Backyard BBQ Cook and Competition Team BBQ Guidelines

Charley West BBQ Fest is the Bob Burdette Center afterschool program’s annual fundraising event. The event will be held Saturday, May 18, 2024 at City Center in Charleston, WV from 2pm – 7pm.

All teams will be assigned a canopy on Laidley Street adjacent to City Center.

There is a registration fee of $25 for each Backyard BBQ Cook Team and $50 for each Competition Team. Registration and payment will be done online at charleywestbbqfest.com. Backyard BBQ Cooks and Competition Teams can compete in up to four categories with blind judged submissions – pulled pork, ribs, sauce and wildcard (anything smoked!). You can compete in all four events or however many you want and the registration fee is the same no matter how many events you enter.

Backyard BBQ Cooks and Competition Teams will be permitted to set up their BBQ equipment and start cooking as early as 8 PM on Friday, May 17th or at any point throughout the night or morning of the event. Each Backyard BBQ Cook and Competition Team will be provided a canopy, table and two chairs behind which they can prepare BBQ in a smoker, grill, or other cooking device. Cooks must supply the cooking device, food and any equipment and utensils necessary for cooking and cutting and a vessel for sauce (plastic squirt bottles are recommended but a spoon and jar are acceptable). If you have a pull behind or trailer, let us know how much space you need. There will be electric hookups for those that need it and just let us know if you need it and what your requirements are.

Blind judged submissions for Competition Teams will be turned in with runners coming to your tent to get them every half hour between 12pm-2pm and blind judged submissions for Backyard BBQ Cooks will be turned in with runners coming to your tent to get them every half hour between 2pm – 4pm as follows:

Competition Division:

Backyard Division:

Entrants will be provided with containers that include assigned registration numbers to be provided to the judges. Trophies will be awarded for first, second and third place in each of the four categories.

At 2:00 pm, the event will open to the public and we will be selling them BBQ sampling tickets for $1 each, which is the main way we raise funds on the day of the event. The public will then exchange BBQ sampling tickets for extra BBQ samples that you make for them to try. We really want to make sure we have enough BBQ for the public and we want to sell as many sampling tickets as possible, so we ask that you make a significant amount of extra BBQ for them to sample. Since pulled pork goes the farthest, we’d prefer you focus your extras on pulled pork, but you are welcome to provide samples of whatever you make. Charley West BBQ Fest will supply the serving cups for pork and any other types of BBQ you’d like to serve the public in samples, gloves and pretty much everything else you’ll need. Each entrant should make at least the following amounts of food for public tasting:

The public will purchase tickets in 10 ticket blocks with which they will get one voting ticket for "People’s Choice Best BBQ" for each Division from the Charley West BBQ Fest ticket booth. One BBQ tasting ticket can be exchanged for a tasting of 1 oz. of pulled pork BBQ and two tickets will purchase 1 rib or other specialty item from Backyard Cooks and Competition Teams. The public will vote for their favorite BBQ and the winner will be given an award for “People’s Choice Best BBQ”. Please have your samples for the public ready to give out at 2pm or as soon thereafter as possible.

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