I’m going to start off saying I am NOT an expert at this, but I was inspired to talk about how meats are judged in KCBS competitions by reading another blog by Dr. George Ujvary, the Foodologist.  Doc G has been learning to barbecue with nothing but books as his frame of reference.  As I thought about it, I realized when I started barbecuing, I had
little frame of reference for doneness myself.

So now I’ve become a Certified Barbecue Judge; wow!  What that means is that I paid for and went to a class instructed by Ed Roith with 83 other people, and got to hear how to judge and practice it, with no real feedback to tell me I’m doing it right.  I have not judged a competition yet, but I have been trying to learn the right way to do things as I compete.  So here I am, with a blog, and you can’t stop me from typing!

In order of typical turn ins, here is what I’ve learned so far:

Chicken

I’ve learned some of this the hard way.  First, use the most tender, enhan
ced birds you can get your hands on for a competition, though at home you don’t need to do that.  Thighs need time to get to 170 degrees F, and free range birds tend to be a bit firmer (tougher) than regular chickens, or so it seems to me.  The meat should be moist but should come off the bone with a bite, and have some texture to it.  I think cooking to a good 170 does well with chicken, but going much over that makes the meat mushy and dry.

Ribs

I live in the eastern Midwest.  People here think fall off the bone is the way ribs should be.  I’ve learned over the years that fall off the bone means the flavor has fallen off, too.  Ohio also often means steamed or boiled ribs.  That’s great for making mush out of the ribs, but takes the flavor away with the steam or water.  For competition quality ribs, judges are told that the meat should come clean to the bone where the bite is taken, but the rest of the rib meat s
hould stay behind.  two methods that seem to be working for me to tell if my ribs are there are to see how much bone is exposed (1/4" seems about right), and then see if the bone has some wiggle.  Too much wiggle means overdone… too little means not done enough.  I can deal with the latter, but the former is what I had in my last competition, and scored accordingly.

If catering or cooking for friends, though, your audience might like ribs a bit more done, and that’s easy to do, especially if you foil them.  I’m learning that I need to cook for my audience, with some education of proper barbecue thrown in, but I need to not preach to anyone about right and wrong ribs; most people don’t care what you have to say about it anyway.

Pulled pork

The only real test I was told for pulled pork was to push the meat against the back of my teeth with my tongue; if it is mushy, it’s overdone.  I think pork is overdone if, when you’re pulling it, it looses it’s sense of grain.  It can almost be like a paste if it’s overdone.  Underdone can’t be pulled very well, though sliced boston butts are great, too.  Less done pork can also be chopped, but I like to get pork so I can put my hands in it and pull it into pieces of meat that hold up a bit.  Less done pork can be fine, but overdone loses flavor and has a bad mouthfeel to me.

Brisket

We were told at the judging class that brisket is done in KCBS competitions because it’s the hardest piece of meat to do right.  I don’t know if I agree, as I’ve had good luck so far with it.  The right tenderness can be tough, though, especially since each piece of meat seems to have it’s own right temperature for doneness.  As a rule of thumb, I like briskets at 190 degrees F, but the probe method helps.  If a thermometer probe slides in easily, it’s done.  I should
have paid attention to that with the first Wagyu brisket I did; it was way overdone at 190.

The test for doneness is pretty simple with brisket, but it’s based on slices cut to about a pencil’s width.  Pick up a slice by both ends and pull.  A properly done brisket should pull a bit then break in one spot pretty cleanly.  Overdone brisket will just pull apart with no effort, and underdone will spring back like a rubber band.  If slices are very thin or very thick, judges may use
that as a cue to either overdoneness or underdoneness, and they may think the team that cooked it is trying to cover up that the brisket wasn’t done right.

For using at home, people may prefer pulled brisket to sliced, but this often starts to taste like roast beef to me.  Less done, but not underdone, retains the flavor I really love in brisket, which is my favorite of the barbecue meats.

* the brisket photo is courtesy of Doc-G, www.foodologist.com.

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