American Royal Barbecue Championship

By the end of the competition more than 20,000 pounds of meat was rubbed, smoked, tested, tasted and judged to find the best of the best at this years American Royal Barbecue Competition. The competition is divided into two main contests, the invitational and the open competition. To be invited to the K.C. Masterpiece/American Royal International Invitational you must have won another Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) sanctioned event. This year the grand prize went to Joan Marks and her son. They walk away with a $3000 smoking rig and $5000. The winning team was Three Little Pigs.

The show stealers at this years competition was the Swine Flew team with their custom smoker built from the fuselage of a Cessna Airplane. Competitions include overall, team, ribs, bone carving, sausage, sauce, brisket, various side-dishes and more.

The Kemper Arena parking lot in down town Kansas City was packed with over 30,000 spectators, 350 teams, hundreds of individual competitors and more than 600 judges. All judges are volunteers and spend the year training for the event. Initial meetings for planning the American Royal Competition starts in January with judges applying for the enviable job of taste testing hundreds of entries. The average judge will eat 2-3 pounds of meat in the 2-3 hour judging period and enter there thoughts into an electronic tabulation device.

This years invitational winners are:
Three Little Pigs Grand Champion
Fat Boys BBQ Brisket
Beer, Bait & BBQ Pork
Wild Fire BBQ Poultry
Wild West Cafe Pork Ribs
Slaughterhouse Five Sausage

This years open competition winners are:
Fat Boys Grand Champion
Happy "Holla" Bar-B-Q Brisket
Elite BBQ Five Pork
Hick's Smoke'N Pits Poultry
Byrd and His Flock Pork Ribs
Apple Barrel Smokers Sausage

Side Dish Winners are:
Voo-Doo Bar-B-Q Grand Champion
Happy "Holla" Bar-B-Q Beans-Side Dish
The Oinks Potatoes-Side Dish
A.T. & T. Barbecuer's Vegetables-Side Dish

Best Sauce on the Planet:
Crazy Jim's Hot & Spicy Grand Champion

Best Rub on the Planet:
Zabe & Zoolie's Grand Champion

Best Baste on the Planet:
Cousin's Teriyaki Grand Champion

There were 334 teams competing in this years Open Competition. Congratulations go to all the participants, and a lot of jealousy goes out to the judges. I can hardly wait until next year. If you have any questions on how a specific team did, drop me a note, I have all the tally sheets for the entire competition.

Hot Tip

Wood chips or chunks should be pre-soaked before being put on coals. This does not mean they should be soaking wet. Too much water will cool your fire. Soak the chips for at least ten minutes and the chunks for an hours, first. The remove from the water and drain before applying to the coals.