Competition Barbecue: A Behind-the-Scenes Look

Ever wondered how to get into UK competition BBQ? Join us as we chat with Kev from Comp Barbecue UK, who has led the charge in competition grilling in the UK. From the structured KCBS contests to the creative freestyle events, Kev breaks down the highs and lows of the barbecue competition circuit. We'll uncover surprising truths about the global barbecue scene and why the UK is catching up faster than you'd think.

Kev doesn't just talk about cooking meat; he brings us into the judges' tent. We discuss the delicate balance of fairness and the personal challenges of judging multiple entries, each vying for the top spot. You'll learn about the intricacies of different types of barbecue contests, including SCA events that are perfect for beginners. It's a fascinating look into how competitions stay engaging and why keeping participants motivated is key.

But it's not all serious business. Kev shares hilarious and heartwarming stories from various events, including a memorable cheese-themed contest and a mishap involving incinerated chicken wings. You'll hear about the camaraderie and friendships forged through these contests, and how you can get involved by becoming a judge. Whether you're a seasoned pitmaster or a barbecue enthusiast, there's something here for everyone to enjoy. Don't miss out on this smokin' good episode!

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Transcript

Competition Barbecue Trends and Differences

Dan 0:00

Today's episode of the Meet Greet Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Meet Greet Barbecue Podcast. Today we'll be speaking to Kev from Comp Barbecue UK, who's going to talk us through everything competition barbecuing in the UK, and it'll be great to hear his story and learn more. And please do have a look around our Instagram page, socials and also our website. You'll see a new feature where you can send us a message. We'd love to hear from you, but please note we're not able to reply back through it, so leave your name and, if you'd like us to get back to you, the best way you'd like us to contact you. But I can't wait to hear more from Kev. So, without much further ado, here is Kev. Hello, kev. Thank you so much for coming on to another episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast. For anyone who doesn't know, please do introduce yourself and how you're linked to barbecue.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 1:04

Hey guys, listen, thanks so much for having me. So how am I involved in barbecue so emotionally? I'm involved in barbecue on a general level, but more specifically I, along with my wife, run an organization called Comp Barbecue UK and we, as well as organising our own barbecue contests in various different locations and at different events, we also kind of promote other people's contests and try and get more people involved in competition barbecue. And then outside of that, me and my wife also go and judge loads of barbecue contests here in the UK, in Europe, occasionally in America. So yeah, we get about a bit when it comes to barbecue and competition barbecue.

Owen 1:53

I mean straight off the bat, judging competition barbecue. I mean, who doesn't want to just sit there and eat loads of food, right, yeah, yeah.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 2:02

It sounds like so enticing, right, and?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 2:05

And when we do the occasional um comps, where you can, you can see the judging happening in front of the people, um, you can see kind of people standing there going oh my god, this is incredible, this is like amazing. But particularly there's particular types of of so the kind of the really classic American low and slow competition KCBS, which is the Kansas City Barbecue Society, their contest pork ribs, pork shoulder brisket and there is nothing more depressing than when you've sat there for an hour and a half eating the first three to then be faced with invariably six great, big, thick, incredibly savory slices of brisket, um, which if you were just eating them on their own, you'd be like that oh my god, this is amazing. But when you're full and all you want is an ice cream, trying to get those six bits of brisket down is, yeah, it's. Listen, I'm not going to say it's the hardest thing in the world, but it's all there am I right with kcbs, though it everything's kind of very regimented in a way that the presentation it has to have.

Owen 3:14

You know, they get served in those little boxes and it has a little bit of green and you have to just has to be sliced and everything, and in a very sort of uniform. And is that the same across all of the? You know, obviously, if you're judging a lot of competitions, does that generally happen across all types of competition or is it specific to the KCBS where it is very regimented how they want it?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 3:37

It's funny actually, because in the UK we've got a huge scene at the moment of what we loosely call freestyle barbecue competitions which, as the name suggests, is much more freeform. There's much more kind of creativity involved in the dishes and essentially, whoever's setting the rules can set the rules and the rounds and whatever. As much as they like you know doing whatever they like. Whatever as much as they like you know doing whatever they like. But you're right, yeah, so KCBS, which there's only one KCBS contest in the UK this year, which was one that we organised, same last year, but there are a fair few in Europe and there are hundreds in the States and every single one of those contests I think there was something like 600 KCBS contests last year, I didn't count them all, but roughly Obviously the bulk in America Every single one of those is done to exactly the same set of rules, standards, timings. The only difference is in America all of the turn-ins happen on Saturdays, whereas for some reason all the turn-ins happen on Sundays in the UK and Europe. All the turn-ins happen on Sundays in the UK and Europe.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 4:50

But yeah, so it is funny that me and my wife go and judge in Europe at some of the KCBS contests in Belgium and the Netherlands that when we go to America you're doing exactly the same thing 5,000 miles away from where you last did it, and it's exactly the same. Things taste pretty much the same. And it's exactly the same. Things taste pretty much the same. The boxes look exactly the same. It's uh, it's kind of very impressive. But also there does come a point where you go oh, I wish there was a dessert round coming next rather than another meat round and you mentioned something that interests me there, the fact that you said stuff kind of tastes similar across, yeah, the globe.

Dan 5:30

But let's talk more about that, because I think a lot of people will be guilty in thinking that, classically, uk barbecue is behind europe and america and there would be quite a lot of differences, particularly, particularly, in competition barbecue. So how much further ahead are we than people think? And if there are subtle differences, what do they tend to be?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 5:52

So in terms of competition. The worst barbecue I've ever eaten in contest barbecue was in the States. In fact, both times we've dressed in America the standard was much lower than we normally see in Europe. So what you tend to get is because, with KCBS particularly, you're not judging or you're not. The teams aren't trying to cook something that the judges will like. They're trying to cook a standard which is set by kcbs and that is broadly um kind of complimentary taste not too savory, not too sweet, not too sour, not too salty, all that sort of stuff. But everything balanced out, um, the textures are laid out, so what the meat should and shouldn't do and uh, and what they need to look like in the box. So it's very standard inevitably.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 6:47

What's happened is that when we've kind of imported competition barbecue or that type of competition barbecue into europe, a lot of the flavors have come with, come with it and because, particularly I would say in the early days of competition barbecue kind of five, six, seven years ago, it was hard to get like barbecue, european barbecue sauces, like good, really good quality. So a lot of people bought barbecue sauces from the states or there was companies bringing them over and selling them on. So there's this kind of uh, ongoing, kind of knowing glance that goes around barbecue teams and judges, which is when you get an entry or you've cooked an entry that's got blues hog on it or it's got a sauce based around blues hog barbecue sauce. Everybody knows, because everyone knows it's such a good, inoffensive sauce that you can tweak a little bit here and there to make it match the meat and things like that. So inevitably the teams kind of all find a level what scores well, what um is kind of inoffensive enough that no one's going to be sat there going oh my god, it's too spicy, oh my god it's too sweet. But equally is interested enough and tastes enoughlot barbecue that the judges are interested in it and it tastes nice. So yeah, it's kind of.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 8:08

We are far ahead, I would say, in terms of quality. Obviously, in terms of the size of the community and the competition environment, it's much smaller and obviously it's much more niche and so many people don't know there's a competition barbecue scene or you know, I've never heard of it. You know it's one of those things. So yeah, so we're kind of like, definitely in terms of quality, we're up there. We've got one of the best teams in the world in the UK. So a bunch of swines have been to the States. They've won in the States. They've won some of the biggest contests in the states and they turn up to pretty much all of our contests here in the uk, um, and they're great. You know, ed and emma have bunched the spines and they'll pass on their knowledge to everyone. Um, but uh, but yeah, so we're. So we're not far behind at all, um, in terms of competition barbecue, just in terms of scale. It'd be great if we could get it bigger.

Owen 9:07

And you mentioned a lot more in the UK et cetera, that there's freestyle more so than the kind of the strict KCBS stuff. So, typically then, what are you finding? What are the rounds and how do they differ, or do they differ from competition to competition if you are doing kind of freestyle?

Judging Competition Barbecue Events

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 9:24

Yeah, I think what you see with freestyle is that you can kind of go as big as you like or as small as you like. So in theory, what you could do is you can kind of pair it right back and the organiser whoever's setting the rules can make it really simple. So you know, on one hand, they could go right, it's chicken drumsticks, that's it. You know, really simple. So you know, on one hand they could go right, it's chicken drumsticks, that's it. You know you've got to turn in six chicken drumsticks, ten chicken drumsticks, whatever it might be, and it could be as simple as that. At the other end of the scale, you've got these really kind of nebulous themes like banquet or picnic or, you know, pie or or things like that and the whole gamut of things in between those two things as well. So it depends what the organiser wants. If they want it to be big and visual for an audience, maybe when it's being judged, then yeah, they'll tend to go big. They'll go big platters of this or, you know, big banquets of that. If they're looking for kind of really specific you know skills that they want people to show, they might go a bit smaller, go very specific in terms of what they want teams to cook.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 10:30

What's at the heart of barbecue competitions is teams, right. So you want teams to want to come and show off essentially what they can do. So you need to make the rounds interesting to them as well and something that they want to cook. So we talk about kcbs. If you just went, oh, we're doing a freestyle contest and it's the same as kcbs, but it's it's to our rules, not to kcbs's rules then the teams aren't going to be that keen because you know it's not very interesting. So you've got to make it interesting for the teams. You've got to challenge the teams and get them to be interested in it as well.

Owen 11:07

I'd love to come in because you mentioned obviously some of the events that you do, as well as promoting others. I'd love to come back to that in a minute about what you look to do with your own events. But just quickly back to the judging side. If you are trying six or seven versions of the same chicken, the same pork? Ribs the same brisket, et cetera, no matter whether it's in the UK or US, and they are following the same sort of rules. How do you pick?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 11:33

Well, the key thing is, as hard as it is and probably almost impossible to do, the general rule is that you don't compare one to another. So you taste one and you judge it purely on its merits. So if it's a chicken thigh, generally, you'll take one by. You'll think about the um, the texture. You'll think about did the skin come off? That was there like? Did the? Did it bite through? Did the meat come away from the bone? Then you'll think about kind of what it feels like in your mouth. And then you'll think about kind of what it feels like in your mouth and then you'll think about the taste. Is there like a nice balance, like I said, is it too salty, too sweet, whatever? And the idea is that once you've finished judging that, you'll score it against what we call the KCBS standard, which is the perfect kind of chicken thigh. And then, once you finish that, you move on to the next one. But you'll kind of almost try and forget the first one completely and start all over again. We're all human beings, so obviously that's um, never going to be, uh, a deer to, kind of constantly, but that's what you try to do. So even if you get another one that tastes completely different and maybe it's flavors that you much prefer. You still try and go okay, I might prefer these flavors. Are they a nice balance? Is it sweet enough, salty enough, savory enough, whatever? And then again, try and judge it completely on its own merits and try and get rid of your own preconceptions about what's nice and what's not. Um, so that's how you try and do it. You're trying to compare and we try to bring that through into kind of the freestyle side of things as well.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 13:08

It can be very easy for one freestyle entry to be huge and over the top and kind of really dramatic to look at and then one that adheres to exactly the same set of rules to be quite small and kind of not underwhelming but kind of basic, of basic. And actually, if the rules don't say it needs to be massive or it needs to be small, you've got to kind of go okay. So what are the rules? Are the rules? Are it's got to have cheese in it, for instance? Can I taste the cheese? Is the cheese nice? Is it never nice balance?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 13:38

So you could, you should be able to judge those two things fairly independently, despite the fact that they're quite different and also, you know, look different, taste different or whatever. So that's the theory anyway and that's what we try and do. And it sounds kind of grandiose, but it is hard, especially when you've just eaten something which you really liked and then you get something which you're kind of I'm not so sure. But I still need to try and judge it objectively and kind of make sure I'm giving it the kind of the focus and commitment that I should is it that there's like a set ruling that you need to plan everything across?

Dan 14:29

or, and what the different types of kind of events that you plan, whether it be in the uk or anything you're linked with in europe as well?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 14:33

um, so yeah, so we try and keep relatively consistent in terms of the kind of the overall structure. So generally you will have a number of rounds which make up a contest, um, and sometimes you'll have contests on the saturday and a contest on the sunday which are completely separate, and sometimes you'll have rounds on a saturday and rounds on a sunday which will be added together just for one whole weekend contest. So so, generally speaking, the structure of barbecue contests is done in rounds, usually kind of three or four per day, which can add it up to a contest. There's some types of contests which are kind of very, very simple. So SCA, which is the State Cook-Off Association, that's another American-based organization which we're doing a lot more in the UK at the moment. That's a really simple contest for people to get involved in because you can turn up with a kettle or even just a chimney starter and some charcoal and a match and you can compete with all of the other teams with their huge setups to cook one steak. The steak gets provided for you, so everyone kind of has the same quality steak, um, and if you can cook that on your kettle or just your chimney star or whatever, um, then you, it's kind of a level playing field. It's really nice and simple. And the reason I say chimney star is because some teams do cook their steaks over chimney starters to get um, to get the heat.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 16:06

So, generally speaking, yeah, contest structures and the events around them are quite standard. We try and do our events at places that are quite visible. So we try and do kind of like food festivals, music festivals and things like that, things we know where the public are going to be. Because our main ethos as Con Barbecue UK is to try and get more people involved, get more people interested, not just in competition barbecue, in barbecue in general. So if we there are some private contests knocking around as well, but if we can do ours very visually where people who might be interested are, then that's great for us. We can use it as a bit of a shop front for getting people interested and involved.

Owen 16:57

And typically, how many events are you doing at these food festivals, like you said, music festivals? What does a typical comp season look like?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 17:07

in the UK. So for us. So this is only our second year organising contests, so we only did one last year, but weirdly it was kind of quite a big one, not in terms of teams but the location. So last year we did our very first contest, a festival called valley fest, uh, down near bristol, which is like a huge music festival, um, which is organized, at least in part, by the same people to do glastonbury um, so it's like a massive music festival on this beautiful farm that overlooks um, I think it's two Magna Reservoir just outside Bristol, and we did it there and it was an amazing contest. It rained all weekend and on the Saturday morning, or sorry, the Sunday morning, the water main burst at the top of the hill and we had a river running through our contest area all day, which was great fun, but that was our. That was our first one. This year we've done two.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 18:09

Um, we did, uh, a contest at um tubby toms. So, uh, for anyone who doesn't know, tubby tom makes amazing rubs, sauces, seasonings, uh, out of his unit. Uh, just outside gloucester he organized a really small kind of festival just on his industrial estate and asked us to organise a contest there. That was great fun. Just one day we did an SCA stake round and, I think, three rounds of freestyle. We had guest judges who were pals of ours. They came along and did some judging and all kinds of stuff. It was such good fun, really small but such good fun. And then about four or five weeks ago we ran our second contest, cheltenham Food and Drink Festival, which was really good. I mean, weather was beautiful, we had eight teams, people there, obviously there for food and drink and stuff. So people were interested um, and yeah, it was kind of it was a great contest.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 19:10

We're hoping to do three contests next year. Fingers crossed, we'll do another one which will be tom. Um, hopefully we might do cheltenham again fingers crossed and we're kind of thinking about a few options for a third one, whether we tag it onto an existing event or whether we maybe organise something, not sure, but yeah, so we're hoping to do three next year. Outside of that, there's probably this year, since COVID, there's been more contests this year than we've had for a long time. So although they had to cancel, one pro-q organized um a couple, um everyone. Weekend just gone, or a fair few people were down at the um great dorset chili festival, doing a chili cook-off down there. Um, um, we've got. What else have we got coming up? I know smoke and mold and smoke and fire, obviously, yeah, in a week or so's time. So, yeah, there's kind of more stuff than ever before and if we're not organizing it, then generally we turn up to make a nuisance of ourselves and either just say hello to friends and stuff.

Owen 20:19

Just out of interest, obviously, now organizing your own as well as promoting others and, like you said, kind of being there and judging, yeah, how, what's the perception of the general public, you know? So if it is at a music festival, that's not particularly barbecue. I still think barbecue is still fairly niche in the uk oh yeah, definitely even though there is a big community.

Owen 20:44

Yeah, because we're in it, we know it. Yeah, so it's. I'm interested to know when there is literally eight teams that lined up over a load of heck, you know, in their gazebos or whatever, just in an area, yeah, what is the kind of you know, general perception from members of the public?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 21:00

I would say the primary reaction is one of confusion, but for the right reasons, because that's kind of what we want, because we want more people to find out about it. So if they weren't confused, it means they knew about it before and there's no point. But yeah, it's kind of. There's a. It's an interesting thing to see. When you turn up at a food festival, you turn around a corner and there's a line of eight gazebos with various different types of barbecues out front. You know there's offsets and there's barrel smokers and there's bullet smokers and there's kettles on the go, there's pellet grills, that you know. There's all sorts going on and it's very visually kind of interesting. So you get a lot of people going what's this, what's going on? And and that's great because you can tell them and go, this is a barbecue contest. This is, you know, this is a big deal in america. We do it here as well, and this is it and um. And I think, hopefully, what people who might be interested in it see as well is that it's relatively easy to get into.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 22:06

Lots of people think that it's all professional chefs or people who cook for a living, and it's not.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 22:11

It's just people who who've got a passion for this hobby, which is for a weekend trying to cook the best food they can to impress, invariably, some people that they know and you know some friends and stuff, friendly competition amongst the teams and then they all go out for a drink and a meal in the evening or if they're all camping there, they all sit around a fire pit and, you know, drink and chat and kind of have a laugh and a joke and it's such a social community but also visually kind of very arresting for someone who's never seen it, particularly if someone's you know general experience of a barbecue is, you know a B&Q grill which they spend an hour and a half screwing together, used twice over the summer, and then you know it's rusting beyond the shed To see all these different types of barbecue and grills and whatever.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 23:09

It can be really interesting for the people you know who've got even just the slightest interest in it to also go. Wow, there's this whole world of barbecues, of food, of you know social get-togethers that never knew existed. So yeah, that's a very long and convoluted way of saying yeah, confusion generally of saying yeah, confusion generally rolling, rolling back a little bit.

Dan 23:39

How, how did you even?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 23:40

get into this and when did your?

Dan 23:41

that is a question I get, yeah, and also like when, where did your barbecue journey start and how did it progress into organizing yeah, competition standard barbecue?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 23:53

So I've always been interested in cooking so I've always been a bit of a kitchen warrior kind of cooking, and then, like most people, would kind of barbecue over the summer. I think my first barbecue was a like my first proper barbecue was a 37 centimetcentimeter compact Weber and it's tiny I've still got it and it's absolutely kind of minuscule now. But I had that and I used to use that a lot. And then I can't remember it was a birthday and we were having a small kind of birthday party and for some reason I'd seen on TV about this brand new invention called pulled pork and I was like well.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 24:38

I'm going to do that with no kind of real knowledge. And I remember trying to Google kind of how to do it, how long to cook it for, and then realising that I couldn't just do it. It wasn't just a case of putting the lid on the barbecue, that I had to offset the coals and all this sort of stuff. And I did that for that birthday party and then, I think, slowly from there it gathered a bit of pace until one day, for a reason I still don't know, a kind of a sponsored or advert popped up on Facebook for this festival which was called the Big Meat. It was organised and run by James from JL Butchers and this is a few years ago, which, fingers crossed, is coming back very soon. But there was this festival and it had barbecue in the name or barbecue in the description. So me and my wife went oh, let's just go down there. You know it's three hours away, but we've got nothing else to do and we turned up at this festival and we turned up at about midday and what generally happens is that once the teams have cooked everything and turned it in anything they've got left generally they've cooked loads of ribs to turn in six. They kind of give them out. And we were just walking around and these teams were just handing out these kind of gastropans full of ribs and we were going oh my God, this is the best rib I've ever eaten. Oh no, actually this is the best rib I've ever eaten. Oh no, this is the best rib I've ever eaten. And yeah, this is the best rib I've ever eaten. And yeah, and that was kind of our introduction to competition barbecue. Just stumbled on it completely by accident.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 26:18

The next year at the same festival Big Meat they were running a judging course, so we went along and did that. So we judged that year and then we judged the year after and then someone was running a KCBS judging course John Gower, down at Smoke on the Water. So we went there, we did that judging course and it just kind of snowballed. It was like one thing after another, one thing after another, and the next thing, you know, you're sat on a Eurotunnel at 7 o'clock in the morning to drive seven hours to the Netherlands to judge a barbecue contest. Kind of midday I need to turn around at three o'clock and drive all the way back home again because you've got to go to work the next day. It's kind of yeah, it kind of snowballs, it snowballs, and then you blink and you're like what the hell am I doing? This is the weirdest hobby in the world and at one point I thought I wanted to compete.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 27:17

So I got really interested in competing but really struggled to find any information. There was little bits here and there, but but nobody was kind of pulling together kind of information for um, uh, for people who were interested in competing. And I ended up getting the phone number of one of the teams who were at that festival Sean from Joker Smokers, who still compete now, and just spending an hour and a half on the phone with him going like what is it you need? What do you do? And then I kind of thought I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to build a website that pulls all of the information I've found out and just puts it there for people. And that's how Con Barbecue UK started. We were just an information website and it's just grown from there.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 28:03

We started doing more and more, working with different people and you know, yeah, here we are organising two or three contests a year now for our sins, which sometimes is great, and then other times it feels like the worst decision you've ever made, when you're particularly for my wife when she sets up the WhatsApp groups with the teams, and the teams have got a thousand and one ridiculous questions that they need answers to before they arrive and it seems like a very silly idea to have got involved. But, yeah, we do it together. There's only two of us at the moment, but yeah, so we kind of just do everything we can to spread the word, organise contests, promote other people's contests and, yeah, sometimes you go. I don't really know how we got here. I don't really know how we ended up spending all of these weekends in all these random small towns in Belgium, all because we accidentally stumbled on a contest at a festival in the UK, I think in 2016, I think it was.

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Getting Involved in European Barbecue

Dan 30:18

You make a very good point. So I mean, owen and I have actually talked about kind of competing in the past and the pros and cons of it. I think the difference is Owen loves cooking for people, I love eating barbecue food and it's two very different reasons to cook. I think we'll end up at least trying to compete a few times. Yeah, but looking at it, driving to Newcastle from where we are down kind of relatively south, kind of Essex, suffolk way, yeah, it's arguably longer than driving to some areas in Europe and yet we never would have thought about the European scene. So can you talk us a bit through the European scene? And also, if people want to get involved, where do you even begin? They can go to the website, obviously. What would you recommend so with Europe?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 31:12

specifically, it's mainly kcbs and sca. So if you want to get involved in judging kcbs and doing what we do, which is meeting up with loads of friends that we know both british friends, uh, german friends, belgian friends, dutch friends, um, in random places, particularly in belgium and Belgium and the Netherlands go on the KCBS website particularly, or come and speak to us and find out where there's judging courses, because all you need to do to become a KCBS judge is go and do a judging course, which takes about two, three hours from memory, and then you can judge at any KCBS contest anywhere in the world. Like I said, we've judged in the States. We've judged in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Ireland and obviously the UK. So that's all it takes, and I would be lying if I said we go all that way just to judge barbecue, because we don't, because the social aspect around it is so, so important. We've made some of the best friends that we have kind of doing this and travelling to weird and wonderful places. So Mark and Anju are kind of our reps in the UK. They're kind of both KCBS reps and SCA, which means they don't organise the contest, but they act on behalf of KCBS and SCA. They turn up at the contest and make sure they're kind of run to the right standard and to the right rules and processes. They're some of our best best friends and we would never have known them or met them had we not got involved in this. And now, yeah, we're kind of talking about whether we're going to go to meet them in Nashville next year for Angie's birthday, things like this. It's kind of it's so weird, but yeah.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 33:02

So if you want to do, like, just go and judge barbecue KCBS, sca just find out where there's a course. There's not many, so you do have to get lucky and find one and do the course and then you can go and judge. They're always done in English as well, so that's the rule. So whether that course happens in Belgium, the Netherlands, italy, the course is always in English. So that's the international language of barbecue. So anyone can turn up and do it, particularly from the UK.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 33:34

Um, so anyone can turn up and do it, particularly from the uk. Um, if you want to judge in this country, um, for you know, for freestyle and stuff we're at the moment we primarily use kcbs and sca judges to judge our freestyle contests. Possibly next year we're going to start running a course for people just to learn about judging freestyle barbecue, so that hopefully might be something next year that people can get involved with. But yeah, that's kind of like how you get involved, particularly kind of in Europe. You do a course and turn up and make friends and go and drink eculously strong Belgian beer in bars in Belgian towns. It's great.

Owen 34:18

And obviously you mentioned right at the beginning that you're here to promote competition barbecue across the UK primarily, as well as Europe People joining and competing but what you've obviously just been talking about around judging is there also a need for more judges here?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 34:37

yeah, I think there was a time where we had a lot, a lot more judges than we needed um for the amount of contests, but that's that's gone now. Um, so the the kind of the mildly challenging situation we have, particularly around kcbs, is like I said at the start, there's there's only one kcbs contest uh in the uk at the moment and that's the one we organized um back before covid. There was kind of four or five um, so that's kind of it's quite hard in the UK to get into that KCBS world. But because it's now been a long time since we were at that peak of judges, people as they do kind of drift away. They get involved in other things. It is a hobby and, hand on heart, it can be an expensive hobby if you want to gallivant all over Europe and stuff like that. So people do tend to drift in and drift out. Generally there's a core but that does happen. So, yeah, so we, like you say, we'd love new people to get involved, compete in teams, whether it's just like one person or two, three, four friends who want to get together and form a team. But also, yeah, we need people who are interested in in in judging as well.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 35:57

Um, it sounds strange, but the contest that we ran in chowk nom, we had judges that came from, let me get this right. So we had judges from nashville, we had judges from dallas, uh, texas. We had judges from the? N Texas. We had judges from the Netherlands, australia and Ireland as well, and they all came on their own dime to judge our tiny little contest in Cheltenham.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 36:26

And that's the kind of community it is. People make a, they do it as part of a holiday. They go off travelling around Europe, particularly the Americans. They do like to come and travel around europe and do like two, three, four contests while they're here. But because that happened, there was another contest the same weekend in the netherlands and they were struggling for judges purely because me and my wife were in this country. Mark and ange were repping our contest and they would have normally been judging. The two Dutch judges who'd come over to our contest weren't available. So they were struggling to get judges because of our tiny little contest. So we do need more people to get involved and it'd be great if they were kind of British people who want to come judge some contests. Like I said, join the little community of barbecue judges that meets up in the UK, in the States not in the States, sorry in Europe, you know, and kind of get involved in that because it's just such a great social scene.

Dan 37:28

I've always said A different view of what you're talking about. Do you think becoming a judge has improved your barbecuing skills? Because you know what you're looking for.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 37:40

Yeah, yeah do you know? Do you know what it's kind of? I'm not a big fan of like. I would never cook a competition brisket or competition ribs. Um, I like my ribs much. You know, if you were judging my ribs when I've cooked them for KCBS, you would say they were massively overdone, because KCBS standard is that the meat doesn't fall away from the bone. So from a KCBS point of view it's good to get tips and tricks, you see, kind of speak to the teams and find out how they do certain things, where they get some of their meat from and things like that. But I would never cook meat like that.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 38:22

But interestingly, the freestyle stuff and it's like some of the teams are so creative and come up with some amazing things and I'll give you an example. So our contest last year at Valleyfest, one of the rounds was just cheese. That was the round name, it was cheese. You could do whatever you want as long as the main thing was cheese. And probably the best freestyle team in the UK, a team called Wonky Donkies, which is a great name they did this really simple kind of cheese pie. I think it was like a cheese and ham pie, um, and it was like it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever eaten, um, and you kind of and it's moments like that you go, oh, I could, that's the thing I could. Like that triggers something in me that goes, oh, when I cook that I'm going to do that. So the freestyle stuff definitely kind of.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 39:15

While I am kind of a bit creative when it comes to like cooking and stuff like that, I never have those big ideas, those big grand ideas. So having those little triggers from these amazing teams, that kind of cook these incredible things, just having those little triggers like just to make me go, oh yeah, that's a good idea, I can use that idea or you know, that theory or whatever. So yeah, yeah, it's great. It's definitely given me loads more ideas and probably more confidence as well, because you kind of understand what's possible and it's easy to kind of think that a barbecue, you know, in the traditional sense, is all about sausages and burgers. Or, you know, if you kind of obviously come from American Southern States, it's all about low and slow, but actually it's kind of so much more. It's baking, it's frying, it's grilling, it's broiling, it's all these things, um, which, my own personal opinion, can be made better just with that flavor of smoke or that flavor of char or you know, or whatever. So so it's.

Owen 40:19

Yeah, it's definitely both inspired me and educated me just seeing what these guys do one of the things that we hold really dear on the podcast Kev is our barbecue fails. We want to hear about some of the things that haven't gone well. So I don't really know, perhaps, what stories you've got, but it can be from your own personal kind of cooking experiences or even perhaps some real fails that you've had as a judge.

Dan 40:44

Yeah, throw people under the bus is what I always ask there. It could be what you've done or you've heard some real crap, just lop that in front.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 40:53

I'll preface this by saying that I don't know the names of the people involved in this, and the reason will become clear. So the first time me and my wife went to the States to judge we didn't go specific for that, we were going on holiday we found a local contest that was happening and we went there and it was quite a big contest in Florida I think there was about 70 or 80 teams, which by our standards is huge, but by American standards is kind of mid-size contest and they tend to have in the States. They tend to have what they call the professional side and the backyard side, um, so kind of two parallel contests. The professionals aren't professional, it just means that they've competed before or they'd, they've won contests before. Um, and we our judging table was judging the backyard side and one of the teams that we ended up judging was a team of American guys who were on stag do. So basically their stag weekend they'd gone to American, they'd gone to a barbecue contest to cook and they decided they were going to for chicken. They did chicken wings and they were absolutely incinerated. Like they must have been so hungover because like it's hard to burn chicken wings right, especially if you're smoking them. So God knows what they did.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 42:19

But, yeah, this box turned up. They opened this box and you know, there's all these teams that spent hours, you know, cooking their, you know in their half million dollar kind of trailer rigs and stuff like that. And we get this one team that was hung over and cooked the most acrid burnt chicken wings I've ever tasted in my life. So so, yeah, so they didn't win. They came a strong second. No, they didn't. But yeah, yeah, and I was like I just thought the amount of money they must have spent to be there. And then they obviously woke up in the morning and just thought we've made a terrible, terrible decision. We just need to get something in a box. And then, presumably, they all went back to bed for six hours, woke up and realised that they'd burned the chicken wings. Still, handed them in. That's brilliant still handed up me.

Owen 43:11

That's brilliant. Have you ever been to competitions where people have abandoned it?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 43:16

Just gone. No, we're going home. Do you know what? No, I don't, because generally speaking, you don't see it much. They're very strict, kind of all. Contests are very strict on what time you have to turn in your entry. So the general rule of thumb is one second late is disqualified.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 43:37

There's been some very, very near misses um, uh, mentioning no names, there's some kind of repeat offenders of people who kind of sprinting across a field with a box stretched out in front of them, hoping not to trip over to try and get it on the table before the the clock ticks round, um, so you, you get that, but I've never seen anyone throwing the towel.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 43:58

Generally it's a very supportive atmosphere. So if you're in trouble, if you're in like a bit like a uh and in a situation where you don't think you're going to get it done, you won't believe the amount of teams that will pitch in and help, um, kind of, and try and kind of get you over the line. Because, like a lot of teams have done quite well by having one terrible round and three pretty good rounds. So, like it's one round down, just get it in, just don't get disqualified, because you never know what could happen. So it is incredibly rare, to the point where I've never seen it, but uh, um, I think there's probably been a few that have been pretty close um, I'd love to move on to, uh, actually trying to give you a bit of a challenge to cook something.

Owen 44:45

We're talking about competition, barbecue, uh, our barbecue bingo challenge, where, um, I'll show you the very expensive wheel that we've spent a lot of money on.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 44:55

Oh, I'm very excited about yeah, oh look at that, oh my word.

Owen 45:00

Look at this. I know, I know kids haven't eaten for a week, so, uh, on, on here we've got a load of ingredients. All of these have been left by previous guests, right? Um, apart from my signature dish. So which would be your signature dish? What are you best known for? So if it lands on that, we'd love you to cook your signature dish. What would you say? People know, so my thing.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 45:27

It's probably not a specific dish, but what I love cooking the most mainly because I really like eating it and my wife really likes eating it is greek stuff.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 45:36

So we know, yes, so you know, yeah, like spinach and feta pies and slow cooked beef and kind of mediterranean sauces and stuff. So, yeah, we cook a lot of that. My wife makes this amazing, um, greek honey cake on the barbecue, which is because honey's obviously got a lot good. Honey's got that slightly smoky flavor. Anyway, greek honey cake done on the barbecue is insanely good. It's. It's one of my favorite things, um, which has reminded me she's not cooked it for a long time. So, um, probably need to get on that, but but yeah, so probably not a specific dish, but um, but probably, yeah, probably greek food as a uh, as a genre, more than anything um just for the list people listening conscious not everyone watches on youtube to name kind of some of the different ingredients.

Dan 46:25

So, or things that are on here Paella, frog legs, squid, tripe, kangaroo Good luck getting that Beef neck, andouille, sausage, vindaloo paste, goat, octopus, pineapple, monkfish, chicken hearts, duck, szechuan peppers there's quite a few different bits and variety there and if anyone at home wants to play along, please do buy whatever this lands on and cook along and tag us in. We'd love to see what people can do absolutely right, kev.

Owen 46:58

Uh, so we'll give it a spin. Um, actually, just before, is there anything that you're absolutely dreading? So?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 47:06

uh, so vindaloo paste. While I absolutely love spice and heat, my tolerance goes up and up and up and then it comes to an absolute dead stop. And then the second you go over that it's painful, I'm not interested. Um, and vindaloo, depending on where you get it from, can either be above or below that line. So, yeah, I have never eaten octopus and I have no intention of ever eating octopus.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 47:37

There's something about the suckers. Too many people have told me as well how delicious it is which has just made me even more stubborn that I've got no intention of eating octopus. So yeah, those are probably two that stand out. I'm not that pleased.

Owen 47:53

You've tempted fate for sure. Right, come on, let's give it a go. It is generally random, but if it does land on it amazing.

Dan 48:03

To be fair, last week it landed on what the person was talking about. I mean that's close. Right, it is close, but there's no.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 48:11

There's no suckers involved with squid, so it's not as great yeah, squid, there we are.

Owen 48:17

What's your first thoughts?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 48:19

uh, calamari, obviously, is kind of the obvious thing, um, which is really probably the only thing I've ever really cooked with squid. Um, I have seen and eaten, um, lots of stuffed squid kind of that's cooked really like slow and low um, uh, but, but, but yeah, I'm not. Yeah, so probably something like that. I don't know how versatile is squid apart from just grilling it, calamari in it and stuffing it. I'm not sure there's much more you can do with it. Maybe there is, maybe I'm, maybe I'm still a storm when it comes to squid. Who knows?

Dan 48:52

is it occasionally used in ceviche? I mean, it's not, not, not, not so much uh, barbecue though is it no, it's almost the antithesis of barbecue here's a kj now let's have some lime. Yeah, yeah.

Culinary Mishaps and Barbecue Fails

Owen 49:09

You could grill the lime at least. Yeah, yeah, okay. And so, to keep with tradition, what ingredient would you like to leave for potentially another guest?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 49:21

I would leave just something I've eaten this weekend actually, which I always really like, and then always forget about them for kind of eight months of the year. So Padron Peppers. I love Padron Peppers, oh yeah, and they're such an acquired, like a strange acquired taste, because when you eat them they go. These are so bitter and kind of savoury, but weirdly delicious Like olives. It's kind of like that similar sort of vibe. But yeah, padron Peppers, I've accidentally spun it twice, so sorry about that. I'm glad we I just saw that the second one said chicken hearts and I was like no, no, thank you uh, yeah, padron peppers again, not something that I have that often, but do you know?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 50:10

weirdly, I went through a stage a couple of years ago of growing chillies and I grew a load of Padron peppers and found out that you can't freeze them because they just turn to mush when you defrost them. But yeah, weirdly, the only place, the only kind of supermarket, that sells them is Lidl. That's kind of the only supermarket around here that actually sells them.

Dan 50:29

Is that because they're a Lidl pepper?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 50:33

Yeah, you can't be pitching me stuff like that. And I can't be swinging for it.

Dan 50:44

You cannot be throwing me stuff like that and not expecting me to bite at that.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 50:48

It's kind of, you know, when you see something that you grow, but like weirdly inside, you're very impressed. I'm not gonna say it was definitely like that, but it was definitely a bit like that yeah, and that was how the meat barbecue podcast finished talking about that, though.

Dan 51:05

Um, I, um. So I had owen over on the weekend. A bit of a barbecue fail, slightly in a feline shaped way, but um, I did. I did a brisket. I'd been out friday night, got back at about midnight and put the barbecue on then and, um, this brisket about 11 and a half hours it took 3.75 kilo. Brisket came out really, really good, yeah, but I also I also did a pork belly bone-in.

Dan 51:32

I took the skin off it to make crackling, which I've still got, which I'm going to have as a snack in the week because why not, why not? Yeah, exactly. So I cooked this pork belly, cut it up with some sausages. I was going to serve it with like little Pedron peppers on the side, and my wife'll blame steph for this was like you know what, put in the dining room. We'll sit outside, people just go in and serve themselves. Okay, so did that, did some sausages for the children as well, just in case they didn't want kind of brisket style pork belly.

Dan 52:02

Really happy with how it came out. Luckily I had a few bits before kind of putting it on the side, put it out, said to everyone oh food, oh, food's out. And everyone said, oh, do you know what? We'll wait a little bit for the brisket, so we'll sit down and just give it a little while Two of the children come out. Five minutes later, cat's on the table. I was like right, do you want to expand on that? Yeah, he's licking all over everything. I said define everything, everything. I was like okay, have you? Have you got him off the table? No, no, he's still there. Why are you telling me this?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 52:36

So I was watching him for 10 minutes.

Dan 52:38

I had to get rid of the full top level of the pork that I'd done, so like maybe half of the pork belly. I'd done six sausages. Three of the sausages went straight away. Right, should we bring everything outside now? But um it, it hadn't even occurred to me because, like we've recently moved, I've not talked around the podcast. It's not something that constantly comes up, but it's not something he's ever done before, even in the old house. So it never occurred to me that maybe a cat would like meat if we left it out. So, um, I learned a very strong lesson there, but at least the brisket came out really good.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 53:15

I think the main lesson to learn there is if no one saw it, don't tell anyone and it'll be fine oh well, I think it's pretty obvious when two children come screaming out to announce it. Not just everyone in the garden but the viewers?

Owen 53:30

Yeah, actually I had a barbecue fail this week. That just annoyed me. So I've recently got a new wood-fired oven. So again, I don't want to use it just for pizza, I want to cook, you know, all sorts in it, yeah so uh it was just me and my wife.

Owen 53:53

The kids were away at the in-laws, so it was quite nice. Um did a nice beef chili but I got some. I had some braising steak and originally I was going to do like a slow cooked chili or a casserole or whatever. And the wife was like, should we put it on in the morning? I went, no, no, that's fine, I tell you what I'm going to fire up the new wood fired oven and we'll cook it. So I was cooking this chili for about an hour and 20 minutes, hour and a half, and it started to really kind of um, thicken up and start, you know, you started to get the really nice kind of flavoring on the top, uh, and I was like, yeah, really happy with this, took the took. So, honestly, the beef was like chewing a shoe it was it just hadn't had that.

Owen 54:35

Hours and hours just to kind of break down.

Owen 54:37

I should have done it with sirloin steak, so I. The problem is I was making some content and I put it up on the store on our stories yesterday, so it looked all right, but no one actually knew that I couldn't eat it and had to actually do it, actually had to do, use a slow cooker the next day just to make it palatable, that's what I think that about most of the kind of instagram and tiktok you look, you go, that looks amazing, but I can't like.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 55:05

I just don't know how it tastes because the whole thing is texture, so it's just this kind of like. I just don't know how it tastes because the whole thing is texture, so it's just this kind of like. I just don't trust it. I don't trust that they're all amazing.

Dan 55:14

I just don't Well like the brisket I did on the weekend. I didn't take any photos of it, once I'd actually properly sliced it up on the plateau, which annoyed me. But that's because I took photos when I initially cut it and a bit of video, and then I'm just focused on the food, because I want everyone to have hot food, nice food. You know, anyone who takes that long setting out was like that's, that's, that's cold, that's cool. I'm cooking a chili right now. By the way, it's been on for five hours, so I hope it's good and it's not boiled dry, because I can't do anything about it right now, but listen to all those burn bits on the bottom.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 55:51

That's texture and that's flame.

Owen 55:52

Yeah, so this, that wasn't the end, unfortunately so then I was.

Owen 55:58

I was panicking, trying to find something, so I ended up doing. Ended up doing beef chilli nachos because we had some mints, etc. But I bought some new pans recently. All of our non-stick pans had gone the the, the oven was still up and hot. So I thought, well, again, I'll use that. So put the new pan in and it seemed okay. But then as I pulled it out, actually that it's probably a bit too big for the oven. So I've scratched all of the non-stick off around the rim, which is great. Then I've got one of the old pans and which is a metal handle, and I was because I was just faffing around and end up taking it out without my glove on and burning my bloody fingers.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 56:39

So all in all, the whole evening was just fail, fail, fail, but I had some very nice beef nachos at the end of it speaking of hot, hot pan handles, when we were at our contest um at cheltenham there was a small barbecue demo stage right next to us and um shane mcbagley. So shout out to shane mcbagley, who does um great stuff on facebook and instagram. Uh, american guy that lives here in the uk now does a lot of lot of works for Weber and does a load of barbecue content In front of like a crowd of people watching him do a demo, picked up a metal handled pan that had been inside a big Weber summit for about half an hour. To be fair, he let it go really quickly so he didn't do any damage, but he fronted it out so well. We saw it and spoke to him afterwards so we knew about it, but no one else knew. So shout out to Shane for his demos. But also incredible pain threshold. He is a chef. Chefs have all got Teflon hands on anyway.

Owen 57:47

Yeah, absolutely, anyway. So, just as we kind of come to the end, just is is there anything else that perhaps we haven't covered in in terms of competition, barbecue or barbecue actually it doesn't even need to be barbecue, but just you know, is there anything else that you want to kind of talk to us about or, uh, shout about?

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 58:05

uh.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 58:05

Well, so just like, if anyone is interested in competing, getting involved, um, go to our website comp barbecue ukcom. You can find us on facebook. You can search for comp barbecue uk on facebook or instagram. Those are probably do a little bit on tiktok, but not loads. So that's our, our kind of primary stuff. You can drop us emails. If you go to our website. There's a contact us.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 58:27

Give me a shout, um, if you've got any questions, uh, about getting involved or uh just want more information and all that kind of stuff. Um, so yeah, that really just yeah. I guess the kind of the one message I just wanted to get across was that the competition barbecue is a kind of a really fun community of people who've just got this passion for this hobby that they do. So anyone can do it. If you've got barbecue and you can get hold of a gazebo or even just a big brolly or whatever, um, if it rains, you can come to these contests and cook stuff and compete and uh get involved, whether you do it yourself, with a family member, with you know two or three friends or whatever. You can pull your kit and all that sort of stuff. But, yeah, just get in touch, give us a shout.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 59:17

If anyone's at Molden, then I'll be knocking around the judging tent probably for most of the Saturday and Sunday, doing stuff. They had me up on stage doing kind of comparing last year, so I don't know whether that happened again, but um, but yeah, yeah, I'll, uh, I'll do my best to wear a comp barbecue t-shirt or hoodie or something. So, uh, uh, come and grab me and say hello and whatnot and uh, uh, yeah and and kind of yeah, just reach out and and give me a shout if anyone's got any questions or is interested to be fair, as a judge, are you not used to comparing things?

Dan 59:53

That's two.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 59:57

That's two in a very short space of time.

Dan 1:00:01

You can't leave me with things like that.

Owen 1:00:05

We call him the cunning punt.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 1:00:07

The worst thing about that is, I feel like the second. I said it, he thought it, and then he was waiting for it.

Dan 1:00:13

Oh yeah, yeah, that was long yeah.

Owen 1:00:16

It was in the eyes.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 1:00:17

I've got to wait for this one.

Owen 1:00:23

Anyway, kev, honestly lovely to meet you and it was really good to talk more about the comp scene and, yeah, thank you very much for coming onto the podcast.

Kev - Comp BBQ UK 1:00:32

No, thanks for having us guys. It's been really fun and I appreciate you inviting me along and getting me to talk about what I love. So, yeah, thanks a lot.

Owen 1:00:40

And apologies for Jan's shit jokes.

Dan 1:00:43

Shut the hell up. Jealous Cook signing off right there. Thanks, thanks, kev, cheers guys.

Owen 1:00:49

Jealous cook signing off right there, thanks thanks kev, cheers guys, cheers bye see you later.

Owen 1:00:57

Bye that's it for another episode of the meet and greet barbecue podcast. It's great to hear from kevin understand a little bit more about the kind of competition barbecue scene in the uk and europe. Um, as ever, we'd want to hear from you. Please do get in touch through the socials the link in the description that you can contact us directly and until next time, keep on grilling. Today's episode is brought to you by AOS kitchens, the south's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.