To Garnish or Not To Garnish

[Bill Gailey]

This has been debated openly here on the forum and most peoples feelings have been pretty one sided towards garnish is the only way. Saturday at Monroe our table had a box of drumsticks with no garnish and guess what....it looked great, the drumsticks were uniform in size and color and evenly spaced in the box. The concensus with the 5 judges was 8' and 9's on appearance. Not only was there no garnish but they did not have a glaze of sweet sauce either. The herby flavor of the rub was very good, not overpowering and quite enjoyable. The drumsticks were cooked to perfection. I personally felt like I cheated the cook because I gave them an 8 on appearance when I was wanting to go with a 9 and I am not really sure why I didn't give it the 9. My reluctance cost this cook his perfect score on this entry from this one judge and for that I am sorry and I apologize to you whoever you were. The entry scored very well around the table and the most common comment was without the garnish you could really see the pieces and concentrate on the pieces.

Now if I can only hope for that dry rib turn in.....

[sfisch]

Makes all the sense in the world to me Bill but until you get ALL of your fellow judges to think like you do, I'm thinking the majority still like the sweet glaze and the garnish.
You can tell by my chicken scores! :)

[Bill Gailey]

The other 4 at the table at this contest were in agreement with the scores on this entry. I don't know how it can be any more since the entry is only gonna have 6 pieces. I think the answer is for more cooks to either enlarge their cajones and go for it or hire some dumb a$$ to make the boxes and know they will probably screw it up so they just leave the garnish out and stumble into the situation.

I talked to at least 5 other judges after the contest about the turn in and they were in agreement that they would have probably scored in a similar fashion had the box been turned into them......don't have much else I can say about it.

[Ron_L]

The concensus with the 5 judges was 8' and 9's on appearance.

The other 4 at the table at this contest were in agreement with the scores on this entry.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but these two comments seem to indicate that there were only 5 judges at you table. Is that the case?

[Bill Gailey]

My mistake, there were 5 tables of 6 judges so we each had 5 teams to judge. Sorry about the confusion. I guess my brain got scrambled after seeing the box with no garnish and it actually looked good.

[rlwestbrook]

As a first year judge, with several contests behind me. I am there to judge the meat, so when I look at appearance I am looking at how quickly the look of the meat motivates me to sink my teeth into it. I have have never deliberately tasted a piece of garnish. I do seem to spend a lot of time picking little pieces of parsley off the meat before I can judge it. That being said I didn't see any boxes at 2 Sam's events, local and regional without garnish.

[Bbq Bubba]

I love this thread! :D

[Spruce-Ridge-Smokers]

Now if I can only hope for that dry rib turn in.....

We did that a few times several years ago Bill; and each time we went home empty handed and somewhat embarrassed. Personally I enjoy a properly done dry rib; they don't, however, seem to win comps in this part of the BBQ world.

Brian

[Bill Gailey]

I go back to my older post....if you keep on doing what you been doing you will keep on getting what you been getting. It just seems to me that if you aren't winning or at least top 5 finish why would you not try something to change your luck, especially since some of us judges are openly talking about how we are scoring and why.

Bubba I am glad I have created some entertainment for you!

[Joneser]

Seems like a big leap for what some of us cooks have invested in each comp.

[spydermike72]

Agree with Brian, and so far the sample size of the judges is 2 on here and maybe 5 at the comp, not enough for me to change my turn in boxes.

Besides Presentation should be almost all 9's, maybe a few 8's from most of the comp teams on this forum. We have been doing it for a long time and have been to the classes and seen all of the pics on the web.

However I dont think the judges see it the same way. For instance, our pork turn in which has consistently gotten 9's across the board for Presentation this year comes up with this score at Monroe:

9,6,9,7,9,9 Can some one explain that ??

Sorry I got off topic...

[mikerobes]

go back to my older post....if you keep on doing what you been doing you will keep on getting what you been getting. It just seems to me that if you aren't winning or at least top 5 finish why would you not try something to change your luck, especially since some of us judges are openly talking about how we are scoring and why.



I aint skeered of them thar judges:rolleyes:

[Richtee]

I'm amazed they turned in drummies...

I am SOO gonna do wing mid-joints some day...

[Spruce-Ridge-Smokers]

I go back to my older post....if you keep on doing what you been doing you will keep on getting what you been getting. It just seems to me that if you aren't winning or at least top 5 finish why would you not try something to change your luck, especially since some of us judges are openly talking about how we are scoring and why.

Bubba I am glad I have created some entertainment for you!

Bill:

I agree; if things aren't working for a given team, they should certainly start thinking outside of the "box", as it were. However I am not sure that I totally agree with your comment about "getting what you have been getting".

We have cooked seven comps this season thus far. We are (for the moment) a rather strong rib team, with a record as follows:

Armada: 1
Sams TVC: 2
Mt. Morris: 2
Auburn: 15
Grand Rapids: 2
Sams Indy: 3
Monroe: 4

I am a mature enough Pitmaster to admit when I have screwed up. And I can tell you with perfect honesty that Spruce Ridge hasn't cooked a bad set of ribs all season long and hasn't changed its rib process in any respect in 2011. So I guess for me the question is not so much about sauce or garnish (we always use both), but how the CBJs can come up with a 15th place finish at Auburn given our extremely consistent results in all of the other comps. I am not really trying to start some kind of argument here; it is just that we have a pretty good dataset to work with at this point and things like the Auburn results disturb me (both as a CBJ and as a Pitmaster) more than any potential question about garnish, wet, dry, etc. I am not complaining mind you, because we have by any objective measure had a truly charmed season, but I think that I probably speak for some of the other Pitmasters when I say that results such as we (Spruce Ridge) encountered at Auburn Hills make us walk away scratching our head and wondering what the hell went on "under the tent".

I just don't want to see teams get discouraged and walk away from the sport because they perceive the judging to be inconsistent. Trying things such as "no garnish" and/or "dry ribs" is great, but with several hundred bucks on the line, very few teams are going to explore the outer reaches of the "limb".

Discussion?

Brian

[Bill Gailey]

The contest reps remind the judges at every comp that it is a meat contest not a beauty contest, but then we are asked to judge on appearance, so whether we like it or not the appearance does matter and for most judges the garnished box is going to look better. Mike Lake was my instructor a few years ago when i took the CBJ class. I respect his ideas and method of teaching tremendously.

One thing to remember, unfortunately, is that as a whole Michigan is still very "young" in the comp bbq arena. That doesn't mean we don't have competent pitmasters, we do and in my opinion quite a few. That simply means that we still have a lot of new judges and judges with very minimal experience. Most of the new judges I talk with have very little experience with bbq other than they like to eat it and are interested in learning about competition bbq. At monroe we had 5 first time judges.....where have they been all season? At every contest I have judged this year we have had about the same situation with new judges.

Don't get me wrong, I am not dissing new judges, it hasn't been that long since I was one of them, I am simply pointing out that as a whole we have way too many inexperienced judges making the decisions. You guys normally cook 10-20 contests per year besides the non-snactioned events. In the South you have a season that is twice as long with twice as many teams involved and therefore there are a lot more judges by default. As with cooking, more experience in judging makes you a better judge and thus a more consistent judge which is what the comp teams want and need. If there is consistency in the judging then you have a platform to use to adjust your turnins so that they get the results you want.

I understand the cost of competing, I consider comp bbq a business just like my store is a business. I understand that because I invest in good equipment and put in the time to perfect my craft that I expect my product to be good every time, not just some of the time. I also understand that regardless of the amount of money and time I spend there is going to always be a sector that doesn't understand the quality, could care less about my investment and don't give a damn whether I like their decision to prefer an inferior product.....it's just human nature.

Hang in there and we will all eventually learn from each other and get to the place with our Q that we want to be!