Sep 10 2019

Rescue Smokers Starts the Year Off in Grand Fashion

Doc Holliday BBQ Championship

 

Fifty-six professional BBQ teams and over 100 judges gathered at a great new park location in Griffin, Georgia on September 7, 2019 for the 7th annual Doc Holliday BBQ Championship.  Not only was it the kick-off to the new 2019-20 GBA season, but it also jump started the Team of the Year race by awarding double points.  The teams competed for their share of more than $10,000 in prize money and very unique western themed trophies valued at an additional $3,000.

After the smoke cleared, Rescue Smokers took the Grand Championship for their loin entry.  In addition to being Grand Champion, they finished 1st in loin, 8th in pork, and 9th in ribs.  Lang BBQ Team won the Reserve Grand for the highest combined points in the preliminary round by .3 points by finishing 3rd in loin, 2nd in pork, and 12th in ribs.

 

Rescue Smokers won the Loin category, followed by Off the Chain and Lang BBQ Team.  Off the Chain also had the only 600 score of the entire day with their preliminary loin entry.

Pots BBQ finished first in the Pork category.  Lang BBQ Team came in second, and Meat with Feet took third place in their first GBA contest.

Front Porch took the Rib category, with The Fat Guys in second and Fire in the Hole claiming third place.

Kelvin’s BBQ beat out thirty-five other teams to win the ancillary brisket category and claim the Official Georgia State Brisket Championship and a $500 check.   They were followed by Meat with Feet and Smokin the Good Stuff.

Full Loin, Pork, and Rib Results

https://gba.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/Contest%20results/2019%20Doc%20Holiday%20Category%20results.pdf

Full Brisket results

https://gba.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/Contest%20results/2019%20Doc%20Holiday%20Briskett%20Results.pdf

All Reserve Scores

https://gba.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/Contest%20results/2019%20Doc%20Holiday%20Reserve%20Scores.pdf

Thank you to everyone who made this event such a big success.  Plans are already underway for bigger and better next year.  The next GBA sanctioned event will be the new Carroll’s Sausage BBQ Bash as part of the established Bark in the Park Festival in Sylvester, Georgia on September 28.   Then it is on to the GBA State Championship at the Deep Roots Festival in Milledgeville, Georgia on October 26, before another first time contest at Lake Blackshear on November 16.    Hope to see everyone at A GBA event soon.

Jun 09 2019

Barbecue By the Numbers

The GBA 2018-2019 season has come to a successful close, and we’re proud to have helped provide you the opportunity to do the thing you love – cook barbecue! The GBA has worked hard to make these contests fun and fair, and we’ll continue working hard in the off season to make things even better.

We’d like to thank all of our Teams, Judges, and Contest Organizers. It takes all 3 working together to make a successful season and the GBA is proud of our role in the process. Our teams are some of the best on the barbecue circuit, and our judges are second to none. The Contest organizers deserve a huge thank you for doing all the hard work (and putting up with all of us!).

The statistics provided here are sourced from the new BBQ Scoring system the GBA formally adopted this year. The scoring system is database-driven, which means we can quickly and easily retrieve this information. If you find any issues with this data please email webmaster@bbqga.org

Contest Stats

The GBA sanctioned 10 Professional contests this year, and one In Association With contest. We’ve already got 7 on the books for next year, with a few more possibilities in the works, so get ready for a full year of Barbecue in the 2019-2020 season!

The GBA averaged just below 41 teams per contest. The largest contest this year was the Smokin’ Flamingo BBQ and Music Festival with a total of 59 teams. Dilly Dally in Dooly wasn’t far behind with 51 teams.

Contest Attendance

6 Teams attended all 10 GBA professional events:

  • Big Butts BBQ
  • Fire In The Hole
  • Hootie Q
  • Of the Chain BBQ
  • Rescue Smokers
  • Weekend Warriors Competition BBQ Team

3 Teams competed in 9 events (We want Que, Peach Coast BBQ, Pirates of PorkScents), 7 teams cooked 8 events, 2 teams cooked 7 events, and 6 teams cooked 5 events.

Grand Championships

The GBA Grand Champion is the team with the highest finals score among all 9 finals entries. We had a total of 8 Grand Champions this year, with only Holy Smokes (2) and Off the Chain (3) winning more than one Grand Championship during the season.

Ribs were the judges favorite last year, winning 4 of the 10 contests. Ribs narrowly beat out both Loin and Pork, each of which won Grand in 3 contests.

Contest Team Category
Moultrie Moose Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff Bite My Butt BBQ Ribs
Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival budmeister bbq Pork
Fire Ant Festival BBQ Bash Hold Your Horses BBQ Ribs
South Georgia BBQ and Outdoor Festival Holy Smokes Pork
Deep Roots Festival BBQ Contest Holy Smokes Ribs
Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival Off the Chain BBQ Ribs
Firehouse BBQ Festival Off the Chain BBQ Loin
Dilly Dally in Dooly Off the Chain BBQ Loin
Brickyard BBQ Bash Smoke “Em Low Pork
Smokin Flamingo BBQ and Music Festival Weekend Warriors Competition BBQ Team Loin

Reserve Championships

The Reserve Champion is the team that has the highest total scores in all 3 categories at a contest where they did not win the Grand Championship. We had a total of 7 different teams win a Reserve Championship, with Rescue Smokers, We Want Que, and Off the Chain all winning 2 Reserve Championships.

Team Reserve Score Contest
Smokin the Good Stuff 1797.30 Deep Roots Festival BBQ Contest
Rescue Smokers 1796.10 Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival
Rescue Smokers 1793.70 Dilly Dally in Dooly
We Want Que 1792.30 Doc Holliday BBQ and Music Festival
We Want Que 1793.30 South Georgia BBQ and Outdoor Festival
The Pit Crew GA 1791.00 Fire Ant Festival BBQ Bash
Off the Chain BBQ 1789.70 Brickyard BBQ Bash
Big Papa’s Country Kitchen 1788.60 Smokin’ Flamingo BBQ and Music Festival
Off the Chain BBQ 1779.90 Moultrie Moose Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff
budmesiter bbq 1784.40 Firehouse BBQ Festival

The average overall score in all 3 categories was 1744.63. This total does include dropped or disqualified entries, although there were very few of those.

The highest reserve score of the season was 1797.30 awarded to Smokin the Good Stuff at the Deep Roots Festival  with scores of 598.8 in Loin, 599.1 in Pork, and 599.4 in Rib . The top 10 Reserve scores are shown below:

Score Team Event
1797.30 Smokin the Good Stuff Deep Roots Festival BBQ Contest
1796.10 Rescue Smokers Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival
1793.70 We Want Que Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival
1793.30 We Want Que South Georgia BBQ and Outdoor Festival
1793.30 Off the chain BBQ Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival
1793.00 budmeister bbq Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival
1792.30 Rescue Smokers Dilly Dally in Dooly
1791.80 Off the chain BBQ Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival
1791.00 The Pit Crew GA Fire Ant Festival BBQ Bash
1790.60 Pot’s BBQ Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival

The highest average reserve scores were awarded at the Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival, where the 33 teams attending the event averaged a total score of 1759.08. Note too that Reserve scores do include dropped or disqualified entries. The average Reserve scores at each contest are shown below:

Contest Average Reserve Score
Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival 1759.08
Brickyard BBQ Bash 1757.30
South Georgia BBQ and Outdoor Festival 1750.39
Fire Ant Festival BBQ Bash 1747.57
Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival 1746.50
Moultrie Moose Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff 1742.82
Smokin Flamingo BBQ and Music Festival 1742.32
Deep Roots Festival BBQ Contest 1724.62
Firehouse BBQ Festival 1695.94
Dilly Dally in Dooly 1686.49

Preliminary Scoring

We’re proud of our GBA Judges! They seem to be pretty consistent in their scoring, as evidenced by the preliminary scoring averages below. Note these scores don’t include any dropped or disqualified entries.

  • The overall average score given by judges in the last season was 115.80
  • The average Loin score given by judges in the last season was 115.71
  • The average Pork score given by judges in the last season was 115.86
  • The average Rib score given by judges in the last season was 115.84

Preliminary Scores by Category, for each Contest

The table below lists all 10 contests and shows the average score for that contest in each Category. The Brickyard BBQ Bash had the highest average Loin scores, judges at the Moultrie Mood Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff enjoyed the best Ribs, and the Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival turned out the best Pork. The Totals rows shows the average score for the Category over the entire season.

Contest Loin Pork Rib
Brickyard BBQ Bash 586.109677 585.783870 585.409677
Deep Roots Festival BBQ Contest 583.176744 584.272093 583.700000
Dilly Dally in Dooly 578.593750 581.028000 583.746000
Doc Holiday BBQ and Music Festival 580.015000 582.632500 583.852500
Fire Ant Festival BBQ Bash 580.065853 580.919512 586.587804
Firehouse BBQ Festival 580.107142 578.358620 577.392857
Moultrie Moose Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff 569.057894 586.652631 587.110526
Rhythm and Ribs BBQ Festival 586.015151 587.124242 585.945454
Smokin Flamingo BBQ and Music Festival 581.411864 581.944067 578.967796
South Georgia BBQ and Outdoor Festival 583.145454 583.990909 583.254545
Totals 580.7699 583.2710 583.5967

Preliminary Criteria Scores

GBA Judges are asked to rate each entry for Appearance, Tenderness, Taste, and Overall Impression. The average scores for those criteria in each category are shown below, and those averages don’t include dropped or disqualified entries.

Loin

  • Appearance: 9.94
  • Tenderness: 9.57
  • Taste: 9.45
  • Overall: 9.78

Pork

  • Appearance: 9.80
  • Tenderness: 9.42
  • Taste: 9.30
  • Overall: 9.78

Ribs

  • Appearance: 9.77
  • Tenderness: 9.40
  • Taste: 9.28
  • Overall: 9.77

Top 10 Preliminary Finishes

Quite a few teams got a coveted finals box during the season, although no single team made it to the top 10 in one or more categories for every contest.

Off the Chain and Weekend Warriors Competition BBQ Team hit the top 10 a total of 9 times in the Loin category. Off the Chain also made the list 7 times for Pork and 4 times for ribs, for a total of 20 Top 10 finishes. Rescue Smokers made the list 7 times in Pork, 6 times in Loin, and 6 times in Ribs for a total of 19 top 10 finishes. Weekend Warriors made the Top 10 9 times in Loin, 4 times in Pork, and twice in Ribs for a total of 15 Top 10 finishes, and We Want Que made it 5 times each in Pork and Ribs and 4 times in Loin for a total of 14 Top 10 finishes. Pot’s BBQ finished in the top 10 11 times, 6 in Pork, 3 in Ribs, and 2 in Loin.  Smokin the Good Stuff hit the top 10 a total of 10 times, 6 in Ribs, 3 in Loin and once in Pork.

Finals Scoring

Our finals judges did a great job of making sure the best product of the day was awarded the grand prize. Their scoring averages are shown below. Note these scores don’t include dropped or disqualified scores.

  • The average finals scores given by judges last season was 118.33
  • The average Loin Finals score given by judges last season was 118.05
  • The average Pork finals score given by judges last season was 118.36
  • The average Rib finals score given by judges last season was 118.58

The average total finals score awarded was 581.76.

The highest finals score awarded was 596.6, awarded to the Rib entry from Bite My Butt BBQ at the Moultrie Moose Lodge 1158 BBQ Cookoff

Off the Chain appeared in finals 9 times, the most of any team this season. Rescue Smokers made it to finals a total of 7 times, while Weekend Warriors Competition BBQ Team made the grade 6 times. We Want Que and Holy Smokes went to the finals table 5 times, and both Budmesiter BBQ and Pot’s BBQ showed up 4 times.

Highest Overall Averages, by Category

For teams cooking at least 50% of the Professional GBA Events in the 2018-2019 season, Off the Chain BBQ had the highest average Loin score at 597.46 (10 contests), Pots BBQ had the highest average Pork score at 596.53 (7 contests) and Smokin the Good Stuff had the highest average Rib score at 596.34 (7 contests).

Finals Criteria Scores

The same criteria are used to rate the finals products. The average scores given by finals judges in each of those criteria are shown below:

Loin

  • Appearance: 9.75
  • Tenderness: 9.63
  • Taste: 9.57
  • Overall: 9.57

Pork

  • Appearance: 9.76
  • Tenderness: 9.65
  • Taste: 9.60
  • Overall: 9.61

Ribs

  • Appearance: 9.76
  • Tenderness: 9.67
  • Taste: 9.63
  • Overall: 9.63

600s and Perfect Scores

The teams stepped up this year and made it tough for our judges! Anytime our judges are handing out 600’s we know the competition is tight. There were a total of 20 600 scores awarded this season:

  • 4 events awarded 1 600 score
  • 4 events awarded 2 600 scores
  • The Dilly Dally in Dooly event awarded 3 600 scores
  • The Fire Ant festive handed out the most with a total of 5 600 scores

And to top that off, there were 3 PERFECT scores awarded in GBA contests this year. A Perfect Score is an entry that is awarded a score of 10 in every criteria by all 6 judges at the table. The teams who hit that magical mark this season were:

  • The Pit Crew Ga, at the Firehouse BBQ Festival in the Pork category
  • Holy Smokes, at the Deep Roots Festival in the Loin Category
  • Weekend Warriors Competition BBQ Team, at the Fire Ant Festival in the Loin Category

If any team would like to know their personal stats from this year (averages, etc) please send your request to webmaster@bbqga.org. Please be sure to include your Team Name in your email, and please understand it may take several days for me to get to this.

 

 

 

Jun 02 2019

GBA Elections underway!

Please take a moment to vote for GBA President and Vice President. All current members can vote once for President and once for Vice President. Voting will remain open until June 15th. See the instructions below for details.

Members can only vote once per poll. If a member clicks the poll link again after already completing the poll, their vote summary will be displayed again.

Neither members nor administrators can change a vote after it is submitted.

Please don’t vote in the extended poll if you’ve already voted for President and Vice President! The GBA Election committee will review all votes, and anyone found voting more than once may be subject to permanent expulsion from the GBA.

The GBA Board will announce the results of the election shortly after polling closes on June 15th.

Apr 19 2019

Election Candidates Announced

The GBA has officially announced the candidates for President and Vice President. We’ll be holding elections June 1st through June 15th in our Member Forum so be sure you’ve registered prior to the start of elections.

See Election Candidates for more information.

Apr 09 2019

Off the Chain finishes off the GBA Season with a Grand

The current GBA season came to an end when twenty-nine professional teams traveled to Donalsonville, Georgia on April 6, 2019 for the first ever Firehouse BBQ Festival.  Four teams used the opportunity to make their debut in competitive cooking.  $10,000 in prize money and unique trophies were awarded, in addition to deciding the final Team of the Year standings.

Off the Chain took home $2,000 and a unique fire axe trophy for winning the Grand Championship.  Budmeister BBQ also claimed $2,000 and the Reserve Grand Champion trophy by finishing 11th in loin, and 1st place in both pork and ribs.

Off the Chain finished first in loin, with Rescue Smokers coming in second.  Hot Ash Q was third after scoring their first 600 in the preliminary round.

Budmeister BBQ won the pulled pork category.  The Pit Crew GA finished second after scoring the only other 600 of the day in preliminaries.  Kelvin’s BBQ claimed third place.

Budmeister BBQ also finished first in the rib category.  Hold Your Horses continued their rib run with second place, and Pirates of Porkscents walked in third place.

Acworth will host an event “In Association With” the GBA on May 11 that is open to any team with at least one current GBA member, but the results will not count towards the Team of the Year standing.  Team and judge registration are both available online at https://www.bbqga.org/waevents/

The full results for each category and reserve scores can be found at the following links:

Loin, Pork, and Rib Results

https://gba.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/Contest%20Results/Firehouse%20Category%20Results.pdf

Reserve Scores

https://gba.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/Contest%20Results/Firehouse%20Reserve%20Scores.pdf