type competition to enter to get your feet wet. A full blown KCBS competition is very overwhelming to newbies IMO.

If you want to do a KCBS, cook 2 categories and have someone else do the other 2 on your team. We did this for a couple of comps and then switched to doing all 4 ourselves.

Just some suggestions. Good luck!

My first suggestion is to say... Google is your friend. We were able to find sample timelines, recipes, pointers, etc.

My second suggestion is to practice a full cook at home at least once, making edits to your timeline accordingly. Do more practice cooks if you can.

I say jump right in after your feel comfortable with your cooker and timeline. My first few contests were such an adrenaline rush, I barely slept.

Yay!!! I can post now!

Ok noob here, I've been smoking on a UDS for about 10 years after I got back from Afghanistan and have enjoyed every moment of it.

The wife and I have a small garden/farm that we want to be able to do farmers markets and such when we retire, BUT, I also love cooking for people and have provided sides for the last two years to my daughters college Tailgate event for football.

So when I saw this thread and why I'm at these forums, I want to enter a comp next year and was wondering if there is going to be anyone from the forums at:

https://www.grillinandchillinbbq.com/

This weekend in Owensboro, KY. The wife an I are driving down and I was going to just see how teams set up, get pictures, take notes on what we like, what looks smooth and such.

It's different doing a tailgate where I'm only doing beans and helping with burgers and brats and setting up for an outdoor cooking competition.

If any of you all are going to be there it would be a pleasure to meet with you and pick your brains in person if you have the time. I also understand if you don't, it is a State championship after all and I know what stress is!

John, it is a blast!! My daughter and I started cooking comps as a team (backyard) in 2014 and we have enjoyed it immensely. We have met some great people, a lot of them brethren, and we always look forward to the next one. You will enjoy it, I'm sure.

I was where you were earlier this year - while I have yet to do my first comp (coming in a couple weeks), I spent most of the year prepping for it.

The first thing I did was take the KCBS CBJ class. I had a good time at the class, learned a bit, but already knew quite a bit from the interwebs. After that, I took Rod Gray's class, which I really enjoyed and learned a lot. Then I judged my first competition and got to see and taste what people were actually turning in....some bad, but mostly good. This made it pretty easy to know what qualities I needed to hit with my cooks to have a decent chance at a call.

Over the past 4 or 5 months I've done a lot of competition oriented practice cooks of individual meats - figuring out what I like, what works for me, and where my problems in execution are. Most recently I've been doing 4 meat cooks to try to get my timing down, and not rely on things like a kitchen sink, running water, and HVAC (it's amazing how much those things matter).

The class I took from Rod wasn't cheap per se, but it was still less than what I'd spend on a single contest entry and having to learn some things the hard way. If you can swing it, I highly recommend taking a class with someone - if for no other reason, I think it shortened my learning curve significantly and probably knocked a few competitions worth of trial and error off the table. Even if you back bar a team (which I do think is a good idea) you probably won't get to see everything, like if they trim the meats off site the day before the comp, etc.

Lastly, there's one thing I came to realize about competition barbecue - it's ridiculous in nearly every way. The "nth" degree people go to in order to layer flavors, how much meat loss and waste there is due to trimming (I keep mine for burgers or pork carnitas) and then the turn in box leftovers, and the amount of money that can be spent doing it. IMO, competition barbecue has very little to do with making good "eating" food...at least, in the way I'd want to sit around a table with a bunch of friends eating it.

Have you looked into the costs associated with doing it very much yet?

Well, it becomes an even more expensive hobby if you aren't winning some money. $300 entry fees and $500+ in meat isn't something I plan to do 10 times a year if I'm not at least covering costs part of the time. I love to cook too, but I'm not going to drop $1000+ for the pleasure of doing it each time many times over through the year, I just personally can't justify it. More power to those that do, but you may have 60 teams in a comp and the majority didn't take home a dime. I too have no delusions of grandeur, and am just hoping I can cover costs once in a while and have fun doing it.

Also, as you mentioned the logistics, I found it to be a ton of work just in my driveway...that is definitely something to take into consideration as well. It's certainly a labor of love.

Edit - after reading my post, I wanted to make sure I wasn't coming across as negative. These are just some of the things I observed as I have been learning and preparing this year. If I would've known all this from day 1, I still would've done it. I'm just a pragmatic person.

I just saw your thread in Q Talk about your Myron Mixon class, guessing youve done ypur research :thumb:

sudsandswine said:

Have you looked into the costs associated with doing it very much yet?

Well, it becomes an even more expensive hobby if you aren't winning some money. $300 entry fees and $500+ in meat isn't something I plan to do 10 times a year if I'm not at least covering costs part of the time. I love to cook too, but I'm not going to drop $1000+ for the pleasure of doing it each time many times over through the year, I just personally can't justify it. More power to those that do, but you may have 60 teams in a comp and the majority didn't take home a dime. I too have no delusions of grandeur, and am just hoping I can cover costs once in a while and have fun doing it.

Also, as you mentioned the logistics, I found it to be a ton of work just in my driveway...that is definitely something to take into consideration as well. It's certainly a labor of love.

Edit - after reading my post, I wanted to make sure I wasn't coming across as negative. These are just some of the things I observed as I have been learning and preparing this year. If I would've known all this from day 1, I still would've done it. I'm just a pragmatic person.

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Very realistic assessment. I'd do them every week if I could. It's like gambling, once you get "lucky" you think you can do it every time and want to go for it. I think it would be kinda cool if they had ribs or single meat type of comps. The idea would be reduced entry fees and minimal costs. In some cases you could show up in the AM with minimal equipment and just cook for fun with a chance of breaking even and a trophy or something. SCA events come to mind, but I've never done one ..not yet.

Best advice I would offer is:

1. Pick a comp closest to home - if you happen to forget something, you know where to go get a replacement.
2. Try and make it a KCBS event; tell the rep that you're a comp newbie, and they will help you get help.
3. Try nothing new - the simpler the better.
4. Have nothing but fun:-D:-D

SpratBoy said:

Best advice I would offer is:

1. Pick a comp closest to home - if you happen to forget something, you know where to go get a replacement.
2. Try and make it a KCBS event; tell the rep that you're a comp newbie, and they will help you get help.
3. Try nothing new - the simpler the better.
4. Have nothing but fun:-D:-D

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I know this isn't my thread, but I've been watching it ever since it got posted. I'm literally going to practice all year and enter my first KCBS next year, in a town 45 minutes from my house. It's also where my daughter goes to college so I'm really familiar with the town.

The tip about letting them know you're a comp noob is something I didn't even think about. I've seen the team list for the last couple of years and I'm going against pros with pro rigs and big operations, and I'm gonna pull up with a few UDS' lol.

My main goal is to have fun. Do I want to get a call, who doesn't, do I think I can, of course or I wouldn't even pay the entry fee.