This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Sunflower Brew Revisited - Barbeque Four-Parter

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

12 years after the recording, the Sunflower Brew four-parter on barbecue and BBQ judging is finally together in one episode of its descendent podcast! The official guests on this 2013 four-parter were Jeremy Schliesman and Charlie Vincent. Part 1 was chicken, prepared by Jeremy Smith. Part 2 was St. Louis style ribs, prepared by Mathew "Doc" Love. Part 3 was pulled pork, prepared by Nathan Victor. Part 4 was brisket, prepared by Ryan Walsh.

Check the mic will go live. Stories told their eyes and dive. Topics fresh with every spin. You won't guess what's coming in. Every week a new surprise. Mind's awake and never lies. Conversations bold and free. Tune in now just wait and see this podcast is uncarnful

Can't you see there's so much more laughs and tales you can't ignore A journey that will leave you floor In the night or in the day Just press play we're on our way And welcome back to the podcast. I hope everyone's doing great. So I've been known to recycle old podcast material into this podcast.

And no, for good reason. It's part of my history as podcaster and still part of my life and all that. And I actually got an interesting idea. you. So a friend of the podcast, Dan Handley, on Facebook, just the other day was talking about possibly becoming a barbecue judge, which, hey, we're in KC, there's a thing called the KC Barbecue Society. And I was saying, oh, wait, we did that on my first podcast, so Sunflower Brew. And I still have those recordings. we used part of them in uh we used part of these uh barbecue judging recordings in the uh retrospective

episode but uh not the whole thing so uh so zach if you'll forgive me uh i will be uh revisiting uh those four episodes so uh technically all one episode but we broke up in the four parts I'm going to use this episode to bring those four parts together, and I will edit creatively so it feels like one seamless recording. So I can tell you, again, this I put together, our guests were Jeremy Schleisman and Charlie Vinson. They did all four parts, so. A, B, C, and D.

So part A was, I can't believe this is over 12 years old now. So here we are, recycling 12 year old audio. So part A was barbecue chicken, we were judging. Part B was the ribs, which were St. Louis style. And the part that we recycled from this the first time around was the fact that they were turned in upside down when you turn in ribs we learned that you're supposed to do them the curfey side needs to be down so the meat is up for presentation they were turned in here curvy side up so they were just seeing bone they weren't really seeing meat and that would be classed

upside down. Part three was pulled pork, specifically a little Boston butt. That's why I learned that there is a pig body parts called the Boston butt. I don't barbecue much. So, and part four, the last part was brisket, which got into the, oh, it has a Worcestershire feel to, to a It feels like you put A1 into your marinade. So, so, uh, there you go. Dan, this one's for you. The, uh, four parts of Sunfire Brew where we are judging barbecue. I hope the rest of you enjoyed this as well.

Welcome to Sunflower Brew. I'm your host, Zach Luya. Today we have a very special episode. We're not talking about politics or anything like that. We're talking about barbecue. Barbecue and beer, the quintessential Kansas City combination. And we are here with Jeremy Shalichmann. I always butcher that. I apologize for that. Jeremy and Charlie Vincent of the award-winning team of 18th and Swine. Jeremy and Charlie will provide some insight into how KCBS judges grade barbecue. The guys from Black Hats Barbecue are upstairs putting together some barbecue for us. So we're actually going to use this as a test run for that team for the American Royal.

Charlie, Jeremy, welcome to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having us. All right. Well, again, Sunflower Brew is usually about political discussion and beer, but, you know, it's the equinox. So we've sacrificed a chicken and a cow and a pig, and we've slowly smoked them over hickory and oak and whatever types of nice woods. And now we're going to drink some beer, which is a free state's October fest. And we're actually going to judge this just like a competition.

So before we start, Charlie, Jeremy, why don't you guys tell us how you guys got involved in the barbecue? Yeah, I'll start. My wife is the one to blame for it. We were getting a house and then we were getting a washer and dryer. And then the people who had moved out left the washer and dryer in the townhouse. Our real estate agent was kind enough to let us just use the washer and dryer. And then there was a smoker in the back, a little El Chippo Brinkman. My wife said grab it.

And then that was the start of seven years later. We have a team with Charlie and I. Charlie and I started out barbecuing together on weekends. We'd watch football games and we'd smoke ribs. And then we graduated to chicken. and as he said that his involvement was he blames it on his wife marianne i blame my involvement on him he got into it he had this el chippo brinkman i bought one too and we started doing it on weekends and then he said let's start doing competitions and i said no we don't we can't do that

we don't know what we're doing and it can't be that hard yeah seven years later so it was yeah we've we've got a trial by fire you know we look back seven years ago and not that not that we're you know the greatest now but when we first started we were very green and didn't know what we're doing so it's all because of jeremy well hey i'm going to blame it on you guys because we go to some competitions and just see you you'd have a tent and then jeremy sold me my first smoker because i was just using just a little whatever kettle but uh thank you guys for pulling me into this a very expensive hobby thank you're welcome expensive but delicious very delicious very expensive all right so we're going to talk about uh basically how the kcbs judges barbecue

competitions. And at a barbecue competition for our listeners, they move through chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket, and then at some competitions you can add inside and some other ones. So we're going to move through those. And the first up is Jeremy. He, from a Black Hat barbecue, he's bringing us some chicken. So he's going to present it here. He's going to set it down in front of us. And I'm going to ask you some basic questions. What do judges look for? How do you describe this item here? And you actually were kind enough to provide us with a judging slip and so we'll look at it and we'll talk about it and then we'll move on to the next one which will be ribs and then pulled pork and then brisket. So first up is Jeremy Smith and

Jeremy is going to do his best Van of White and bring us the chicken here so if you want to bring it over and we'll set it in the middle and get some stuff out of the way for the big reveal. All right here we go. I don't know about the lighting but that's fun. Yeah when you're Judging KCP's barbecue, the first thing that will happen is you'll submit your barbecue turning box to a table, which turning table. They will then wait for six entries to make a cup, and they'll take those cups to the back. They will take the sticker on top. They will change it out, and it's called a double-blind system.

So the judges who may have walked to the parking lot and seen your tent or may know you personally will not know which box they're getting. Okay. So a true double-blind system. It is a true double-blind system. All right. Well, that's good. So you get the cup, you get the six different items.

Okay, so you're going to judge them from first to last, and you're going to go off of appearance, taste, and tenderness. Yes. So the big reveal is the first time they open up the clamshell. And appearance, what do they look for in, from the KCBS standpoint, and then how does that compare to this item? Okay. From a KCBS standpoint, you want to make sure that you have at least six items in the box.

There are six judges at the table. Okay. From there, it's kind of subjective. You want to garnish is optional. You don't have to have garnish in the box. It's kind of a sickling point with teams because to score well, you have to have. You have to have. Because we eat with our eyes.

Exactly, exactly. It's a really good way of putting it. The table captain, there's a table captain who will then. and show every one of the judges, the box, and then they don't touch it. They just take a look at it. And then you rank it from 9 to 2 to being very bad, and then 9 being excellent. Oh, okay. So they open up all the boxes, and that's the first thing they do.

They just say, okay, this, this, and this. Yeah, they take it one at a time, and then they will show everyone at the table, and then they will close the box and then put it back on the little tray that they have, and then they do in the next box. So the first thing you judge is appearance, all six. six appearances at once okay and what would the judges look for in this one um what are we critiquing here um you know since since jeremy's losing this as a test run what what is it what is it how would you rate this box again you don't have other five others to compare it to

but looking at it just on this kind of this platform right here good median bad this is a good i would say this is a good turn in okay i would probably give this uh probably an eight okay out of nine. This looks really good to me. What stands out is it looks really moist. Okay. It's not burnt in any particular places. The rub is evenly placed among all the pieces. There's no standout there's nothing to detract from it. The KBS system used to be you would go from six and then go up or down.

Now what they do is they say just judge it. And they use little things that say like nine is excellent and then age is very good and then you just write down your score quickly okay so they've no longer used that benchmark no no now now Jeremy here he's done a mix of he's got some thighs he's got some thighs he's got some thighs in here and he's got some legs mixing it you know obviously it's all dark meat uh so is that an issue um going from there no I would say not really okay I think yeah I think yeah and I would agree I would score this an eight. I think when you're looking at the box, one of the things you want to do is you want to fill

up the box as much as you can. And kind of like you said, Zach, that you kind of, you look with your, you eat with your eyes. And really when the scoring of the appearance, it's very subjective. But the things like Jeremy said, it looks moist. Everything is, is the rub is evenly placed. You want your box to be as full as you can get. You know, when we first started out, we were, we would throw in the minimum of six. Like you said, there's six judges at a table. Yeah, because that's why we would always do that as well. But you want it to look full. You want it to look, I read something on a website earlier, and we'll talk about this later.

We have a couple websites that have good information about how to judge turn-in boxes, and you can go on there and kind of look and see what other people are turning in. But somebody had a good quote on there that said they had posted a picture of their turn-in box, and they asked for people to rate it. And this person was going to give this particular. I think it was a pork turn-in and ate. And he said, I can't give it a nine. because if you don't give me your best

turn in box I can't give you my best score So really you want to make your box look You want those judges mouths to water So I think about this this box I think it definitely looks full I don't know with a traditional turn-in box If you'd be able to get that many pieces in there Right

Traditionally most people use for competition thighs But any parts of the chicken Any piece of chicken will work So I like I think it's very symmetrical too It is So I would definitely give this a solid, a solid eight. Okay. Well, why don't we move on to the takes portion?

So you actually provided this with the judging plate. So I'm not going to dirty this up because it's going to go up on my wall, but I'm going to use the plate. I have quite a few. So it doesn't matter what the judges select. Whether, I mean, in this place we have a. In the second round of judging, what will happen is you've taken all of your appearance scores. Then the judge will back to the tray and then pick up the first box and then he will. he or she will open up the box and allow you to take any piece that you want any piece in that box is judgeable now some teams like to uh take all their kind of leftover meat and put it in the bottom of the box so it will act as a prop and as a heat source to keep the meat on top of it uh hot however the drawback of that is they can also pick that meat pick that meat so you need to be careful what you put it in the box can we hide it underneath the garnish you can they can still grab it

Oh, okay. They can see it. Let me tell you. If they're kind of veterans, they'll, they might grab it like, okay, what's this piece? All right. So it might count against you. Okay. Well, that would seem kind of hard on chicken, but I mean, that may be for more pork and biscuit and stuff like that.

But, okay. So let's move on to for the taste. Yep. Real quick, what do they look for in a taste? Okay. We've kind of talked about this over the years. And when I talk to the judge, I run the cure. I run the curate of ours judges for Holy Smoke's contest.

Myself and Oscar Healy, I used to be Steve Mayer and Oscar Healy. It's a great system that they have at Holy Smokes. It's based off of KCBS. The thing about taste is, even KCBS says this. It's really subjective. It's up to you. And when you judge all the boxes, you're not judging this box on this table versus this box here now. you're it's the taste you think it is the score you think it is at that exact moment okay something

important so so instead of doing like a totality of saying okay this one is better than a or b you have to base it again breaking this down just as you are tasting it is that because there's there's a time difference between when you taste this as opposed to the first one in the last one you want each box to be on its own individual merits okay and when you talk about taste KCBS judges kind of like a certain profile of flavor. Okay. If you go outside the box of this flavor, we basically call it like a strike zone for the KCBS judges. If it's too outside the box, if it's too different or too weird, they will mark it down.

So if I come in, even if I got a great flavor profile, you know, and let's say it's, you know, Marrakesh spices with something that they've never tasted. because they're here in Kansas City, and it may taste awesome. If it's just foreign to their palate, they're just kind of like, yes. Is that? Yeah, we were talking about this on the way over that I think everybody has their individual taste.

Jeremy likes more spicy barbecue flavors. I kind of like the more traditional Kansas City. I'm probably going in line, yeah, with more what the judges are looking for. So, you know, kind of that strike zone, you know, or you think of it maybe even as like a bell curve, average people like, you know, just kind of the middle of the road, Casey, Can't see Masterpiece or, you know, just a basic... That still exists? Well, the sauce does, not the restaurant.

The restaurant. Yeah. But the sauce is owned by Clorox. Oh, wow. I know, and they put it in everything. I'm surprised they don't have a Clorox flavor of tasting masterpiece. That would go well. So, okay, let's look. You love the traditional.

Jeremy loves the more adventurous, kind of smoky, spicy. Yeah, kind of a little bit. So let's go with this. So let's taste this. What are you eating? I got a thigh. I've got a leg. Mike's got a leg.

I've got a leg. I'll go for a thigh. Okay. So we're just take a big old bite. I'm going to just take a big old bite. It's good. It was good. I know that with chicken and Jeremy Smith and I were having this discussion.

I hate chicken. Cooking chicken. because that's always a problem is it's either rubbery or crispy like an old lady's skin who's been out in the sun too much. We could say Kentucky Fried Chicken, but that's fine. Kentucky Fried chicken, original recipe. But, oh, that is so good, though. It's very good. That is good.

Anyway, so, okay. So we've got taste and tenderness here, so we're going to mix them together. Let's go with the taste first. I'm picking up a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of heat, too. And Jeremy, here at the end, we're going to have you chime in and tell us a little bit about what you're going to. put in not your full recipe but what you put on the sauce and the rub so judges tell us what you think i think i would give i would give the taste a seven okay um i think i think as far as the and i think that the skin biting through kind of gets into more of the tenderness which

we'll get to next but and again this is where it gets subjective i like i like sweeter sweeter tasting barbecue and i think i think the heat there's there's some heat on the back end it. But it's not overpowering. But I just prefer my chicken a little bit, a little bit on the sweeter side. I think it, and again, I don't know how long ago, this probably depends a lot on how long ago this chicken was taken off the smoker. It's not, it's a little bit, I kind of got a little bit of dryness. It could have been just in this piece. It could be because this is a leg and I don't know what the, what the thighs were like. But it kind of tastes a little bit dry. But I would give it a solid seven.

Okay. One of the things that they talk about in a KCBS judging class is you have to discount the temperature because you don't know how long that that chicken's been sitting there on the table waiting to fill that cup. So it could be five minutes. It could be ten minutes. So you discount the temperature. You have to take that out of the equation. It's very hard to do. Not all judges do. Not all judges do. Particularly since it's chicken. and everybody has this issue. I do, you know, cold chicken freaks me out because I'm kind of a germphode.

But that's why I will never hug anybody. I just high-five. So, yeah, so I can understand that with cold chicken. So, okay, so I got that. And then tenderness. Well, what did you give it for taste? I really, I liked it. I thought it was kind of a nice balance.

You get a little bit of that sweetness first, and then you get a kind of nice slow. I can still taste a little bit of the heat. A little bit of the smokiness, too. I think it's pretty balanced I would go again with the seven There's nothing that's kind of Acidic or not acidic but

You know when you get too much smoke in there that kind of act Right there's no creosote little flavor On the end of it. Creosote flavor that burnt flavor I think it's just it's kind of It's not too salty, not too peppery It's just kind of very balanced And I don't know if that's a detriment Is that because it's not very bold

And it's pretty good I would give it an 8 Because it does have a little bit of boldness on the end it's very balanced. There's not too much salt. There's no too much pepper on it. And it is middle of the road. It's hitting that strike zone, which is what you kind of want. It's getting barbecue to the lowest common denominator because you have to satisfy the taste buds of six judges, not just one. Also about taste, when you start making things like your own rub or your own sauce, you don't want to think and get in this trap of, I need to reamint the wheel. There are a lot of rubs and sauces out there that are fantastic. You don't have to rewit with the will. A lot of the KCBS judges love those particular flavors. Okay.

I would give it an eight. Like I said. It was very balanced. I liked a lot. Very nice. And then go with the tenderness. Charlie touched a little bit on it just because of the potential dryness, but just because Jeremy Smith, he drove from Olathe to here.

I mean, you know, he had to cross a couple border crossings. with his passport to get here so that i mean i don't know how you did it how did you sneak some poultry into the country but we'll go we'll set that aside tenderness i would give it i would give it innate uh for me that i think that the uh i bit through it i was able to bite through it solid it didn't it didn't fall off the bone so it wasn't overdone it wasn't rubbery uh so it wasn't underdone the skin and this is and this is kind of some debate too because kcbs and jeremy me correct me if i'm wrong but does not require that the skin have bite through you'd be able to bite through the skin without pulling it off but a lot of people judge down for that if it does pull

off and it's very difficult it's preferable it's preferable and it's very difficult to cook uh and and not have that happen yeah because if you watch some of the videos i mean you basically have to butcher this bird to get it i mean you're scraping off the schmoltz and wrapping it back up and toothpicking it you know and then you got mire nixon who's saying you basically cupcake it and which is i think is little nuggets which i think is more you're of a poaching is it supposed but that's that's a different argument okay but you go on with the yeah so i i would give it an aid i think yeah the tenderness is very good like i said you know mine kind of tastes a little bit dry but that's because i this was probably pulled off the smoker

you know a while ago i think uh if this was coming you know came right off the right off the smoker i'm sure it would probably be a lot more a lot more juicier a lot more moist but um but i would give it i would definitely give it an eight okay jeremy i i unfortunately would have to give it maybe a five okay uh i i'm sure that when it was pull off the smoker it was great but at this point right now tasting it which is what you're supposed to do it's dry the thigh is dry love to have tasted it when it came out the smoker but it did have bite through skin uh right through skin great great job on that it just has a dry mouth feel to it yeah yeah and again that may be the 30 minute drive time over here

it could very well you should have came over here and dry you should have came over here and dry you Should it came over and smoked it here? I go as fast as I could. I mean, that's all I can do. Okay, so we got some eights, we got sevens, we got, I'm sorry, Jerry. Unfortunately, a five. A five, okay. Jeremy's on the five.

All right, Jeremy Smith, you cooked it. What do you want to throw in here? Questions you might want to ask, and you might have to step closer to the mic so we can pick you up here. But what would you like to ask, Jeremy and Charlie? How can you approve? That's a good question. Do you rhyme? I did brine.

I brined for two hours prior to the, putting the skin back on as Zach alluded to I didn't remove the skin and work very hard to get all of the fat off the backside because everything I read said that the fat is the enemy of a bite-through skin and so that that was that was goal number one was to get rid of all that fat and really get the skin back on so that it can adhere so that you can have a bite-through situation I did go with my personal palette is one where I like something a little bit spicy here. So I wanted to have a little bit of spice in the rub.

And so it sounds like, and this is something I thought all along, was that you're up against what everyone else thinks is their favorite type of barbecue. Some people are going to like it spicy. Some people are going to like it sweet. And so I went with something that I would want to eat. Not necessarily something I thought everyone would want to eat. But I did try and keep all of the flavors balanced so that it wasn't so overpowering that someone who maybe preferred something sweet

would be totally turned off by the... And you did a very good job of that. You were in that someone. I mean, I can still taste it in my mouth, but it's not that bad like, oh, I need a cracker or something. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's there. It's a pleasant experience. Exactly. I would grab another piece. It is

good, dude. Okay. I was just going to add, too, real quick, that something else to keep in mind is when you're You have six different turn-ins, teams at each table. They'll show you the box for your appearance, and then they will come down with each box and let you take a piece out. You take your bites for taste and tenderness score, and then they'll go with the second team. Something to keep in mind, and you really don't have control over this. Now, there's some things that I've read that a lot of teams will, when they're going to turn in,

they will look to see where the box, you turn your boxes in on a crate. They will look to see where the latest, how far. full that box is or that crate is if there's getting close to having six boxes on it the reason being if you're the first meat that those judges try you're not going up against any other they haven't tried any you got a clean palette so you could get good scores so there's a lot of people that like to be and there's some you know some technique there so load your box heavy so they put and then just jouse it with a lot of pepper yeah so you burn anybody else exactly exactly so that's Something to keep in mind, if you're turning in and you see that a box only has one or two boxes, maybe wait, hang, you know, some people might like...

Right. What he's talking about is what you do is you take something like a hot and cold bag, like a pizza box, and then you put your turn a box in it, and then you wait until the very last pit, the last bit of the cup's being made, and then you submit your entry. All right. You are the hottest cup, turn and box that cup. All right, well, there's tricks of the trade. All right, the dirty bastards out there. All right. And we're moving on to the next section, which is RIVs.

And Doc, Matt Love, is actually going to be coming up here. He's going to bring us his attempt at Rives. And Matt is actually a first-time participant on our team. So he's kind of a newbie here. So raking over the goals, victimizing. So we really need to him. have him step up and score some points for us. So Matt's going to come down and bring the presentation here.

So, Matt, if you would, let's see what you got. Now, Matt, well, while we're doing this, you can just sit it on the side. Did you do spare ribs, St. Louis-style? Okay. And Jeremy, Charlie, you want to chime in on that real quick? What is the difference between the baby-back spare ribs, St. Louis-style, all that stuff? Baby backs come from the upper part of the ribs towards the spine of the hog. Baby backs generally are more known for having more meat.

They're smaller. They're going to be more curved. The bone's going to be more curved. So as you're plating it, putting it in the box, you need to keep that in mind. You don't want to stack it too high so the box won't close. Spare ribs generally don't have as much meat, but they're more known for having better flavor. So it's really kind of 50-50. and over our competition lifetime, I've kind of gone back and forth.

Yeah, Charlie's our Ritman. And I do, I'm back onto baby backs. The thing about doing spares, and I was glad to hear with the St. Louis cut, if you do spares, cutting them in St. Louis, and that's basically taking the ribs and kind of squaring them off and making that more of a rectangle shape, that's going to help your ribs be equal length. And generally, you'll cut from the middle part of the ribs and leave the ends alone.

But that will help you to make them more uniform if you cut them St. Louis style. But yeah, so I kind of go back and forth. And I would say on the competition circuit it's probably 50-50. I mean, you'll talk to some people. They like spares, some like. I know when I go out to eat, and this is just, you know, commercial restaurants. I prefer the spare ribs to the baby bags, but just because I think I get more for my money. But, okay, so let's go in on with this.

This is, you said baby bags? No, they just say those spares. Oh, St. Louis Spares. All right. We got the first up is the appearance. So walk just through the appearance here. The first thing I'm going to say that is he turned his ribs in upside down. Okay.

I see the flap meet and I'm looking. I see a couple of paint strokes of them. And that's one of the things you look for as a competition judge is you want to see the bark. You want to see them turn upside correctly. And you want to see the smoke ring. Okay. And before we go into that smoke cream. for those un-initiated is what?

Just a brief description. It's a chemical reaction between the nitrates on the meat and the moisture and smoke in the smoke chamber. Which actually creates a visible ring that is pink. It's a pink. It's about a fourth of an inch deep. Anything other than that might be artificially created. That's for another podcast. A bunch of cheaters again.

All right. So, okay. So we're looking at it. Brush strokes. The flat part of the meat, bark, what else? It does look moist. Yeah, definitely, the color looks good. Yeah, I can see some of the brushstrokes, but that's an easy fix.

But I think the color looks good. You know, like Jeremy said, they're upside down. I still don't think even, you definitely want to turn them in meat side up. But even for upside down, I don't think it looks horrible. I mean, I don't think this would get a bad score. No, I'm sorry, I don't. What about, we're looking at this and we see that the meat has. pulled away from the ends of the bone here is that's that's what is that what is that an

indicator of that means that you should be getting a tender rack of ribs okay also when you look at it unfortunately the people at home can't see this it looks like it came from one rack of rib instead of they took a couple of racked ribs and they pulled out the best pieces and put them in the box which is you're going to get knocked for that or you will be a knock for that okay so they the judges want to see that you cooked a solid piece of meat It's all about uniformity and symmetry in the box. So, yeah, like you can see, like Jeremy was saying, you can kind of see the little flap right here, which being upside down, you're going to see that. But it does look uniform.

You can tell these all came from the same rack. And I think, yeah, the meat pulling away from the bone, like Jeremy said, it's an indication that it's going to be a tender rib. And I think they all look uniform. They're all pulled away from the bone the same way. It's very symmetrical looking. You definitely want, you know, if you don't have a rack, you don't want to turn in some ribs that are pulled away from the bone and some don't. All six ribs here have pulled away from the bone. It's a very symmetrical.

And I think in the past competitions when we've done ribs, that we've actually done that where we mixed and matched kind of some of them. So they know right away. That has happened on 18th's one. Yeah. And it's tough. It's tough. You know, sometimes, yeah, sometimes you don't. It's hard to, yeah, find, you know, ribs that are often the same rack if they, you know, if you can't, you know.

Sometimes things happen. We knew a guy who turned in three pieces of bruskets from different brisks. Yeah. How are you got to do? You know, I did, you know, pull pork, you know, pull pork's a little different because it's all shrewered because I just shrewed all in there. But all right, so what are we going to judge it on on the appearance here? And again, no hard, no hard feelings. You know, Doc may go upstairs and cry, but this is about us getting better.

So give it to him. It still looks good. I'm going to give that to Doc. It still looks good. I'm going to give it to seven. Okay. it's got all the things that I'm looking for it looks like it's moist

it looks like from the same rack of ribs like you said before all the ribs the meat has pulled away from the bone it looks like it's a very tender it's visually appealing I'm going to give it a seven okay Charlie you're the rib man

I would also give it a seven and I commend doc for this because like I said the first thing I did notice was the ribs being upside down but it could have gone much worse being upside down before actually I'm kind of curious I want to

clip it over and see if it looks like meat side. So what's he really high? But, yeah, for, I would give it, I would give it definitely a seven. Okay, so. All right, so let's go. Zach, where are you going to get it? You know, I'm in experience at this, but I think it's a good-looking rib. It's pulled away.

It's got kind of that nice sheen to it. I look at it as something like, some of them that I've seen, they look like, they just look like lollipops, and that just looks gross. To me, this looks like meat, and it looks like it. It's been smoked and so will be a good taste. And it doesn't have that look that it's, I'm going to pick it up and shake it and it's just going to drop right off the bone. That's true. I know a lot of people that when they want it from the backyard, they want it just falling off the bone.

I like my ribs that have a little bit of, I hate to use meat to it. I mean, they can stand up. It's something I can taste and it's not something that's just mush. I'll say this. They have a very caveman-like appeal. They've got the bone. You just kind of feel like a Fred Flintstone. You just want to like, you know, grab it off there.

And one thing before is we're getting ready to pull them off and I'll mention this too as we get into to taste. And this really would apply to ribs and brisket, probably not so much chicken and pork because you're cutting the meat from one bigger piece of meat. When you're cutting ribs and brisket, you want to make sure that you cut them clean through because the judges are trained as you're pulling your rib off or when we get the brisket as you're pulling your piece of brisket out. if the individual pieces of meat are somehow still connected and you pull it out of there say I'm pulling a rib out of here and it's still connected to another rib you can kind of shake it if you want it to fall out but if they're still connected that's considered one piece of meat

so here there's six there's six bones in the box if I pulled one of those bones out and they're still connected then that means there's going to be five left or there's going to be four left and there's not enough for the next and that's an automatic disqualification right clean cuts They would come out to your tent and they tell you, you're disqualified.

You do not give you points for that. So as you're doing that, you know, there's two ways to kind of address that. One, make sure you cut them all the way through. But two, usually you can fit. You might be able to fit like an extra rib or two in your box. If you can do it, here there's six. If you put a, you know, a seventh one or you can fit an eighth one in there, then that wouldn't be an issue. But really, the other thing, too, is when you judge, if you do pick up a piece of meat, you have to pull that meat off.

So if somebody did pick it up and it is connected, you can't put it back in there and say, I'll find another one that's not connected to another rip. Once you touch it, it's yours. All right. Well, let's go ahead and get into the taste and the tenderness here. I'm going to grab one from the middle. All right. So we've picked it up.

Again, we're still eating with our eyes here. So we're going to take a bite. Is there any particular place where the judges kind of go for? I mean, they go for the most meat or they just kind of. Right. Since the next thing is taste, you would just take a bite, and the taste and the tenor is kind of go together. When you take a bite of a piece of rib, what's supposed to be the tenderness part of it is when you take a bite and you pull your teeth back, there should be a visible bite mark. The rest of the ribs should not come off with it.

And this is one of those things where it's backyard versus KCBS. In competition, it should not fall to the bone. That is overdone. And like Jeremy said, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that have said, you hear this all the time, fall off the meat ribs. the bone ribs. That's, and some people like that. But for KCBS, for their judging, that's, like Jeremy said, you should bite into it and be able to see your bite mark in the rib without the meat falling off.

Okay. So let's go into taste. So we got kind of the texture, tenderness mix there. So from this one, I guess we're kind of getting them backwards. But let's go with, let's continue on with that tenderness here. Just to judge that. I mean, I got a couple of clear bite marks on this. Yes.

How would you guys go with it? Tenderness? Doc, I'm going to give you. a nine brother. Oh, very nice. I pulled on the first nine. Two different sides of the same piece of rib bone. And I have a definite bite and mark. The mouth feel was really good. And when I say mouthfeel, I'm talking about how the meat sits in your mouth. And when you chew it, it's kind of a subjective thing, but it doesn't taste weird to me. I mean, it's very nice. It's a very paddable piece of rib.

Okay. I would agree. I'm not copying off Jeremy, I swear. I would give this a nine. I mean, I'm looking right at my bite mark. Yeah. And I took a bite from both sides of the rib, too. I would definitely give this a nine.

And I'm looking, and it's kind of, you've already, when you're judging, we will have already judge on appearance. So it's kind of hard for the smoke ring on ribs. If you go with the meat side up, you really it's kind of hard to see the sides and see that smoke ring yeah but now that i've actually picked the rib up off the plate and looked at it it does have a really nice smoke rate too um so again appearance i've already judged on that but taste i would definitely give that or i should say tenderness definitely give that a nine good all right my my opinion on this

again it's very tender you bit into it it came off i think my uh one of the things that i did is i went down towards the meteor end and got a little bit more meat and that came across as just a little bit overcooked, not mushy, but kind of that really quickly disintegrated in my mouth, not, but again, that may have been just because it was more towards the long end of it. And when you take a KCBS class, what you can do, you can just go to KCBS.us, sign it for classes, $100, then you can take a four-hour class where they teach you things like what you're talking about, it's mouthfeel.

Yeah. If it disintegrates in your mouth, it's overcooked. Yeah. But I thought it was very good. I'm going to go with an eight. Sorry, Doc. I'm going to step down away from the judges. I thought it was really good.

But, again, that may have just been because I went with a different part first. And if I would have stayed towards the middle of the rib, it may have been different. Well, the thing is, you gave it an eight. An eight is a really good school. People should take that away is when you have a submission from, say, your favorite barbecue place, and they submit something, they might get six. Right. I mean, there's, K-CBS is very hard. It's not something that the amateur really can just step up to.

It takes a lot of hard work to get to that little time window for the judges. So when we got crushed on our first temp out at the American Royal, we wish we shouldn't feel so bad. That may have not been the first most step. Well, actually, Jeremy Smith over there, he did great. He got 55th out of whatever in Pullport. They're about 500 teams on that. So he had 55 as us. He actually elevated our average.

The rest of us, we were total crap. But, yeah, thanks to Jeremy. All right, so now we're on to taste. Okay, so what are we looking at here? On the rib. Obviously, pork is different. It's different pieces of the pig. But on the rib, rib, you know,

pulled pork is kind of a neutral flavor, but the ribs, I think, yeah, for the viewers at home, Charlie has actually gotten rid of his. He had a whole bone left. He stripped it to the film. Bone left. But I think actually a rib has a little bit of pork flavor, but that's a whole different discussion about the commercialization of pork. But what do we got here?

Well, I think for ribs, you definitely want it to be moist. You don't want it to be dry. And as far as the taste, you don't want it. It's kind of like the chicken. You don't want anything to be overpowering. You know, your flavor profile, again, it's kind of the same thing with that strike zone. You don't want it to be too hot. you don't want it to be too sweet, kind of want it to be middle of the road.

You don't want, if you use a rub, you don't want the rub to be overpowering. If you use, which most people use the sauce, and I would definitely encourage anyone to use the sauce. You don't want the sauce to be overpowering. So you really want it to be kind of a balanced, you know, kind of a flavor. And just for the, I know we mentioned kind of the numbers here earlier, but just for the audience, Zach, if I could real quick. Yeah, go for it. Looking at the judging slip, I'll just read off the scoring, the point. So nine is excellent.

Eight is very good. seven is above average six is average five is below average four is poor three is bad two is an edible one is disqualified so jeremy mentioned earlier that six they used to judge where you started at six and go up from there six is average nine is excellent if you get below six you know you're getting into some kind of bad barbecue with two being inedible i'm going to for my personal taste i'm going to give it a nine this is right i think it tastes you stripped that dude i did We do. That's why I'm the good guy on the table.

There is nothing there. I think I, it really... You guys need to talk after this. I need to know what you used. I think that the rub, whatever rub used on it, wasn't overpowering. I think the sauce, for my personal taste, that's exactly what I want to taste. It was very moist. The sauce was not overpowering, and it was a good middle-of-the-road sweet sauce for my palate.

So that was excellent. Now, and I'll say this, and I mentioned this earlier, too, about where, your box comes in terms of the other six or the other five meets you're competing at the table this tastes it damn good to me if this was the sixth rib at the table

I may have tried five others that I thought and we're all human it's very subjective so I may have tried five before this that I thought well those were awesome and when I got to yours I would have thought well that's not as good as the second burn out you got burnout on your side okay what he's talking about is when you make your cup

and you get six you know ribs on your K-CBS judging plate. What's supposed to happen is you take a bite of rib one. You take a drink of water and then you take a bite of a salting cracker. And then you're supposed to take another drink of water

and then go on to the next one. It's supposed to clean your palate. Now, adding more salt to your taste palate, that can be, you know, that could be something that you talk about with the KCBS organization. However.

Pickles. I think they should use pickles. But anyway, that's right. That is a classic. Charlie does bring a good point is by the time I get to number six, I may have had something that is so overpowering. By the time I get to yours, I still have leftover ramifications from that other one. And that's something that, you know, that that can't be. In the current

scoring system, that's something that's really, you can't, you can't get away from that. However, Doc, I'm going to give you another nine. Look at you. Doc. Really, really enjoyed this rip. I'm surprised by the taste that, you know, you turned in your ribs upside down. Other than that, dude, you really brought it. Way to go. For the first time, way to go, Noob. Way to go, Noob.

I think, yeah, I mean, I gave the appearance of seven. I think you've turned it upside down. You could have damn near gotten a perfect score. You could have done really well. Oh, look at that. All right, Doc, real quick, we're approaching about its 20-minute time limit here. Give me a brief description of how you prepared it and then you rub. Off air, I'll have you, give you some time to talk to Jeremy and Charlie and kind of get a better critique of it.

So, how'd you do? What'd you do to prepare? What'd you smoke with? So, yeah, I did use a rub. Use Zardis rub. And then Oklahoma Joe's sauce. Nice. Okay.

What'd you smoke with? What would? Pecan. Okay. And time? How long were you on there? And did you foil? Did you wrap?

And then? I did. I did the 3-2-1. Okay. Yep. 225? Between 225 and 250. Okay.

And what do you smoke on? Jeremy Smith smokes on a Brinkman, I think, is what do you smoke on? Is it an offset? It's a chart grill or it's offset. Highly modified, got some great pneumatic tires on it, which makes barbecue competition great. It's really anything to save your back. Yes. Doc, what do you smoke on?

Might see you, a Weber smoking mountain. Nice. Okay. This is pulled pork that is prepared by Nathan Victor, and we're here with Jeremy and Charlie from 18th and Swine. We're continuing on and judging this. So we're going to jump right in here, and we're going to talk about, first of all, pulled pork.

Basically, you can use pork butt, and a lot of people are very confused about this. What is the difference between a picnic and a pork butt and a shoulder? and all that. Is there any difference? I mean, is it just nomenclature? What is it? Yeah, it's a little confusing nomenclature. A Boston butt is actually not the top part of the shoulder or the front leg of the pig. That is the picnic. When you get down to the second half, right before the hoof, that is the Boston butt. So even the name but is a misnomer because it's your the front half of the shoulder of the pig. And the reason why it's the Boston butt is it was a shipping company up in Boston who specialized in it.

I mean, it's a lot of infusion. Okay. All right. And Nathan, you can chime in here and tell us later about what cut you used. But let's move into the appearance. What do we look for from a KCBS standpoint on the presentation here in front of us? Do we look for big chunks? Do we look for small chunks?

Do we look for a mix? The first thing that stands out to me is I don't see a whole lot of bark. on the outside pieces. It's a lot of pull tubes and a lot of chunks near the bone part of the Boston butt. Wow, you can pick that up just from the visual. You know, when you say tubes,

because the way that the meat is structured with the shoulder, when you pull it off, it's long and tubular and tubular, I guess. It's the best way to describe it. Specific muscle, though. On a Boston butt, there are pieces that you want to have.

There's a piece of visually describing it's kind of hard. However, it's the money piece that they're talking about. There is the back end which has got the shoulder blade in it. Right.

And then opposite of that is the money muscle. It is a distinct piece of striped muscle that you'll pull off at the end of it. It's been really cooked. If it's been cooked

really well, it is almost like burn ends. Okay. Burn ends for pork. A lot of bark on it. Behind that, first money muscle, you'll have seven tubes

of muscle that you can strip out. And then In the middle, if we're going from right to left, behind the tubes, you have a lot of muscle that can be pulled. That is the pulled port part. It's really tough and dense. And then beyond that, you'll get pieces close to the bone. Okay.

So for our viewers at home, you have basically seven kind of distinctive muscles that make up the shoulder. And then there's kind of the surrounding of it. And that's the stuff you want to shred. And you want to leave those other muscles fairly well intact. Yes. Okay. When you're doing a turn-in, when you strip away the money muscle, and then you strip away the tubes, and then you leave the middle part alone, not really for turn-in. It's a little more drier unless you really inject it or bry it really well.

And then you have stuff that's new at home, which is really sweet, and you can chunk it. So if I come in with my bear claws and just tear it up, it's just going to look like mush and... Yes, exactly. A lot of people throw that in with a whole bunch of sauce and then put it into a pile in the box. which is great on a sandwich with some colesla on top but this standpoint this does not have any of that uh pull pork in the middle of it okay uh this has lots tubes and lots of sweet meat near the bun okay okay all right and charlie yeah i would add to that yeah i think i think of the good side it's definitely looks full and again you know like we mentioned earlier you you don't you don't want to put

the bare minimum of meat and pork is kind of different because chicken you have six pieces ribs you have six bones but pork is kind of different you is not exactly six distinct pieces in there but you want to fill it up so visually from a fullness standpoint it looks good but I think you know some of the things that I picked up like Jeremy said you know the bark yeah these kind of look like they were all pulled from the same part of the pork you know there I see some tubes in here and some of the parts like Jeremy said from there were closer to the bone you can see like these pieces over here and sorry for the viewers or listeners at home but you can see some of the bark it's kind of uneven as far as you know the symmetry of the of the

the box. There's some bark over here, some bark in the middle. And then I just noticed a few areas of kind of uneven, some places that weren't sauced. So like Jeremy said, when you're talking about with the pork, you know, you've got the money muscle that's really good for chunking. And that'll have a good bark on the outside. And then you've got your tubes, which are kind of like these pieces right here. And then you've got your pulled pork. So when you're turning it in, a lot of people have a certain preference for certain parts of the pork, especially pulled pork. I think everybody when you think of pork, you think of pulled pork. So, and I don't see any pulled pork here.

So some people, as they're judging that on the appearance, they could maybe, you know, look and say, well, I don't see any pulled pork here. So this, you know, they're going to down, you know, judge it down from. Would you suggest, sorry to interrupt, would you suggest then kind of, kind of a two-tiered system with the tubular and the bark on one side and then the pulled pork on kind of another side or just kind of a blending? I would probably go with a three-tiered. system. Oh, three-tiered system. Okay. What you want to do is you want to take your money muscle out, separate it, and then

slice it up. Don't chuck it. Slice it up. Oh, okay. Put it in one separate section. And then if you're going to do pork, have it in one section. And then if you're going to do your chomps over by the bone, put it there in another system.

So almost have it like you cooked it as a tender one and you slice it up that way. Exactly. There are a lot of CaseyBS judges who do like sliced pork. It's one of the things about KCBS that are in and by itself. There are other sanctioning bodies like the Florida Barbecue Association, the California Barbecue Association, Memphis Barbecue. They don't barbecue in Florida or California. Don't say that about Iowa.

They bring out some fantastic cooks. I was just talking to those people south of the Mason-Dixon land. Florida? Florida, no. They got their seafood, but they can. However, in KCBS, they like sliced pork. Yeah, okay. All right.

Well, that's duly noted because it says on here just pork. And I think there is that misnomer that it has to be pooled pork. That's true. And like Jeremy said, I think, you know, if you go with kind of a three-tiered system and you give those three different kind of distinctive types of pork, you're going to hopefully hit everybody's preference there. So if you like pull pork, people are going to go, oh, I like the pool pork. I'm going to take a sample of that.

Or like the chunk. I'm going to take a chunk of that. So you're kind of hitting all those three different areas. Because as we mentioned back in part one, after the showing, they can take whatever part they like. And you'll be, most people will be going for the part that they like. And they want to judge you as an entire cook. and how well your whole pork repertoire is.

Charlie mentioned earlier in episode one that if you don't give me your best, I can't give you the best score. True. Okay. All right. So we're moving on now to taste and tenderness. Again, those are kind of mixed in here. So what should I reach for? I mean, and this is the thing about, you mentioned it about with chicken and ribs.

Those are whole pieces. Yes. Should I take a sampling of all three? Or as a job, that's just my preference. As judges your preference, as the competition team, anything you put into the box is judgeable. So if you want to grab a couple pieces and then judge them on an average score, there's nothing to say you cannot do that. Okay. All right.

So, gentlemen, go for it. Reach away. Jeremy, Charlie? I'm going to grab something with some bark on it here at the top. And then I'm going to grab something without sauce and looks like a tube. that's a big old piece I'll do the same thing I grab some bark

and then I'll grab this little tube back here alright Mike get in there get your fingers dirty might grab a piece of money muscle that's the best part about and you got rid of all this your fingers clean

yeah now we've all been tested for TB and stuff like that so we're good alright well Jeremy hasn't been that's another podcast okay so I'm gonna get a small piece of bark here as well and then I got a tube as well

So, all right, give it a go. Let's go. Let's go at Tase first. Tase is the first thing that comes up on the score in shape. However, I did not follow that, and I went straight for tenets. Sorry for the silence, but we're sitting here, stuff in our mouth. all right jeremy charlie whoever wants to chime in here first so go for it the pieces that i that i took like the flavor the flavor's good it's balanced i don't i don't taste anything overpowering i don't

taste a lot of rub um on it it it seems pretty and i don't know if you use rub or not but it seems kind of not a lot of flavor popping out it's got a good pork flavor but as far as any kind of rub or anything extra kind of adding to the complexity. I don't taste a lot of that. And the pieces that I got here are pretty dry. And that's a part, you know, and Jerry, me, you could probably talk a little more about that as far as, you know, if you want to, if you want to inject it or if you use a sop or anything like that, and that can help with the, with the, with the moisture of it.

Okay. So it was kind of, kind of dry. Okay. So let's, we actually forgot to get scores for the appearance. Well, before we get into that, so what did we get for appearance real quick? Jeremy, what did you get for appearance? Six. A six?

The reason why is I did notice there was not a lot of bark, which JCBS judges are taught. You need a lot of bark. Not a bar. And there was an unevenness of sauce. Okay. Unevenness of sauce. All right. And the layout was kind of just kind of laid in the middle.

Okay. Charlie, real quick on the appearance? I gave a six as well for the same reasons that Jeremy just said. All right. And now we're on the taste. Sorry about that. So, Charlie, you've described kind of your version on it. What would you go with on the numbers there?

I would give it a six on the taste as well. Like I said, it's nothing is too overpowering, but it did kind of come across as dry, and there wasn't really a big, a lot of flavor in the, you know, popping out in what I tried. So I give it a six. I would also give it a six. Okay. The reason why is the rub does not stand out. The bark does not stand out.

There is no pop. It is, unfortunately, something that there's just, there's no oomph to it. There's nothing that really gets me going. there's nothing to attract for it that's why I think six okay I've actually I'm going to agree with both of them pretty neutral I mean I it's got that I love pork and I just love pork by itself and you know I could just I could eat it plain you dig on swine I dig on swine I dig the swine I dig the swine the mouth feel that umami or whatever they call it that fifth sense that yes how it it based the palate i'm not getting a lot of that because maybe there's not a lot of fat in

there um and so maybe that's something i'm missing um but yeah there's i'm looking for maybe some salt or some pepper or something there's a little salt missing from that just to give it to something and i would probably go with the six as well that's that's how i would look at it's it's not terrible i wouldn't spit it out um you know if i if i cook this up this would go great and some beans or on a sandwich and it would it'd be awesome i mean but From a competition standpoint, I would be a little bit. Yeah, quite honestly, the thing that I think that you're missing is the bark. That rub mixed in with everything else probably would have helped raise that taste score.

Okay. And tenderness. What are we looking for in tenderness? And how does this compare? When you pull it apart, it needs to just come apart in your hands. It doesn't need to just disintegrate in your hands. But when you tug it, it just needs to come apart easily. Okay.

And it did for me. So looking at one of these tubes, you know, I can grab one of these tubes and you really, you know, the stridation there, it pulls, not stridation, I don't think that's the right term, but, you know, it really separates out into those, those linear pieces. Yeah. That's what we're looking for. Yeah, the striation of meat is that what you're looking for. It pulls apart evenly in the middle. As far as tenderness, I gave mine a nine, dude. The pieces I pull apart, it pulled apart very nicely.

When I bit into it, it had a really good, nice, mice, mouth feel to it. it was good it was great and I I actually agree with Jeremy I think the yeah the tenderness is very good it pulled apart

there was no no overdone pieces and what I've tried there was no underdone pieces I gave it I gave it an eight I'm gonna agree with those guys

I mean I'll go with an eight again you can it separates it's I think with pork you have that you get to that point and it just turns to mush this is not

you still have that you know I'm chewing on something you know this isn't for grandma want to hit the blender and drink it as a smoothie. So this is good. It's a good idea. Yeah, I would love that. I think, though, but I think I'm going back to the bark piece is that, and this is probably

one of the things that I've done with my bark, or with my pulp pork, the mistake I made is that I foiled it and then I kind of steamed it and I had something in there. Yeah. And it was soggy. And this isn't soggy. You still got a little bit of it, a little bit of bark, but it's not, do you want to really look for something that's chewy, I guess, from the bark standpoint.

From a, I don't know if you call it a pro tip, what you would do is if you were going to foil this. Oh, it's a pro tip, yeah. Okay, okay. So if you're going to foil it, and then you get closer to turn in time, if your bark is mushy, what could be done, quote, quote, unquote,

is to leave your, okay, you cannot separate your pork butt. It has to be cooked cold. So you cannot take the money myself out and cook it by, cell or anything like that what you can do is take it out of the out of your hot box unfoil it put it back on the smoker for another hour and let the bark tighten up and then you will have a really nice bark you can glaze it let's say you do it an hour ahead of time 30 minutes on glazed

30 minute glaze then you box it okay all right now we're going to move on to the cook's pressure preparation section so Nathan what did you do how'd you cook it what you cook it on how long what type of wood and you get a yeah i put a mustard and sugar uh rub on it and uh cooked it in a in a cooked it in a weber smoking mountain and about i think 12 hours what do you use for your fuel source did you use long uh charcoal with apple chunks what kind of charcoal uh kingsford okay blue bag uh competition okay so you use the competition per cat yeah because i didn't pick up any the byproduct I mean there's

sometimes you can really get that you can from the Lube bag you can get a little bit of that Charpole taste to it this is not

it's not chlorox but it's not it did get boiled halfway through so yeah when I saw

there was no bark I was like oh it's up to temp do I get bark on it and risk overcooking it so what did you do for the rub

I guess no it was a mustard and it was like a sugary sugar baby raise branded so you did use the store button okay okay now after hearing and I apologize I should ask the other guys this but after hearing the critiques what do you think you were going to do when you go back and redo it maybe for just practice or when we go for

competition what are you going to change how are you going to kind of modify this I don't think I'm going to foil and if I do it's not it's going to be like halfway through take it off and then, you know, 20 or 30 more degrees without foil. And do you use an injection? I did. Sorry, I didn't get to that. It was like an apple juice. Something you made at home.

Yeah. No, obviously this wasn't your first run at the pork. It's been a while since I cooked pork. It's like, I'm going to go basic and then build from there. I've got three more cooks up until there. So this is great. So that's actually a good question for, Jared. I mean, is simplicity the best?

I mean, really hitting that, we talked about, you know, different flavor plows and, you know, you, if you watch, what's that, what's on, what's on, barbecue pit masters, you know, you got the one guy, he says, when I cook ribs, it's just salt and pepper. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, it's all subjective, personal taste. We've, we've had a lot of conversations and going back to when we first started. We were very complex in everything that we tried to do with our sauce, with our rubs. And I think it's 50-50. If you talk to people, if they make their own or they use store-bought, there's no shame in using store-bought. But I think we tried to make things very complex in making our own stuff.

And I think there's something to be said. And when you get complex, you start adding in extra ingredients here and there, and you can get very overly complicated very easily. And we talk to us, talk a lot about dialing it back and making things more simple. So I think, in my opinion, I think, like you said, hitting that lowest common denominator, hitting that strike zone and keeping it right down the middle, not getting too complicated, I think, is the way to go. I don't know, Jeremy, what you... No, I would agree with that completely. All right.

When we started, we did try to re-event the wheel. You don't have to do that. There's tons of great product out there. If, quite honestly, if you want to start getting sevens or eights right out of the bat, you can use smoking guns hot and then blues hog 50-50 with their original sauce and their Tennessee red. Okay. Do we will do that. Okay. It's guaranteed seven and eight.

There you go. Seven and eights. That's all we're looking for, just so we're not bottom of the barrel. Actually, we did talk about that. When you get sixes from a judge, that almost starts to ruin your weekend. Because that's when you just start drinking more. Well, honestly, that kind of puts you. It puts you out of the contention for a championship for that.

Right now we're moving on to brisket, and I'm a little tipsy, and I'm certainly at that point where I'm a little meat log, but I can power through this because we've got the king of meats, we've got brisket, one of my favorites. You know, you can slice it thin, you can slice it thick, you can slap sauce on it, you can put it on it. You can put it on bread or you could eat it by itself. You know, we have it all the time with my in-laws where they cook it for a long time, and we have it for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. So, but one of my favorite is when it's barbecued and smoked. So this is Ryan Walsh's version of his brisket. He's going to be turning this in at the American Royal coming up here on October 4th.

So we're going to do the big reveal. Mike's going to take some pictures, and this is the first time Jeremy and Charlie are going to be seeing it. So gentlemen, here we go. All right. So we ran through here. It looks like Ryan's got some long slices and then a little bit of some burnt ends on the sides. So first impressions. I'm going to have to say that, okay, when you're at a KCBS judging table, you cannot touch the box while they're doing a presentation.

So they show it to you. It's usually at a, like a, you know, 45 degree angle. So I have the unfortunate ability to look over. and see that some of the shingling for the flats in the middle are not quite in line. Wow, they get that detailed. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

So flats, those are the flat pieces that we cut here. And so when Ryan cut them, he layered them out, kind of like a deck of cards, spread them for it. And you can see, particularly here in the middle. Is that what we're looking at? There's a dip in a couple of them. Right. There's a dip here on the second piece. and then on the fourth piece.

What he's done is he's laid out his flats in the middle. They're about, I don't know, six, six and a half inches long. And then he's put his burn-ins on the both sides of the flats. I will wait for my score. Wow. Okay, well, real quick here, what about the length obviously, you know, you're... This is about the same. Okay, a K-CBS for an inbox is a 9-by-9 styrofoam container.

It is not part of my own cartmanized, thank you, in the middle. So you have a nice area to work with. It has some depth into it. And this is, the container we're using is not quite a clamshell, but it is pretty close to the nine-by-nine. Okay. What about the thickness of the flats here? I mean, is this something you're obviously, we're always shooting for that, having enough meat for six judges. He's got more than enough here for six.

He does. The rule of thumb for a piece of brisket flat is a pencil fin. pencil thin so we're looking at an eighth of an inch which is a little bit bigger than what we got here right I honestly have the same problem I do a little bit thicker slice when you do a thicker slice you think you're giving the judges a really good

piece of brisket in the realm of judging it can be considered as a over compensation for you have over cooked your meat you can when you pull it apart for the tenderness it's supposed to break

easily but not disintegrate in your hand when you cook it when you slice it thicker it means that you've overcooked

your brisket and it will break apart in your hand only because I sliced it thicker okay and that may even get into the knife

selection here but we'll wait on that one Charlie yeah a couple of you know Jeremy like Jeremy said yeah I think

the kind of the unevenness of some of these slices that look like there's some of the else I notice is I do see

and maybe this is just the lighting and but I do see some painted painted on strokes it looks like from the sauce right um so I do see that um and I think also too that the the sauce I kind of see the smoke ring on the outside but that kind of look it's kind of hard to see the smokes I see a lot of the bark on the top but I don't necessarily see the the smoke ring um too something else and Jeremy's pointing out here too we do see there's and again I know this isn't a real competition but I do see on on kind of the plate the box and the outside and on some of the lettuce there's some kind of sauce drippings and you

definitely want to like like we said earlier if you don't give me your best I can't give you the best score you want to try and keep it as clean as you can not to get sloppy with the sauce and that kind of thing so you know one rule thumb you know you can do is keep a paper towel around and as you're gonna be dripping sauce as you're plating it but after you get everything in there and you're ready to go wipe down as much as you can of the of the box and try not to drip on on the lettuce as much as you can Okay, so where'd my pin to go?

I'll find my pin here in a second as I write. So, Jeremy, what would you give it on the appearance score? I'm going to give it a six. I do see a lot of moistness on it. It looks like he didn't paint sauce on it. It looks like it's as ju, which I like. The burnt ends are not uniform, unfortunately. And like we were saying before, the flats are stacked in not quite a haphazard way,

but not quite uniform. Okay. Charlie? I give it a seven. I still think I like the uniformity of it. I like the presentation, the flats in the middle, and you've got the burn ends on the outside. So I think symmetrically, I like how visually it looks to me.

So I give it a seven. Okay. From my standpoint, you know, I think it looks good. My only thing is that it looks like roast beef. You know, if I'm going for barbecue, and this is not a, and this is a personal preference here, I'd like to see this smoke ring and I'd like to see everything. It just, it looks like, I mean, it looks tasty, it makes me want to eat it, but it looks like something, you know, I pull it out of the slow, the, the slow roaster, and it's, you know, I have some roasted carrots and onions and, you know, potatoes with it. And it looks really good. But coming off of a smoker, like, I think you mentioned that Jerry, or Jeremy, that you looked like a ajou. And that's not, that's not a knock against it, but it looks like something different. Is that, again, something. I mean, obviously, that's what I'm going to take into account.

From a judging standpoint, is that a criteria where I'm reaching out and bringing something in that doesn't relate to this product? No. I mean, unfortunately, Briscuit's one of those things where it is the crim to the crim. This is where your barbecue team shows off that they can really cook. When you have pieces, when you have slices like this on the flat, what some teams will do is dunk their slices, so there are no brush marks. Or what they'll do is they'll shingle them all out on a table. and then paint the back sides with a light layer of sauce and then put them in the box back to front. So you can see the smoke ring, yeah, you can see the smoke ring, you can see the nice bark on it.

And then when you bite it for taste, you will get some barbecue sauce. But in the far as the presentation is concerned, it is a naked piece of brilliant, brilliantly cooked. That's, again, very sneaky. And I'll just add to that real quick, is that like you said, Jeremy said that it's kind of a balancing act that you, your meat when it comes off the smoker is going to have a natural color. Yeah. What the sauce does is it adds flavor and it also adds kind of a shine to it. What the careful balancing act is you don't, you want to add enough sauce that it gives it a flavor and it gives that kind of visually appealing shine, but you don't want to add too much that it takes away from the natural look of the meat. That's true.

um so okay all right well let's move on to uh taste and tenderness so uh gentlemen go ahead uh grab a section and jeremy goes right for the middle and it gets a flat and the burn in he would knuckle deep in there he did oh knuckle deep and and something else to we mentioned this i think with ribs but again with brisket to keep in mind is make sure you in which he's done he's done a great job all but make sure you cut them clean because the same thing here is if you're pulling I think there were one, two, three, four, five, six. So there were seven, but if you pull a piece off and it's still connected to another slice, that counts as one piece.

And if there's not. But he also covered himself. He has enough burn ends and enough flats to where each judge shall have. A little bit of both. Let me ask you this. Two things happened here. One I notice is that he had the fat down towards the bottom. Yes.

And then when I picked it up, I actually broke a section off. Yeah. Okay. So is that going to be a knock against him or is that going to be, one of those that's a positive that's a plus attribute no that's going to be a knock against them okay okay when you let's start with the fat down first is that okay okay i didn't grab you know we're looking at my flat which is what a kcbs judge can do i look at my flat there is a tapering from one end of the flat to another uh from the length it goes from almost nil to a fourth of an inch now some

judges like fat on their flats. Some people do not. And from experience, I know that as a brisket, there are two muscle groups on the flat. You have a flat side, and it is what you slice, what most people will see as slices of brisket. And then you have a point end. It's a meteor side. It's got a lot of fat in it. And it was basically what people use now to make burn ends. There is a fat cap that runs in between the two of those, he has not trimmed the inside of that flat. Okay. When you pull it off and it broke in half, that's a sign of overdonez. Okay.

It should not snap. I mean, it should not just fall apart in your hand. When you take it, you're supposed to gently pull apart, and like that, my flat worked out really well. I got a little green on there, too. That's part of the garnish. That's part of the thing. When I pulled mine apart, it is pulled apart beautifully.

Okay. It is completely. So, I mean, it's almost a luck of the draw. I mean, aside from that bad pool, it'd be like, oh. Which is actually a whole conversation about KACBS judging in general. Luckily, it's double blind, so if I knew it was Ryan, I'd be like, I hate that guy. Right. And unfortunately, in the KCPS contest, what happens is you get six judges who have the opportunity to judge your turn-ins.

Their scores are not going to be the same as the scores from the next table. You will get a variance. You could get a great variance in between one table to the next. From what judge to the next to the same table, that's what makes KCBS judging so hard and what makes people go home and then go to sleep right after, cry themselves to sleep right after a contest. They pack up their stuff and then they go home and then shower. But yeah, they're true, they shower, they might have an ice cream dinner, and then they go home and just pass out. I know, because it's a long weekend.

It is a long weekend. And what's unfortunate is, when you get a judge who may not know what they're doing or a judge who thinks that they know better than you do, your weekend may have just been. All right. Okay, so let's let's go on a taste. Taste, let's go on a taste. It's awesome. I like it. Number-wise, what are we looking at here?

Okay. I would have to say he's missing the bark. Something happened to the bark and the smoke ring. Tenderness, nine. Pull apart beautifully. I'm going to have to go back on my taste. Now that I'm thinking about it. I'm going to have to give it a seven.

Okay. Charlie? I'll come back to you and get your critique on the taste and everything like that. But, Charlie, what do you got? Tenderness right now? Yep. I would give it a nine as well. I think it, just like Jeremy said, when you pull it apart, shouldn't fall apart.

and it shouldn't be you should be able to grab it and pulled apart gently without a lot of pressure and it didn't fall apart and it wasn't too hard so I would give it a nine and I'm going to go back to what

you know when I was picking up that piece it may have been just how I was picking it up but I mean yeah I like the fat I love fat one of my favorite meals is actually bone marrow

you scrape it out and put it on bread which is kind of gross for some people but I love that this it's not dry it's not And, you know, when I pick it up, it's still got some tooth to it. You know, I can bite into it, I can chew it.

It's nice. It's not sitting right in your mouth. No, it's, you know, it feels like I'm eating meat. Yes. Not, not, you know, grandma's slurry. So, okay, so nine's on the tenderness. Yes. Charlie Whits on your taste, and then we'll start back with Jeremy and give me your critique on the taste.

I like the taste. It's got a little kick at the end of it. There was, from a judging standpoint, it was okay. It was okay, let me rephrase that. It was better than okay. It was better than average. However, this is, it's okay. I mean, it's a little bit better than okay.

As you can see, I'm waffling between okay and better than okay. I'm going to give it a seventh. The reason why is there's not enough bark, there's no oom to it. It's good. But it's not great. Okay. Sorry? Sorry?

As I shoved some more in my mouth. Sorry? I would give it. I'm actually on the same page as Jeremy. I would give it a seven also. There's a flavor there that kind of seems overpowering to me that is really kind of coming through. I don't know if it is either paprika or maybe cumin. I don't know what's in it.

But there's something that's kind of not a balance or something that's really coming through. Did you use half strap the paprika? I use the smoke paprika. Okay. but yeah I'm sorry it was there's a and it's not it's it's it's when we're talking about earlier the balance it yeah there's something some flavor and it's not a bad flavor but it's just kind of over it's more than everything else it's not not as balanced but it's not it's not too much heat and it's not it's not too hot and it's not too sweet I think

it's it's you know it's a middle-the-road flavor that I've got coming through there but it is distinct and kind of kind of coming through stronger than everything else I would have to say it's got kind of a wishishari overton to it it's almost like you used a little bit A1 in there. No? Okay. Well, sure. Oh, dirty words there, A1. We'd have to kick

you out of the building because you used A1. John Willingham's brisket sauce is almost A1. There is nothing worse. I grew up on a cattle farm and I think it is sacrilege if you put A1 on a stake. I will track you down and jab a pin in your throat

if you... There lies the crux. K-CBS judging. If you do that to a cab. What you like and what other people like are two different things. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Charlie, what's your score on it? Were we on taste?

Yes. I give it a seven. Seven. You know, generally, Ryan, when he does something, he does a big bold flavor. He uses a lot of pepper, and I think that I've become acclimated to that, and I really like that. And I think that that's what's missing here, because I'm judging that on what he does for his ribs and everything like that. I really like his ribs when he does this really kind of smoky and spicy. And so I'm judging it on that.

But I would give it a seven. I think it's for me. It's kind of a middle of road. And now it's kind of got a back kind of heat that's there and it's carrying over. And I like that. But it doesn't have a sweetness to it. But I don't know if that mixes well with the brisket, with the beef. You do want a balance of flavors.

I mean, you are coming from, you don't want. Don't dishonor the cow. You're not dishonor the? count. That's actually a really good point. When you're talking about KCBS meats, the meat should taste like what it's supposed to taste like. If you have

barbecue candy, that's a little too much. I mean, it's a little too sweet. It's a little too sweet. You're not going to hit the middle of the road. Then again, we talked about the best-selling KC Masterpiece and KORox. There you go. That may be moving us,

moving into snobs. But all right, so Ryan, to ask you the same questions that we've best everybody else what did you cook on what did you cook with what was your temperature how long to do it brief synopsis uh i kicked on a good one smoker took about 10 hours yeah did you cook a flat i did both together okay that's why you have the the fat in between i you don't try to decide i trimmed into you know the inch into but didn't trim it all once i split them um yeah it took about 10 hours I wrapped it when it was at about 170 degrees sure took a lot this time then I thought what kind of charcoal do you use a good one I'm all

charcoal sure and then what I did use I put Worcestershire sauce on first and then put the rub on yeah I had two different robes one's just a bunch of stuff and then a Dalmatian robe on top of that okay so you used the rod from barbecue breath? Nope. That's the one I usually use the Christmas, Chris McPeaks row. But this one was the Wicked Good Barbecue recipe. And that's Adam McPeak's book. That one's not. This is out of a different book. A different book. Okay. All right. Well, we're going to finish up here. I am now sated. I have a belly full of meats. and that's going to do it for this re-release of the Sunflower Brew Barbecue

judging episodes again thanks to Zach for him you record that in the first place thanks to everyone who was involved in that that was 2013 excuse me that we did so, but it'll still be 12 years because this will be released in 2025. And thanks to Dan for told me to look into revisiting this.

So I hope you enjoy it. And to the rest of you. I hope you have a good day. And at this point, I'd say that this podcast is on call for is hosted, produced, edited by myself Mike Cherniewski with

in this case a small assist from Zach Luya. Our opening music is the, this podcast is called for theme music created at suno.com S-U-N-O-D-com. Our outro music

for this episode is Cryin' In My Beer by Jason Shaw Licensed in a Creative Commons by attribution 3.0 United States license and you can't find it at free music archive.org

and we additionally use Morocco Sting by Kevin McLeod and Incompetica.com and his music is licensed on Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license and yeah enjoy the

barbecue. Be sure to check out the Kansas City Barbecue Society if you are interested in participating as a barbecue judge. Please support the podcast and purchase our exclusive uncalled for merchandise, t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and so much more. Go to www.com.caffepress.com slash uncalled for pod. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time.

I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.