Posted by Smoke Shack on April 6, 2009, 11:29 am, in reply to "MBN Advice"
24.23.91.96
MBN has both blind and onsite judging. You will present a blind box for each category, and you will be judged by 3 different onsite judges for each category. There is no garnish in the blind box, and your product should be in pieces large enough such that they can be judged for tenderness. You can (and should) sauce your entry, and you can also provide side sauces (you'll be given the containers for these).
MBN expects to see entire cuts on the cooker. If you're cooking hog, do NOT do the standard SCBA pull-chop then put it back in the skin. You must show the entire piece of meat on the cooker, and if you pull and chop you'll not be scored well at all in onsite. Same with shoulders - you should have the entire shoulder on the cooker for the judge.
As to onsite, the judges expect for you to be able to inform them how you got your product from a raw state to a finished state. They will stay between 10 and 15 minutes. YOu should be neat and clean, your site should be neat and clean (no trash cans, beer cans, cig butts etc), hands washed and such, clothes neat, no grease etc etc. Your cooker should be very clean, and many teams garnish their cookers with kale, fruits, vegetables etc. You don't have to, but it can help your appearance and presentation scores.
Be careful with turnin times. MBN doesn't allow late entries (they DQed a team this weekend for being 37 seconds late) so make sure your timing is right. Also, be aware of the way MBN does this - your first onsite judge will be arriving at the same time that your blind is due. MBN gives you a 15 minute window to get your blind in, so if Shoulder judging is at 11:30, your blind is due between 11:15 and 11:30. This will be stressed at the cooks meeting, but be very careful with this - onsite judges don't like to be kept waiting, and your presentation and overall impression scores can suffer because of it.
Finally - don't sweat the onsite portion. This is little more than a couple of people talking about barbecue. Treat it as such and you should be fine. Judges will always tell you that the teams are far more stressed and uptight about presentation than are the judges, and if they would just relax and have fun with it they would do better. Strictly speaking the only thing you have to tell them is time and temps and flavors, but you should be prepared to tell them everything you can about the product, from where your purchased it, to the type of cooker you have, the fuel you use (you can't use gas or electric cookers, by the way, and will be DQed if you do), sauces, rubs etc.
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