COLFAX — The inaugural Blue Ribbon BBQ Cook-off at the Jasper County Fair was deemed a tasty success. Ten competitors spent more than eight hours cooking four meats for three judges and one team was crowned the grand champion on Saturday.
Teams began arriving early Saturday morning, ready to receive their meat at 8 a.m. They competed in four categories working with about six pounds beef brisket, one eight-pound pork shoulder/butt, two whole chickens and two racks of spare ribs to create their one-of-a-kind barbecue creations.
Judging started at 4:30 p.m. with chicken, ribs going to the judges at 5 p.m., pork butt/shoulder at 5:30 p.m. and brisket rounded out the event 6 p.m. Picked to taste and rate the 40 different pieces of meat were judges Jeff King, Eric Harder and Doug Edge.
After a day of cooking, several hours of judging and a barbecue feed that had more than 50 people try samples from each competitor for only $5, Blue Ribbon Catering of Carlisle was named grand champion and received a $200 prize. Daryl, Rachel and Emma Witt of Blue Ribbon Catering also took the top spot in the categories of chicken, pork butt/shoulder and beef brisket, which came with $150 in prize money each, bringing their total to $650.
Three other teams took second place receiving $75 each. Mark Byer of B&B BBQ from Grinnell earned $150 for taking second for his ribs and pork butt/shoulder, Wide Open BBQ of Russell came in second for their brisket and Full Draw Bow BQ of Ankeny took second in chicken.
“It is a blast, we enjoy doing it,” Aaron Kjolhede of Full Draw Bow BQ said. “It is hard to find contests that are close to central Iowa area, so it was nice to be close to home.”
Shawn Werts and Cory Swigart of Wide Open BBQ agreed having another competition that was close to home brought them to Jasper County.
“I saw it on Iowa BBQ Society website,” Swigart said. “We usually do about four to six competitions a year. It was a good contest, we had fun.”
Also competing during the inaugural event were DJ Awtry of DJ's Butts from Colfax, Terry O'Conner and Eric Mcliesh of Not Brother's BBQ from Ankeny, Kyle Johnson and Sean McDermott of T-Rex BBQ from Newton, Jim Lockwood and John Milligan of Smoking J's from Mingo, Chadd Mapes of Double D BBQ from Newton and Zach Watt and Ryan Johnson of Sauced N Smokin from Baxter.
“I thought it went smooth. There are a couple things we may change in the coming year, but not a lot,” event organizer Sondra Kenney said.
Dan Wesson, who also helped organize and run the BBQ contest, agreed.
“I think the next things we need to concentrate on is getting the public here at the end,” Wesson said. “These guys really put on a nice feed here. It is like serving a full meal.”
Sponsors for the event included Sully Community Locker for the chicken contest, Rietveld locker of Otley for ribs, Doug’s Feed of Baxter for the pork butt shoulder and Golly’s Locker of Maxwell for the brisket contest as well as the grand prize champion along with the Jasper County Fair.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com