Rules

Add your BBQ Society to BBQ Sheriff’s pre-configured rules. Send us a list of complete contest rules.
Email: Support@bbqsheriff.com.

Submitting your rules to BBQ Sheriff in no way implies “sanctioning” by your organization. Read our Sanctioning Faq

Below are BBQ Sheriff configurable rules. If you have a rule(s) that is not covered here describe it in detail and we will add it. We will help you with the rules. Email your phone number to Support@bbqsheriff.com. We will call you and walk you through.

Meats Required for Grand Champ

You may have up to 10 judging categories, meats or other items such as sauce, beans, open class, etc.
Which meats or items are required for the Grand Champion and Reserve Champion competition?

What other items do you judge that are not in the competition for Grand Champion? Sauce, beans, open class, etc. Under “Scoring Range” note that you can set any of the 6 judging criteria details individually. For example you could have a different scoring range and weighting for “sauce”.

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Judging Criteria

You may have up to 6 judging criteria. For example you could have Appearance, Taste, Tenderness, Aroma, Color, and sweetness. The Judging Criteria are the properties of the meat or other items that you want to judge. You may configure up to 6 judging criteria of your choosing. If you need more than 6 criteria send an email to Support@bbqsheriff.com

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Score Weighting Factors

A weighting factor is a weight given to a judging criteria to assign it a lighter or heavier importance during score calculation. For example if you want to make TASTE the most important criteria, assign it the highest weight. Score weighting is given sometimes as a percentage and usually as a weighting factor (FACTORS are weighting percentages multiplied by a numeric multiplication constant of a BBQ societies choosing, frequently “4”).

If you have only the weight expressed in percentages you must convert percentages to Weighting Factors.

For example:
The weighting percentages for PNWBA are 19% for Appearance, 51% for taste and 30% for Texture. (percentages must always add up to 100%). We know that PNWBA uses a multiplication constant of 4. Multiply each of the weighting percentages by 4 to get the weighting factors.

0.19 x 4 = 0.7600 Appearance Weighting Factor
0.30 x 4 = 1.2000 Texture Weighting Factor
0.51 x 4 = 2.0400 Taste Weighting Factor

We have found it is common for BBQ Societies such as PNWBA & KCBS to multiply the percentages by a constant of 4.

The point is that we need the Weighting FACTORS, not PERCENTAGES! If you only have percentages we need the multiplication constant (4 in the case of PNWBA and KCBS) so that we may create the weighting FACTORS.

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Scoring Range

This is the range of scores and criteria weighting factors the judges will use.

We need these 6 scoring details for EACH judging criteria you use ( a judging criteria is presentation, appearance, etc). Normally judging criteria details will be the same for each criteria except for Criteria Name and Criteria Weighting Factor.

All of these questions must be answered for EACH CRITERIA – Appearance, Taste, Tenderness….up to 5 Criteria:

  1. Criteria name
  2. Criteria Weighting Factor
  3. Minimum Score
  4. Maximum Score
  5. Score Increment
  6. Skip These Values

Examples of score ranges:

KCBS score range is 0 to 9. 0 and 1 are disqualification scores. The scores increment by 1.

FBA score range is from 5 to 10 in increments of 0.5. FBA allows two disqualification scores: 0 and 2. All other possible scores between 0 and 5 are not allowed and must be “skipped” on scoring entry. A scoring range of this complexity can be handled by BBQ Sheriff.

Example of FBA scoring details: FBA scoring is complex. Here are the scoring details we have found for FBA:

  1. Criteria name: “Presentation”
  2. Criteria Weighting Factor: 0.6
  3. Minimum Score: 0
    Note that the minimum score here is 0, not 5! BBQ Sheriff handles scores not used between 0 and 5 under “Skip These Values”
  4. Maximum Score: 10
  5. Score Increment: 0.5
  6. Skip These Values: 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5
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Judges per Table

You may have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 9 judges per table. How many judges per table do you require?

What are the minimum and maximum judges per table acceptable if you don’t have enough judges
show up for the contest?

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Missing Scores

Do you want to use the BBQ Sheriff missing score averaging feature? Y/N
Averaging works with a minimum of three judges per table and a maximum of 9 judges per table.

The choices are:

  1. No-Don’t allow missing scores
  2. Yes-Allow missing scores, averaging

BBQ Sheriff has the ability to average a missing judges score against the other judges scores in a category (like Chicken). We will assume you have 6 judges per table. The averaging will work with from 3 to 9 judges per table.

Here is how missing score averaging works:
In the event of a missing score the remaining scores on the other score cards, in the same meat category, will be averaged. That average shall be used as the missing score on the replacement score card. The averaged unweighted score will be whole numbers such as 9 9 8. The BBQ Sheriff operator shall place the missing score on the replacement score card and note it with a (M) beside it. The judges summed score will then be computed by BBQ Sheriff as normal using the replacement score. A “M” will be placed by the averaged missing score on the Team report like this: M(998). After there are six total scores on the replacement card normal procedures will be followed (such as dropping the low score if allowed). If there is more than 1 missing score, repeat this process for each of them.

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Throw Away Score y/n? High or low?

Do you throw away a score before winners are calculated? Y/N
Which score High or Low?

The choices are:

  1. No-Do Not Throw Out Scores
  2. Yes-Throw out low score
  3. Yes-throw out high score

Frequently a score, usually the Low Score, is thrown away before winner calculations. It is thought that throwing away a low score somehow makes the calculations more fair. That thought is debatable. You may use this feature or not.

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Tie Breaking Details

One of the most desired features of BBQ Sheriff is the ability to automatically break ties. You will be presented with a number of tie break methods. You may turn off tie breaking entirely by answering no to each of the tie break methods.

If tie breaking is turned off the tied teams will each receive the same rank. You may break ties yourself or not. The tie break is up to you at this point. The computer is out of the decision.

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Break Ties Using Score Thrown Out BEFORE Judging Criteria? y/n How?

This method attempts to break a tie by comparing the score thrown out from each team, highest breaks tie. Make this test BEFORE testing Judging criteria.

The choices are:

  1. No-Do Not use this Tie Break
  2. Yes-Use only thrown out scores
  3. Yes-Use the total of all scores including the thrown out score

If still tied after this test then BBQ Sheriff continues to “Break Ties With Judging Criteria? y/n How?”.

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Break Ties With Judging Criteria? y/n How?

This tie breaking method attempts to break ties using the judging criteria in order of the highest weighted criteria first then, if still tied, descend to next highest and so forth until the tie is broken.

The choices are:

  1. No-Do Not use this Tie Break
  2. Yes-Compare the total of only REMAINING SCORES not including the score thrown out
  3. Yes-Compare the total of ALL SCORES including the score thrown out

Example: The FBA Judging Criteria descends in this order by weighting factors
Highest is Tenderness at 43%
Next Highest is Taste at 42%
Lowest is Presentation at 19%.

Choice was “Yes-Compare the total of only REMAINING SCORES not including the score thrown out”:

Tenderness has the highest weighted score. BBQ sheriff will begin comparing “Tenderness” cumulative scores less the score thrown out from each team. If still tied BBQ sheriff will compare the “Taste” cumulative scores less the score thrown out from each team. The last tie break test will be performed on “Presentation”.

Choice was “Yes-Use the total of all scores including the thrown out score”:

Tenderness has the highest weighted score. BBQ sheriff will begin comparing all “Tenderness” cumulative scores INCLUDING THE THROWN OUT SCORE from each team. If still tied BBQ sheriff will compare ALL cumulative “Taste” scores from each team. The last tie break test will be performed on “Presentation”.

If still tied after these tests BBQ Sheriff continues to “Break Ties Using Score Thrown Out AFTER Judging Criteria? y/n How?” or “Break Last Tie With a Computer Coin Toss? y/n”, depending on choice made previously in “Break Ties Using Score Thrown Out BEFORE Judging Criteria? y/n How?”.

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Break Ties Using Score Thrown Out AFTER Judging Criteria? y/n How?

This test is identical to “Break Ties Using Score Thrown Out BEFORE Judging Criteria? y/n How?” except it is applied AFTER comparing judging criteria.

The choices are:

  1. No-Do Not use this Tie Break
  2. Yes-Use only thrown out scores
  3. Yes-Use the total of all scores including the thrown out score

If still tied after this test then BBQ Sheriff continues to “Break Last Tie With a Computer Coin Toss? y/n”.

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Break Last Tie With a Computer Coin Toss? y/n

Another great feature of BBQ Sheriff is the ability to automatically break ties with a computer generated “coin toss”.
You may choose to use this feature of not.

The choices are:

  1. No-Do not break ties with a Computer Coin Toss
  2. Yes-Break Ties with a Computer Coin Toss

The computer coin toss only happens one time. You cannot force another coin toss by reloading the program. If you archive a contest and then reload it, the same winners with the same coin toss result will appear in the winners reports.

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Maximum Individual Judges Score

What is the maximum possible summed score an individual judge can achieve?

The Maximum summed score is the total of the judging criteria weighted scores, such as the maximum total weighted scores of Appearance + Taste + Tenderness for one judge.

The easy way to calculate the maximum individual judges score:

Add the weighting factors together. Multiply the sum of the weighting factors times the highest possible score a judge may write on the score card.

Example 1: KCBS max score card entry is 9 . The sum of the KCBS weighting factors
(0.5600 + 2.2972 + 1.1428) is 4. The Maximum individual judges score is 4 x 9 = 36

Example 2: PNWBA max score card entry is 10. The sum of the PNWBA weighting factors
(0.7600 + 1.2000 = 2.0400) is 4. The Maximum individual judges score is 4 x 10 = 40

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Maximum Team score

This is the maximum possible team score. Calculate maximum team score one of two ways:

  1. If you marked “Throw Out Scores y/n” YES:
    DO NOT include dthe thrown out score in maximum team score.
  2. If you marked “Throw Out Scores y/n” NO:
    INCLUDE the thrown out score in maximum team score.

Example YES, Throw out score: You have 6 judges and you threw out the low judge score. The highest individual judge score is 36. Multiply the individual judge scores by the 5 remaining judges to get the highest possible team score. 5 x 36 = 180 (KCBS maximum team score)

Example NO, Do not throw out score: You have 6 judges and you threw out no scores. The highest individual judge score is 40. Multiply the individual judge scores by all 6 judges to get the highest possible team score. 6 x 40 = 240. (Max score + Low Thrown used in PNWBA Tiebreaker method)

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Any Other Details?

Send us any other details you think we need. Call us and we will help you assemble all the details we need. Please email your phone number and we will return the call. Support@bbqsheriff.com

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