Judging the may 2010 comp

[Guest]

Here we go people let's have some Q & A time.

[Steve]

OK I'll get the ball rolling.

We know the issues with three of the four categories so I'm going to ask about our strongest category which was pork.

We scored 118 actual, weighted at 38.90 which is a great score as far as I'm concerned, however I know Bite the Bullet scored slightly less actual, but their weighted score was a little higher than ours (Adie and I swapped our feedback sheets). I know they put in a Money Muscle but for the scores to flip like that, they must have had a better flavour than us.

At the moment I'm at a loss about how to improve our pork, I thought on the day that it was really good and I don't know what was wrong with it. Our feedback was just "nicely sauced" and "good flavour" so doesn't help really

I think it might benefit from a little more heat in the sauce as we kept the heat levels down in all our food and maybe held back a little too much.

Other than that, I don't know. Any help from the judges would be greatfully received.

[British BBQ Society]

I will wait for the official line becuase I tried yours and Adies a couple of hours after judging but my two pence was that yours had a better flavour but Adies pork retained more moisture. I am sure Jackie will come up with a more accurate acount of the situation.
Toby

[Steve]

That's interesting because we foiled ours with a foil marinade which reduces bark but should in theory improve moisture retention. However when ours comes off the cooker we transfer it to fresh foil. Maybe we'd be better leaving in the marinade to rest.

I have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with studying all these tiny little tweaks to get it perfect. I won't be satisfied until I achieve a perfect score lol

[MadCow]

I need photo's and my comments sheet before I can give much recall here ... I'm not even sure whether your box made it to my table or the other one ... that's one of the problems of blind judging, you don't know who's it is!!!

[MadCow]

That's interesting because we foiled ours with a foil marinade which reduces bark but should in theory improve moisture retention. However when ours comes off the cooker we transfer it to fresh foil. Maybe we'd be better leaving in the marinade to rest.

I have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with studying all these tiny little tweaks to get it perfect. I won't be satisfied until I achieve a perfect score lol

Two things here .... the bark is one of the best bits!!! also, why change foil all of the flavour is in the juices in the first foil, don't do it ... it wastes foil and loses flavour!!!

Finally, a perfect score is very hard to achieve so you'll have to be patient; but be careful, if you tweak too much you could go in the wrong direction!

[MadCow]

I will wait for the official line becuase I tried yours and Adies a couple of hours after judging but my two pence was that yours had a better flavour but Adies pork retained more moisture. I am sure Jackie will come up with a more accurate acount of the situation.
Toby

Toby, When you have some time, could you send me box numbers / photos / and my judging sheets please ... I might be able to answer more questions that way.

Thanks ... J

[Steve]

Two things here .... the bark is one of the best bits!!! also, why change foil all of the flavour is in the juices in the first foil, don't do it ... it wastes foil and loses flavour!!!

To address your two points...

I agree bark is good, but by foiling part way through the cook and adding a foil marinade you get to add some flavour in there that gets soaked up into the meat, adding another flavour aspect through the meat. Also it helps retain moisture in the meat, protects from excess smoke, preserves the colour of the end product and slightly accelerates the cook time to allow more resting. (I've found that now I've got a Cambro the resting time makes so much difference as the meat holds above the plateu temeprature for a few hours).

Yes the cost is that the bark softens a bit, however it still has the barky flavour and you're bark will soften if you rest in foil for a few hours anyway, so I don't think that the cost is too high. I've considered throwing the butt back on the smoker for a half hour before turn in to re crisp the bark but have not experimented with that yet.

As for why I change the foil, erm I don't have a good reason for this When I takle the pork from the cooker I get it oput of the foil and let it vent for five minutes to stop it from continuing to cook while resting - no-one likes mushy pork!!! When I take it from the foil I just transfer to new foil and preserve the juices for my sauce. Really I should vent and then rewrap now I've actually thought about it

I know a perfect score is difficult to achieve and it takes a lot of luck too. You need the right judges on the right day to get one. I've no plan to over tweak, I keep records of every cook we do with notes about what we did and the outcome. I think that our pork is very good in general, I need to make sure I get a money muscle out every time and the sauce could do with a little more kick, but other than that I don't think that there's much tweaking to do. But once you get the box numbers, I will hopefully know if something else needs work.

But one day I WILL get a perfect score!!!!

[British BBQ Society]

To be honest Steve, If you are after GC, you got a good score on the pork, so dont change it at all, Just work on the other 3 catagories and change the sauce on the Brisket.