About



This is to provide a little insight to the “Frostbuster BBQ Event” established by Smokehouse 72 BBQ team in the spring of 2009. Over the last few years, we have garnered attention nationwide for our idea and how we got it to work. With all these inquiries I felt it was time to put something down on paper for those that may be interested in setting up an event in their state.

First, who are we? We are Ray Ringgenberg, Jay Ringgenberg and Rick Dodd. We all cooked together and separately for years before forming Smokehouse 72 BBQ team (2008) and created the Frostbuster BBQ Event in 2009.  We are all KCBS judges but do more cooking than judging so we had the question. What are the judges really looking for? If only we could talk to the judges directly after a contest and find out why we got the scores we were given. The Frostbuster BBQ Event was the answer.

The Frostbuster BBQ Event. Why “Frostbuster”? There are a couple of reasons for the name. First, we like to be the first contest of the year so we’re chipping the frost off the equipment.  It can still be cold here in Iowa in April.   Second, we want to break the ice between the judges and teams. 

How the Frostbuster works:
We accept up to 12 teams regardless of skill level to come cook a full KCBS style run contest. We prefer to host new teams for the learning experience they can gain for not a lot of money. This is a great first step for those teams to get into competition BBQ.

The entry fee of $60 is set to pay for 1 night at the campground, pay for breakfast for all the teams and their members and they also receive a wonderful gift bag of sauces and spices and a Frostbuster T-shirt.  We offer no monetary pay out because we felt this would cause "competition” between teams and we want this to be a learning experience.  So far this has worked great! Over the years we have done this event; we have had at a number of teams get their first Grand Championship in a KCBS contest.  Not saying the Frostbuster was the main reason for their success but we like to think it helped. 

We found 12 teams to be busy but a manageable amount of teams.  You certainly could do more if you had enough help. Most KCBS rules apply of garnish, meat inspection, scoring and we even have our own KCBS reps.  Nothing really sounds out of the ordinary so far right?  We do encourage the judges to come out Friday and Saturday to hang with the cooks and ask questions. We invite only Certified BBQ Judges to judge our contest and we give them a special scorecard we created. They are told to comment or make notes, good or bad, on each entry they receive. They are also told to be honest with their scoring and comments. Another difference is that each table will have all the same teams’ entries. We cannot switch tables as this will prolong and confuse the team/judging review process. So 6 teams will get the same 6 judges for all their meats. The judges don’t know whose entry they are receiving.

Once judging is done, we invite each team (2 at a time) to come and talk to the judges about their scores.
They take approximately 10 minutes and we move on to the next teams.  This has been a great event to help along new and seasoned bbq teams.  With a donation of your product towards the team gift bags,  you could help make this event better and better.

If you are interested in donating rubs, sauces, or any other items we will include your company name on our website for recognition. Since we only have 12 teams we only ask for 12 donations of product…plus maybe one for us to try..;)

Thank you for your time and we hope to hear from you soon, please contact me at any of the following:  


Smokehouse 72 BBQ
c/o Ray Ringgenberg
15641 NE 42nd St. Cambridge, Ia. 50046
515-291-1236

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