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:

• 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