WINDSOR, Vt. - The sun is high on a Saturday afternoon and Rich Decker is cooking meat and running on fumes.
"I'm cooking my ass off right now," Decker said, switching from pork to brisket. "We're knee deep in this competition right now. It's the seventh inning."
Decker, who has been been mostly awake since Friday night, has just sent off a Styrofoam container of pork shoulder to finicky judges that he doesn't have time to think about. It's brisket time and he has just 30 minutes to slice, place and send off the last of four meats he will be judged on today.
It is the 5th Annual Harpoon Championships of New England Barbecue and Decker is set on going to the American Royal in Kansas City, the nation's premiere barbecue competition.
Decker's Lost Nation Smoke Company won the Harpoon competition two years ago when it entered for the first time. Decker bought the Essex Junction, Vt.,-based company several years ago after it went out of business ("I loved eating it, the business closed, and I wanted to keep filling my belly with their food") and now he tours the country each year, entering competitions and adding to their assemblage of trophies.
Lost Nation is in its third season and Decker thinks he has the smoke and magic to get back to the grand champion platform today. But taste is a tricky thing.
Forty-one barbecue teams entered Saturday's competition with recipes for chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder and brisket they felt were the one to beat. Last year's grand champion, Boston-based iQue, has been trying to figure out the judges for eight years. Andy Husbands, a gourmet chef who owns the Boston restaurant, Tremont 647, with fellow barbecue enthusiast Chris Hart, said culinary expertise is not enough to win over these judges.
"I came in figuring I'm going to kill these guys with my $40,000 culinary education," Husbands said Friday night before the competition. "The first three years we lost. And we lost bad."
The teams arrived on Friday to set up their pits and start cooking meat that wouldn't be served for another 14 hours. The process seems slow and simple - rub some spice into the meat, slap it on the grill, pop a beer and wait. But if it were that easy, these pit bosses wouldn't lose so much sleep. Decker napped in a lawn chair overnight, staying awake in a steady rain and wondering what his brisket would look like when he sliced it open the next day.
"Something magical happens when you cook it low and slow," he said. "I don't know."
Judges realize taste is subjective but Master Judge Mark Delashaw said most know when they've eaten good barbecue.
"Taste is pretty easy," Delashaw said in a soft Alabama drawl. "Does it taste good? The judges in competitive barbecue, these guys are trained judges."
All judges during Saturday's competition were certified under the Kansas City Barbecue Society, which sets the industry standard. All judges must go through a training course through the society, learning how to objectively judge things like texture and aroma without letting personal bias interfere.
"If something is spicy and we don't like spicy food, we still have to judge it on the basis of, is this good spicy food?" Delashaw said.
Delashaw said judges look for balance in meat. Is the flavor too heavy on smoke or spice? Is the sauce too sweet or too peppery?
Contestants get points for texture, taste and presentation. All are taken very seriously. Even the slightest mistake - the incorrect number of ribs, an illegal garnish and especially a late entry - will get a team disqualified.
Every attempt to eliminate judge bias is accounted for in a "double-blind" system. After a team submits the garnished container of barbecued meat, that container receives a number. That number is then changed again before it gets to the judge. At no point does a judge ever know whose barbecue they are tasting. The rule is there to protect the judges as much as the contestants.
"The teams that are competing take this very seriously," Delashaw said.
Although most are from New England, teams from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Missouri entered Saturday's competition. These maestros of mesquite still have fun, though, adopting names like "The Bastey Boys" and "Smokey Wan Kenobi." Husbands said staying up all night cooking might be hard work, but it's still recreation.
"It's like our golf, our past time," he said.
But he still came to win.
So did Decker and his Lost Nation. When Decker cut open his brisket, team members sighed when they saw the pink ring tracing the blackened exterior. They know a prize winner when they see it.
"I've won two brisket championships this year and this is probably one of the better ones," Decker told a bystander.
The Lost nation crew sat under the tent after the brisket had been sent off, smoking cigars and awaiting the competition results. Steve Raab, a Lost Nation team member, said he expected to finish in the top-10 for all four categories.
Forty other teams were thinking the same thing.
Drowsy from sun and beer, teams ambled toward the live music tent around 4 p.m. for the announcement of the winners. First up was chicken.
Decker knew he hadn't done well. He said it wasn't up to his usual standards. The judges agreed.
Sea Brisket took first prize in that category with last year's Grand Champion, iQue, finishing second.
Lost Nation got a glimmer of hope with the next category, pork ribs, winning a ninth place finish right behind iQue in eighth.
Then came pork shoulder. Lost Nation didn't place. iQue won first prize.
Raab's prediction for a top-10 finish was long gone, but there was still a hope for the overall Grand Champion prize and brisket was yet to be announced.
As the brisket winners were ticked off from 10th, 9th and onward toward first, no mention of Lost Nation. Then Mark Gelo of the KCBS came to fourth place - Lost Nation. A respectable finish but probably not enough for the Grand Champion. That prize would go to last year's winner, iQue.
Lost Nation finished eighteenth overall. Decker said it was the pork shoulder sauce. It was too potent. Realizing the mistake, Decker graciously accepted the ribbons he won and returned to the tent.
"Shock. It's disappointing," Bruce Decker, Rich's brother, said afterwards. "It's all subjective."
Then again, it's only July. The Asbury Park, N.J., competition is next week and Lost Nation won second prize there last year. Reconciling an 18th place finish was tough, but Bruce still managed a grin. They would stay for the grilling competition today then pack up for New Jersey, where the Lost Nation team would stay up another 24 hours, conjuring magic with sauce and smoke.
"It's a hoot," Bruce said. "It's fun."
