What are the most common mistakes made when getting into competition BBQ?

[Ron_L]

Be a good neighbor! Don't flood your neighbor's cook site with your grey water.

It's amazing how often this happens! People don't think about the slope of the ground. At our last competition my wife went to pick up a 12-pack of beer that was stashed under our trailer so it was out of the way and the bottom fell out of it. It was soaked by grey water from our slightly uphill neighbor! Then we had to clean up spilled beer and broken glass!

 

[T-Bone44]

KISS - keep it simple stupid. Don't bring 12 rolls of paper towels if you only need two. Also, disposable cutting boards, pan liners, etc, is a great suggestion and time saver.

 

[Bryan139]

They need to be more clear about the pre-prepping instructions. We didn't realize how much prepping was allowed our first comp either. The "meat inspection guide" should just be part of the "rules and regulations" pdf and it would clear up a lot of questions for rookies. I didn't realize there was a meat inspection guide offering more detail until I got short with another member on here and went back to the KCBS site and did more digging. It's two separate links.

 

[gettinbasted]

I see a lot of new teams cooking all kinds of stuff unrelated to the competition. They are cooking dinner, cooking snacks and cooking breakfast. We all got in to this because we love to cook, but don't do it! You have to bring more stuff and it removes focus from why you are there in the first place.

 

[dtelencio]

cooking bbq to your taste and not the judges

 

[Candy Sue]

cooking bbq to your taste and not the judges

This is why it's important for a cook to be a judge too! That way the two match.

 

[toymaster]

Take pictures of your turn in boxes. Your memory of your turn in boxes is always better than what you actually turned in.

 

[Wackadoo]

Take pictures of your turn in boxes. Your memory of your turn in boxes is always better than what you actually turned in.

Pics are great advice! I would add create files and log all of the pics with scores and notes. Down the road you can run spread sheets that help decipher when or if you got off track. I tracked chicken a while back and realized I had moved a long way off from what was working before. It enabled me to easily get back to what was working.

 

[rorkin]

This is why it's important for a cook to be a judge too! That way the two match.

Totally agree

 

[kenthanson]

I see a lot of new teams cooking all kinds of stuff unrelated to the competition. They are cooking dinner, cooking snacks and cooking breakfast. We all got in to this because we love to cook, but don't do it! You have to bring more stuff and it removes focus from why you are there in the first place.

One thing I find is that newer teams tend to do a lot of the ancillary catagories. Up here in western Canada most comps are sat/sun if not all of them and there are lots of black box/chefs choice/appetizer/etc challenges on the Saturday to fill time and most of the established teams, not all but most, pass on these and it's usually filled with newer teams. It hurts the newer teams by taking away from the main competition and they use a lot of energy working on these catagories and maybe that leads to mistakes later in the weekend. It helps though in the sense that a lot of the new teams get their only call in this catagory and then they get hooked and keep on competing.

Every once in a while we will do something like this and every time after it's over I swear I'm not doing it again because it was just to big of a distraction, but last year there was one that was sponsored by a local brewery and if you went it you got two growlers of booze, we spent the least amount of money on the turn in and got two growlers of beer, finished dead last but that was just fine.

 

[JD McGee]

Most new teams we encounter do not have a game plan...here is my advice...

1. Have a game plan...
2. Stick to the game plan...
3. Make notes on the game plan as to ACTUAL times and temps that happen to your meats during the comp...
4. Include weather and location information on every game plan...meats cook differently in different climates and altitudes.

Over time you will see patterns from your cook that are reliable...this will help with your consistency in producing the same product cook after cook. We have 3 ring binders full of notes for every season we cooked since 2011. This is our most valuable tool!

 

[bam]

Most new teams drink too much. Get some good team mates to help with the cook and the cost.

 

[enasnidx]

Over time you will see patterns from your cook that are reliable...this will help with your consistency in producing the same product cook after cook. We have 3 ring binders full of notes for every season we cooked since 2011. This is our most valuable tool!

JD is spot on here! I take detailed notes after every comp about what went good, bad, or other. I try to do this the night I get home from the comp while I relax and I can still remember everything. I look back at my previous notes all the time for help. Make it a practice, it'll help you a ton over time!