Rules

 Cooking: 

Each Team Must:

Have a Grill, Smoker or Outdoor Cooker:

Entrants must make arrangements for their own grill (i.e., bring your own, arrange to share one with another competitor, etc.).  Again, be creative, but safe.  COFaQue will not provide grills.

Have a table:

A table, of some sort, for serving food (may be a card table, buffet table, an old door or a board on saw horses, the tailgate off your pick-up. . . use your imagination).

Have a trash receptacle:

Each team must provide at least one trash receptacle and is responsible for removal of its own trash from the event site.

Have a fire extinguisher:

Safety first please. Keep it in an accessible spot at your cook-site.

Also, teams must make every effort to remove grill ashes from their cook-site.  Please do not dump ashes on the ground.  Ash cans will be available.

Entry and Registration:

You do not have to tell what food you are cooking until the day of the COFaQue competition.

All teams must be registered before judging begins.

You may submit only 1 entry per category.

There is an entry fee of $10.00 per team. This fee grants each team a 12 x 12 cook site on competitors row and 4 event wrist bands.  Additional team members will be required to pay the regular admission fee(s).

Teams must also put up $5.00 for each category entered.  This fee will constitute the prize money for each category.  If you win the category, you take the pot.  If you’re any good, you will get your money back, plus!!

There will be a Cooks Meeting on Saturday at noon.  Please send your Team Captain or a team representative.  Boxes for judging will be distributed at the meeting.

Categories:

One entry per category per team.  Please be advised that all food will be categorized by the Head Judge. 

Rough definitions of the categories are below.  Please note that Salsa and Chili DO NOT fall into any of these categories: 

Judging:

COFaQue is a "blind box" competition.  Each category will be judged separately and awarded accordingly by a team of independent, impartial, professional BBQ judges or whichever of our reprobate friends can be asked to sign up before the day of the competition.  To be honest, it’s usually judged by the latter, but we usually try to choose people that know something about BBQ.

The Head Judge will assign a random, confidential number to each team.  That number must be written on the bottom of each blind box entry at the time of submission for judging.

All entries must be registered before each categories turn-in time.

Turn-in times are strictly enforced, late entries will be disqualified.  No exceptions.

Turn-In Time Schedule:

3:00:

• Appetizers
• Non-Grilled Sides
• Chicken
• Other Grilled (non-meat)

4:00:

• Beef
• Pork Ribs
• Game
• Random Meat

 5:00: 

• Beef Brisket
• Seafood
• Pork
• Dessert

  *All times are subject to change at the discretion of the Head Judge*

Cook Site Assignment:

All cook sites will be assigned by lottery using a random number generator. All teams signed up by Friday August 5th will be included in the lottery. Teams signing up after August 5th will be assigned - first come first served - after the lottery competitors. We will email the results of the lottery on Monday August 8th to all teams signed up at that time. Competitor Gates open Friday the 12th at noon, someone will be there to let teams in one at a time based on their lottery draw.  Once the first team has picked their site, the second team will be released to find one, then the third, etc. If a team is not present at the time they are called then they move down one spot and the team behind them gets to go.  That team will continue to move down until they arrive.