While I have not been to many competitions, most of the ones I have attended have been larger competitions, so they all follow the same general layout. Tournaments will usually have an equal number of judges as teams, and judges will be split into tables of 6, with a Table Captain, who brings the food to the table and makes sure things run smoothly. All Kansas City Barbecue Society certified competitions have a minimum of four meat categories, usually consisting of chicken, pork ribs, pork, and beef brisket. Larger tournaments may have ancillary categories like sausage, turkey, dessert, or mystery meat. Once all of the teams turn in their meats the judging begins.
The Kansas City Barbecue Society uses a scale from 9 as the best score at “Excellent” to 2 at “Inedible”, with 1 being for foods that have been disqualified. All meat categories are judged with three different criteria; Appearance, Taste, and Tenderness. First, all of the samples are judged on their appearance on the judging plates, it is important that everyone gives the appearance score first in case the meat becomes damaged or it is disqualified because of a rule break.
Each category is more in-depth than it looks, with even foods as simple as chicken can appear as wings, boneless nuggets, breast, drumsticks, leg, and multiple other types. Even though each is cooked differently, they are all judged similarly. Each of the meats must be judged without comparison to any others, which is the reason why the scale does not go to “Perfect”. Even though you cannot actually get a perfect score, a team that scores all 9’s on a sample from the judges is known as a perfect score, and one who gets perfects in all 4 categories receives the very elusive “Perfect Perfect”.
Another aspect which is hard to adjust to is judging based on criteria set by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and not by your own tastes and preferences. Knowing how to tell tenderness for meats can be tricky as some people prefer their meat cooked rarer, and some more well done. The rule is you must try every sample you are given, withholding dietary restrictions, as the cooks worked hard to provide their best samples. After the first bite, you are not required to eat the entire sample.
At the end of the day, which is full of eating tons of fantastic samples, winners are announced for each category, and then usually an overall winner with the highest combined total is crowned. While everyone wants to win, everyone is always supportive and happy for the winners. That is something that makes barbecue so great, is that it is less of a competition against other teams, but simply just a test of skill that helps bring people together.
