Mano A Mano Rules
The rules for Mano A Mano Rib Throwdown are simple. Just think of basic rib cooking, cave man style. No electronics, no foil, and no injecting. It’s just you, your fire and your ribs.
Rules:
Entry & Cooking:
- Entry Fee: $155 Non-refundable
- Check-In begins at 7:30 am on March 23rd, 2019
- Teams may only consist of one person – You can have people assist with load-in and load-out, but only one person may cook and compete.
- Each team gets a space approximately 10 x 10. Feel free to bring a pop-up tent if you’d like to but it’s not necessary but is strongly suggested.
- BYOM – Bring your own meat
- BYOS – Bring your own smoker, if team cooks on any smoker except/besides their own they will be disqualified.
- Pork Ribs Only – spares or baby backs
- No foil or paper at all can be used as a wrap for cooking
- No pre-cooking or pre-seasoning meat
- No marinating, injecting or bringing meat
- No electricity can be used to aid in cooking: No pellet cookers, no temp control devices or rotisseries. Must use charcoal and/or wood fires
- Bring your own supplies – cooker, fuel source, rubs, etc…
- Be prepared to turn in a minimum of 6 servings/ribs
- Meat shall not be sculptured, branded or presented in a way to make it identifiable
- No garnish in turn in boxes
- The turn in box shall not be marked in any way so as to make the container unique or identifiable. Aluminum foil, toothpicks,skewers, foreign material, and/or stuffing are prohibited in the container
- Turn in boxes will be supplied
Judging:
- Entries will be judged on appearance, tenderness and taste.
- Judges will be instructed on KCBS standards for tenderness. Appearance and taste are completely subjective
- Double blind judging
- One serving/rib per judge
- Scoring will be from 1 – 9 (9 being the highest)
- Scoring Multipliers – Appearance: .4 Tenderness: 1.55 Taste: 1.05 (it’s a rib throwdown, not a sauce or rub contest)
- No scores will be thrown out. (KCBS throws one the lowest score from each entry)
- Tie breakers will be determined by total tenderness score. If still tied the highest average of all scores (not including multipliers) will win. If still tied, each contestant will chug a beer, first one to hit the table, wins
- Turn-in time 2:30 PM
Prizes:
- Cash & Trophy Prizes TBD – Based on number of teams