I left a competition in Kansas City after seeing a judge eat ribs with a fork

Last summer I was watching the American Royal in Kansas City, and one of the judges actually pulled out a fork to eat a rib entry. I could not believe it. That whole time I had been obsessing over bark and smoke rings, but that moment made me realize the texture and tenderness are what really matter to most people. I went home and changed my whole approach to how long I let ribs rest before serving. Has anyone else seen a judge do something that made you rethink your whole process?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew96519d ago

Oh man, that's brutal... I saw the same thing happen at a backyard comp in Memphis a couple years back. A judge picked up a rib with tongs and just scraped the meat off with a fork, left the bone clean as a whistle. It made me stop stressing so much about perfect crosshatch sauce marks and start focusing on getting that bite to actually fall off the bone clean. I even started testing my ribs by bending them before I take them off the smoker now...

hayden_butler2719d ago

Hold up, I get what you're saying but watching a judge use a fork seems like such a minor thing to pivot your whole cooking method over. There's a hundred different ways to eat ribs depending on who you are and where you're from. Some people grew up picking them up with their hands, some people slide the bone out with a napkin, some folks for some reason use a fork. It doesn't mean the judge has bad taste or that your bark doesn't matter. It just means that one person out of the whole panel eats ribs weird. I'll keep obsessing over smoke rings because I've seen plenty of fork users still know good barbecue when they taste it.

jamie_smith18d ago

Just a heads up, "fall off the bone" is actually considered overdone by a lot of serious pitmasters. You want a clean bite with some tug left, not meat that falls apart the second you touch it. That bending test is a solid habit though, just don't take it too far.