Your First BBQ Cook-off

By Joe O'Connell and Bill Wight
Updated December 5, 2003

Entering a BBQ contest for the first time can be intimidating.  The purpose of these pages is to explain what happens in a contest and to give some recommendations.  

The most important advice is:  Confirm everything!  Confirm the contest date and time;  confirm that your entry was received;  confirm your hotel reservations;  and confirm that your teammates will be there!  You never know when someone may have a business trip out of town.  

Not only confirm everything, but Plan ahead!  Make sure that you bring all the equipment and supplies.  Plan on having pots and pans, knives and cooking utensils, platters and all the other equipment needed to cook.  Plan on having not just the meats but all the spices, marinades, rubs, mops and sauces that you will need.  For washing up, plan on having your own or the use of someone else's sink, waste-water and trash disposal. 

Develop a contest checklist.  A contest checklist is available here for you to use and modify.

For your first contest, when to start cooking your meat can be a real problem.  The entry must be turned in at the scheduled time.  Prior to turn-in, the meat must be prepared, cooked, sliced and presented.  Each meat takes a different time to cook.  So to get everything to come out on time, you must work backward from the turn-in time.

Develop a turn-in worksheet.

For example: Brisket

Cooking time  = 12 hours
Sit time = 30 minutes
Slicing and presentation = 20 minutes

So enter your first contest, confirm everything, and plan ahead.  But most of all, have fun.