You are judged on every aspect of the pig and the presentation that you have for the judges. You have to provide plates, bowls for the barbecue sauce, knives, water and a few other thing. The goal (which we know now) is to have the table set up with place settings to present to the judges. Ashley and I looked around at other tents to get an idea of how people were setting up their judges table. Some people had china, cloth napkins and flowers for the judges. We had bottled water, paper plates, huge bowls for the sauce and the wrong size knives. Panic started to set in to all of us because we were not as prepared as we thought we were. Ashley and I ran out to get the proper knives and bowls at Walmart, racing back to try to beat the judges to our tent. Talk about another adrenaline rush!
As a major rule for pig competitions, you are not allowed to taste your pig before the judges come around. Once they make their rounds, another crew comes and takes what they want of the pig to make barbecue and you can have what is left behind. So you have no idea how your pig turned out until after everyone else has tasted it first.
The judges flooded our tent around 10:30, there seemed to be so many of them. When they cracked open that pig (literally), we all knew once thing for certain, which was the skin was perfect! The judges gave a few comments on improving our set up, which was most helpful to us. I made a cake, which turned out to be a favorite with the judges! (Anything helps!) All in all, we felt hopeful we may have a chance at placing in this competition based the positive reaction we received from the judges. The "cleaning crew" left very little of the pig for us to eat, and kept commenting about how great it was. We were overjoyed by the response from our pig, especially since these guys had also tried most everyone's barbecue.
After the judging rapped up, we took a deep breath and started to relax and just take in the whole experience. People were stopping by our tent to taste the remnants of our pig and just to chat about the competition and our bright red cooker! We talked to so many people! We were all smiles for the rest of the afternoon and felt hopeful going to the awards ceremony to await our results.
It felt like an eternity, while other awards were given and introductions were made during the awards ceremony...but they finally got to it and we had knots in our stomachs. The announcer started with 10th place...AND OUR NAMES WERE CALLED!!! There were so many squeals and shouts of excitement from our group as Hunter headed towards the stage to accept our award. We were beyond thrilled with the results! As Hunter was standing on stage, the 9th place finisher was a cook who has been on the Food Network cooking at barbecue competitions. As amazing as it is to place in our first competition, standing next to someone who is nationally known for his barbecue put things in perceptive....our pig REALLY was that good!
The excitement of this competition and "Two Guys and a Big Barbecue" has definitely led to many future plans. The four of us aren't exactly sure of where this all may end up leading, but we have high hopes and big dreams! We will see were this takes us!
We really do appreciate everyone's support, especially all the help that Hunter's dad and Stepmother gave us during the weekend of the competition. We couldn't have done it without them, thats for sure!
As a major rule for pig competitions, you are not allowed to taste your pig before the judges come around. Once they make their rounds, another crew comes and takes what they want of the pig to make barbecue and you can have what is left behind. So you have no idea how your pig turned out until after everyone else has tasted it first.
The judges flooded our tent around 10:30, there seemed to be so many of them. When they cracked open that pig (literally), we all knew once thing for certain, which was the skin was perfect! The judges gave a few comments on improving our set up, which was most helpful to us. I made a cake, which turned out to be a favorite with the judges! (Anything helps!) All in all, we felt hopeful we may have a chance at placing in this competition based the positive reaction we received from the judges. The "cleaning crew" left very little of the pig for us to eat, and kept commenting about how great it was. We were overjoyed by the response from our pig, especially since these guys had also tried most everyone's barbecue.
After the judging rapped up, we took a deep breath and started to relax and just take in the whole experience. People were stopping by our tent to taste the remnants of our pig and just to chat about the competition and our bright red cooker! We talked to so many people! We were all smiles for the rest of the afternoon and felt hopeful going to the awards ceremony to await our results.
It felt like an eternity, while other awards were given and introductions were made during the awards ceremony...but they finally got to it and we had knots in our stomachs. The announcer started with 10th place...AND OUR NAMES WERE CALLED!!! There were so many squeals and shouts of excitement from our group as Hunter headed towards the stage to accept our award. We were beyond thrilled with the results! As Hunter was standing on stage, the 9th place finisher was a cook who has been on the Food Network cooking at barbecue competitions. As amazing as it is to place in our first competition, standing next to someone who is nationally known for his barbecue put things in perceptive....our pig REALLY was that good!
The excitement of this competition and "Two Guys and a Big Barbecue" has definitely led to many future plans. The four of us aren't exactly sure of where this all may end up leading, but we have high hopes and big dreams! We will see were this takes us!
We really do appreciate everyone's support, especially all the help that Hunter's dad and Stepmother gave us during the weekend of the competition. We couldn't have done it without them, thats for sure!
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