Pitfaced BBQ - Meat Massage, Spicy Meat Massage, and On Point - Standing 10% off for TW!

Also, a huge thanks to @RickS and his wife for coming out to our fundraising cook and for coming to see us this weekend at the People's Choice. Always a pleasure seeing you and can't thank you enough for the support!

 

How do you get a prefect score in ribs from one judge, then a low score? Sounds like the judges needed some remedial training. Maybe just weekend warriors looking for free food.

 

Ya I think there should be some criteria things are judged on, I’m not sure how 2 can love it and one think it’s whack. Sounds like some WTF was amiss.

Most important thing. Did y’all have fun? If so then that right there is a win. Would love to do a competition some time but need someone to cook with and someone to remind not to go whoop some snot nose judges butt.

 

My best friend is a KCBS judge, altho he doesn't do it anymore. He's a picky bastard!

 

I was looking for a local comp to try it once, and see how I’d do. Maybe I’ll just forget it, and let my family keep telling me it’s the best food they’ve ever eaten!

 

I'm really not sure. All of these judges were apparently 'certified', but who knows what rubbed him the wrong way with his rib sample. If you keep a 7 in your scoring (you throw out the highest and lowest scores), then you're pretty well locked out of the top 10 - probably worse. It's not a good score to get. We've had a few 6s from judges over the years, but that is really a bad sign. For those ribs, we received our first 5 *ever* from a judge on anything. The one across the table gave a perfect 9/9/9.

I'm not suggesting they were perfect ribs - we could have done better - but I can't believe we weren't top 30 at least. I was holding out hope for a top 10, even. They were delicious and had great bite-through tenderness.

We had a BLAST. We probably won't do IBCA again - unorganized, unclear what is expected, and no feedback on where you ranked. Really frustrating. Everything else was great. We had some nice victories, too, so we don't leave empty handed by any means. We get a lot of traffic from festival goers, we're starting to get recognized, and we get tons of people coming up, trying our food, then falling in love. It's a great thing for us.

We're absolutely going back.

You should come down next year and cook with us . We could always use the extra hand and it'd be an easy way to try it out for you .

 

He told me he ate some of the best food ever, and some of the worst. I'll just stay home, I can do both!

 

Try it once, just take the judging with a grain of salt. They are going for a lot of technical execution - the science side of BBQ. I have had some bad scores before, but it never gets me down about my food. People that I know would tell me when I suck absolutely love my food and that is what matters most - the full bellies and big smiles .

 

I still may one day. Would need additional cookers first, and it’s probably not worth it for me to do it once.

 

I just may consider that. I’m sure it would be a great time and at this point in life I’m more about the experience than where I end up placing. Back in the day it was a different story lmao.

 

It's a great event and the chance to sample so much good food is a treat. From simple to the complex we went home knowing that we ate too much. This year they changed it up a little by doing away with the tasting tickets and just made it unlimited tastings. Always great to see you guys and looking forward to next year. Unless you want to do another competition before then?

 

We do and we don't.

It's a lot for us to pull together given it isn't a full-time gig for us. We could do a smaller event, but then the return in terms of exposure isn't as great. Then we could consider scaling down the operation, but setting up shop for a few days is part of the fun. Who knows.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for something that looks interesting to us, then let you know if we enter anything else.

The unlimited samples thing wasn't good for the cook teams, I can say that. People kept getting back in line to try our stuff multiple times. We knew it, but couldn't really call them out. We cooked nearly twice the food as last year and ran out in almost 20 minutes or so. I understand that they want people to get more for their money - it is an event to create buzz for the festival goers - but for our sake, I'd prefer they double the number of tasting tickets they give instead of just making it a free-for-all. Having a finite resource makes people be somewhat mindful of how much food they're taking. They also let people in 10 minutes early, which we weren't ready for.

Minor complaints that I know they'll consider next year. Still an absolute blast.

 

Guessing with the unlimited they were hoping folks would sample more than just 10 cook teams. I know we hit our limit before that with some offering meat, beans, mac and cheese all in one stop. Got to admit, the street tacos are always good. There's a gas station in Dallas (Fuel City) that has barbacoa tacos that I can't pass up. Have to say, you were looking a bit worn there by Saturday afternoon. Hope you've rested up.

 

Amazing how 10 minutes can throw a huge monkey wrench into things when you’re planning to the minute.

 

That was on the heels of a tough stretch. SCA and steak People's Choice the night before. There were awards at 9 p.m., too. Brisket went on at 2 a.m. the next morning. We finished IBCA turn in at 4:00 p.m. and they let people in for People's Choice at 4:20. Yikes.

I got some decent sleep that night, though, and plenty of rest today. Almost went out and cooked skirt steak, even.

 

The person running the gate clearly isn't a cook or they'd know the bind they put us in.

We were in spot #1, too, so we got hit right away.

 

The entrance/gate didn't seem well planed out. We got in line a little after 4:30 and it took better than 20mins to get in. That wouldn't be an issue for an all day event but this is only two hours. Didn't impress that they run out of water at BBQ event when it's in the upper 90s out. Is that #1 spot considered a prime location?

 

Oh yeah. If you're looking for traffic and exposure, that's the place to be. We were in #2 last year. Now we can probably count on that spot until we opt out of it.

We try to be as involved in the event as we can, including promoting the event. They had us on for a spot on the city's Facebook page on Saturday! They love our team.

 

W

Was probably those bright shirts!

Exposure for crowd torture. Good trade off . Y'all ever host guest cooks? .Well... I can help drink anyway...