Garnish

[Skip]

I get what your saying but that's a bit picky about words. I am in no way discounting what she does by saying she is a bbq genius. It is a compliment.

Apologies if you felt I was laying blame on your choice of words. Not my intent just wanted to clarify what I felt you meant. Sorry didn't mean to put words in your mouth. :biggrin1::biggrin1:

 

[Skip]

Guess that's a problem for your region then! :mrgreen: (j/k). I see parsley going by the wayside as people figure out more efficient ways to build boxes. Lettuce is beautiful and much less time consuming than parsley. Also, as others have mentioned, you do not get the flavor impact concern as much with lettuce because it is less likely to stick to your meat than all those little pieces of parsley.

I am not a judge so I cannot comment on the number of lettuce vs. parsley boxes coming across the tables in the SE, but as I speak to other teams, there are very very few still using parsley as their main garnish or at all.

Judged yesterday. 95% of the boxes had parsley. Could be a regional thing.

 

[CBQ]

We have tried both, been to classes that build both types. We just find parsley easier - probably because we have built 400+ parsley boxes.

Next up: In July the KCBS BOD votes on allowing kale.

opcorn:

 

[TooSaucedToPork]

Why am I against Garnish?

Yeah, I hate it like a lot of cooks but this as well...

In a 50 team contest, with half the teams making putting greens (25), and splitting a case between 3 teams (8 cases) times 200 contests a year...

We KCBS cooks waste 1600 cases of parsley.

The average parsley bunch weighs 2 ounces and there are about 40 bunches in a case so thats....

About 4 tons of parsley we use to "hold meat" every year in KCBS. Add in all the other garnish and its considerably more wasted salad.

With all the talk of donations of leftover meats to food pantries and "waste" you would think the antiquated practice of garnishing the box would take a back seat to conservation of costs and food waste. Oh well.

 

[egorham]

Why am I against Garnish?

Yeah, I hate it like a lot of cooks but this as well...

About 4 tons of parsley we use to "hold meat" every year in KCBS. Add in all the other garnish and its considerably more wasted salad.

With all the talk of donations of leftover meats to food pantries and "waste" you would think the antiquated practice of garnishing the box would take a back seat to conservation of costs and food waste. Oh well.

I think this is one of things that the "no garnish" camps gets wrong. There is far more waste in the "no garnish" contests than in the KCBS contests and here is why.

One of the biggest benefits of garnish is that it creates a "platform" (lettuce or parsley) that is higher up in the box. This "platform" is much larger than the bottom of the box because the sides are tapered. The combination of a higher and larger "platform" makes the box look more full when you put the finished product in. This is not lost on the "no garnish" teams so they will put a layer of meat on the bottom to create a "platform" for the presentation meat.

Look at how much meat the Florida BBQ association (no garnish) teams cook and turn in. The BBQ Central show has had Florida teams on the round table shows in the last year where you can hear what they say; Matt Barber of Hot Wachulas cooks 4 butts and turns in 4-5 pounds of cooked meat (layer of pulled on the bottom with the "presentation" meat on top), Dana Hillis of Big Poppas Country Kitchen cooks 6 racks of ribs and turns in between 15 and 18 bones.

If the choice is $10-$20 of garnish plus some time vs. having to double the amount of meat that I cook I will take the garnish every time. The garnish costs much less than the meat and I would have to go out and invest in at least one more cooker, figure out how to get the additional cooker to the comp and damn near kill myself trying to build a box with that much meat in 1/2 hour (FBA does 1 hour between turn ins).

Garnish is a pain but it is much better than the alternative.

 

[TooSaucedToPork]

And....
there are plenty of organizations that you only submit 8 bones, birds or slices.

My belief is that the Contest Organizero should be able to stipulate Garnish or No Garnish at the time of Sanctioning.

The cooks will let them know what they want...

 

[Rusty Kettle]

Apologies if you felt I was laying blame on your choice of words. Not my intent just wanted to clarify what I felt you meant. Sorry didn't mean to put words in your mouth. :biggrin1::biggrin1:

No big deal.

 

[Alexa RnQ]

And just as an aside, at the contest at Taste of Dallas teams did one set of regular KCBS entries, with garnish if desired, and one set of People's Choice entries, where it was stipulated that garnish was not allowed.

Guess what I heard at turn-ins? "Why did we ever think we wanted to do a box without garnish?!" After fidgeting with meat that didn't want to stay put, I was in agreement.

 

[Rusty Kettle]

And just as an aside, at the contest at Taste of Dallas teams did one set of regular KCBS entries, with garnish if desired, and one set of People's Choice entries, where it was stipulated that garnish was not allowed.

Guess what I heard at turn-ins? "Why did we ever think we wanted to do a box without garnish?!" After fidgeting with meat that didn't want to stay put, I was in agreement.

I have done both. Mind they are backyard contests.

I prefer neither over the other. No garnish contests aren't bad. I really enjoyed the one in Lanexa, VA the 2nd Annual Pickin' n Pullin' competition. It was awesome we pulled a 7th out of 21 teams in ribs and 10th overall.

Contests with garnish allowed was well a pain until we learned to make lettuce boxes. Tried it for the first time in competition at the Almost Heaven BBQ Bash in Buckhannon, WV.

We took first in Ribs in the backyard. Our chicken tanked but our ribs scored a 172.5944 which for us is fantastic.

I did better with garnish to hold it all in place but I am not opposed to no garnish or garnish contests.

Garnish I think enhances the appearance where no garnish allows all the flaws to be visible.

For cooks garnish is probably better than without but for easier judging where they can pick out all the flaws garnish free works.

Cooks should for the most part not like garnish free as it allows every single flaw to be visible.

 

[Jorge]

And just as an aside, at the contest at Taste of Dallas teams did one set of regular KCBS entries, with garnish if desired, and one set of People's Choice entries, where it was stipulated that garnish was not allowed.

Guess what I heard at turn-ins? "Why did we ever think we wanted to do a box without garnish?!" After fidgeting with meat that didn't want to stay put, I was in agreement.

You should have used some of Vince's hairspray. It was good seeing ya'll again.

 

[Vince RnQ]

You should have used some of Vince's hairspray. It was good seeing ya'll again.

Magic Shell, baby!

Great to see you too, George!

 

[J&B'sBBQ]

Any chance of some pics or a video? :yo:

Since I'm not the box builder, I cannot say yes to this for sure, but I can certainly ask him if he'd be willing to do a "how to" lesson on lettuce. :biggrin1:

 

[eap0510]

Since I'm not the box builder, I cannot say yes to this for sure, but I can certainly ask him if he'd be willing to do a "how to" lesson on lettuce. :biggrin1:

If he is able to accomplish this it would be greatly appreciated.

-Eric

 

[Rusty Kettle]

Definitly would be interesting to see how you guys do your lettuce boxes.

 

[J&B'sBBQ]

He is a behind the scenes kind of guy, so it may be pics (not video) if I can get him to agree. If you go to out FB page and check out our contest list, we'd be happy to show anyone in person what we do...I put our whole schedule up there a little while back.

 

[Jason TQ]

I think it can depend on what meat you put in a box to what garnish you use. Maybe we've done it enough but a parsley box takes me maybe 10-15mins. Shallow lettuce boxes don't work for how we do a few of our meats. Something to keep in mind. I know you can also build up lettuce boxes, but it took the same 10 mins a box. To be honest our chicken and rib boxes are so full you can't see much of anything. Did an experiment where I chopped some green leaf and tossed it in for those and got 9's. Took 2 mins for those boxes.......but again depend on the meat that goes into the box.

 

[rookiedad]

I think it can depend on what meat you put in a box to what garnish you use. Maybe we've done it enough but a parsley box takes me maybe 10-15mins. Shallow lettuce boxes don't work for how we do a few of our meats. Something to keep in mind. I know you can also build up lettuce boxes, but it took the same 10 mins a box. To be honest our chicken and rib boxes are so full you can't see much of anything. Did an experiment where I chopped some green leaf and tossed it in for those and got 9's. Took 2 mins for those boxes.......but again depend on the meat that goes into the box.

i found a nugget!!! :grin: anyone else?

 

[J&B'sBBQ]

I think it can depend on what meat you put in a box to what garnish you use. Maybe we've done it enough but a parsley box takes me maybe 10-15mins. Shallow lettuce boxes don't work for how we do a few of our meats. Something to keep in mind. I know you can also build up lettuce boxes, but it took the same 10 mins a box. To be honest our chicken and rib boxes are so full you can't see much of anything. Did an experiment where I chopped some green leaf and tossed it in for those and got 9's. Took 2 mins for those boxes.......but again depend on the meat that goes into the box.

I can see what you're saying, but we have tactics to make that work when you need super shallow boxes. Depending on the box, some don't have lettuce across the entire bottom; that was something that came with trial and error.

I think a lot of it comes down to what works for your box building as well because we could not use parsley with how we build our pork box now; I need the support the lettuce gives me.

 

[Jason TQ]

I can see what you're saying, but we have tactics to make that work when you need super shallow boxes. Depending on the box, some don't have lettuce across the entire bottom; that was something that came with trial and error.

I think a lot of it comes down to what works for your box building as well because we could not use parsley with how we build our pork box now; I need the support the lettuce gives me.

Yeah it's really a pick your poison kind of deal. :mrgreen:. Many ways to skin a cat, but you also have to get it tender and taste good too :doh::twitch:

 

[cpw]

Jerry Stephenson of Redneck Scientific just put out this video on how to build a box with green leaf lettuce: [ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohz_FjC8EUM&feature=youtu.be[/ame] As an added benefit he also includes the web link (www.burgbbqbenefit.com) for Jim Burg's fundraiser auction.