My Experience Judging a Rib Cookoff Association Contest

I like cooking ribs just like the next person. And when I was asked to judge a Rib Cook Off Association Rib contest, I jumped at the opportunity. Jones Oklahoma, Saturday morning get ready here I come.

I have been in the parking lot a whole lot of times during a contest. But very seldom had I ever stopped and went and judged. I was looking forward to the opportunity. So I showed up an hour early just so I could take it all in. What I ended up doing was sitting back and watching. I seen other judges come in from all over. We had some I would call professional judges, business owners, local public servants, friends of the contest organizer, and just all around every day people. 

We had our judges meeting and that's about what I expected. They went over the criteria of how it happens. Not once did they try to persuade us into judging a certain direction or thought process. It was completely up to us on what we felt was a good rib and a bad rib. I liked that.

They had an ancillary category, two rib categories, along with a kids q. I was asked to do the ancillary and it was a local sausage manufacturing company sponsored. So every thing we judged had to have the sausage in it. The creativity I was blown away with. Yes we had some standard jalapeño poppers, but then again we also had something that could've been on a five star dining menu.

After that, judging was complete and I'll go over the details of how we judged in that process after I describe my experience with judging ribs. In the meantime, we had about 30 minutes before kids Q started. I did not judge this category and I was glad. I knew there would be a lot of food with the remaining two Rib categories. I did get to visually see the turn in boxes and listen to everyone at the leftovers table. Oh yeah, let me tell everyone it was ribeye steaks. These young men and women that cooked these steaks will absolutely feed their families in the future. They were properly cooked. They were properly seasoned and I know that because I did get to taste off of the leftover table. They were presented absolutely beautiful. While the judging was going on I did get to see sitting back and observing the simplicity of the judging process in small scale because there was only two tables for the kids Q.

In between each category, judges, kind of went their separate ways, some hung out at tables talking with each other, while others stood in the corners, talking on phones and conducting business. And at this point there was a couple that had already started rubbing their bellies and being thankful to the bounties they had received. As far as the organizers their job was almost done. They had orchestrated a group of cooks in the parking lot and a group of judges inside the building and the two have happily met in the middle. Now onto spare ribs. Each time we sat down at a table there was nothing assigned, or regimented as to what table got an entry. So I had sat down at the same table I did for the ancillary sausage. Myself and two others were the same and we had two newcomers on that particular table. Now drumroll please this is what we came for. It is now Rib time we get our first box of ribs and we ended up having a total of eight boxes to judge. Even though there were some similarities in tenderness, but there was a lot of similarity in flavors. What I picked up on and what I had to do to differentiated to me was the difference was in sauces and the flavor obtained from the smoker. So it took some craftiness to determine in my opinion good ribs. And let me tell you nothing on flavor scored less than a nine. 

I was extremely happy with every single rib that came across our table. Listening to the others after the judging was insightful for me. Because I’m looking at it from a Cook’s perspective, trying to be a judge. These folks are judges and backyard grillers. And do you know we were all really close on the ones we liked the best. Like I said, I will cover the process later on in the article.

After the Rib category, I sat around and was watching everyone and listening. I don’t think any table felt like they got bad ribs. You could hear some talking about how they felt there was a few better than others. But nothing was horrible.

Now, my one true category I was looking forward to, Baby back ribs. I cook so many St. Louis cut ribs. It is a pleasure to get to eat a baby back. My expectations were high. Because I wanted a baby back rib, not a baby back cooked like a spare rib. Yes I know I should judge what is presented in front of me and that’s exactly what I did. But I sure knew what I really wanted also. Sat back down. At the same table and I think we had one new judge. I can’t remember for sure. We ended up getting six baby back ribs to judge. I think they had three less contestants in this contest than the Rib contest. So that explains a little bit as to why there wasn’t as many turned in. Now onto the judging. I was not disappointed with my expectations. Tenderness was perfect, love the presentations, and once again these cooks knocked it out of the park. 

All right, I’ve ate more ribs today than I probably had in the last two months. And I will say I was extremely happy with all of them. I went to this contest, hoping I’d get good ribs, see some friends, and meet new friends. All of this was accomplished. I can see why some people prefer to be judges only. But I also want to be a contestant. And this contest lit a fire in me to go and compete a few more times than I had planned on this year.

As I had promised let’s just step back and look at the judging process. This contest was sanctioned by the Rib Cook Off Association, also known as the RCOA. The reps from the RCOA today was Dirk and Jody the founders of the association. The judging process is absolutely the simplest I have ever seen. And when it was completed, I stated to myself if I was a cook, I would be very happy with the process in which food is judged. Now how this happens. A cook uses a standard 9 x 9 styrofoam box. There is a table that they turn in their entries at. When the entries are received, there is an envelope taped to the top of it. That envelope has two tickets taped on it. One ticket goes to the cook and one ticket remains on the box with this envelope. Kind of a dual tracking purpose. The cook understands that the number on his ticket matches the number on the envelope. He takes that and head back to his cooking site. Now what happens to the food. Each table is given one box and one box only at a time. At our particular table, the person that sat at the end received the box. He opens up the envelope and inside it are five judging cards. He passes each one of them to the judges at his table and reads off the number for us to put at the top of the card. So far fairly simple he opens up the box takes a rib out of it and passes the box to the next person they take a rib out and pass it on. Etc. etc. until everyone has a Rib. Appearance is now judged looking at the Rib you have. I myself held it in one hand spun it around, looked at the bottom, looked at both sides and looked at the top. I then judged the appearance on the scorecard, which was a scale of 6 to 9 in whole numbers. I then took a bite of the rib. I took it from the cut side towards the bone end of the rib. I decided that to be fair and so that every Rib would be judged, I would eat everyone starting right at that point. I noticed other judges at the table were different. Some was eating from the top, some even ate at the opposite end I did. But I did observe them doing that each time from the same end whether they meant to or not I don’t know that. But at least they’re tenderness score would’ve been the same for every Rib. I generally took one bite. Out of that one bite I would start to try to find the flavor of the rib, spice, sauce, and the smoker/grill. I would then score the taste on my card. The scoring system on this category was a little bit more in depth and allowed you some good flexibility on scoring. Started with a six then it was a 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and so on all the way through 9.9 the tenderness had the same type scoring system.

As soon as we were done, judging the five of us would hand the scorecard back to our lead table person he put them all back into the envelope with the second ticket attached to it. Raised his hand a volunteer would bring us a new box and take that box . I observed them separating the container and the envelope. The envelope was handed directly to the RCOA representative. Then the scores immediately keyed into a computer. Boxes started stacking up on another table for a leftovers. While we are back at the table starting that process all over again. It’s really that simple. And we did it again and again and again. When the time window had been completed, which is 30 minutes. I sat back and really thought about what just happened. As a cook, I would be so pleased to know that my food is tasted immediately, very fairly, and knowing it’s not setting out for any length of time. Basically if you turned in hot ribs, the judges were getting very warm food to eat.

I’ve been thinking of this contest for a long time trying to figure out why we over complicate judging food. Congratulations to the Rib Cook Off Association for thinking outside the box and understanding their clientele is three different groups at every contest. Group one being the cooks, group 2 being the organizers, group 3 being the judges.  Each group has some criteria or needs to be represented properly. And I truly feel that all three groups are represented properly.  

In closing, I just want to say the future of competition cooking is moving in a good direction.