33 all-time KCBS records — every one with a holder, a number, and the date it was set, read out of 3 scored contests and 245 result rows. Beat one and you appear here the next morning.
Overall scores are only ever ranked against their own series — Master out of 720, Backyard out of 360 — so the overall-score records here are Master boards unless they say Backyard. The Backyard series keeps a full record board of its own.
State and provincial record books are here; outside North America, every country has its own page under Regions →
Showing the MB record book — every record below counts only contests held in MB. Records that can't honestly be cut by state are left out rather than shown with their national holder: power ratings, career streaks and Team of the Year are computed over a team's whole career, wherever they cooked it.
The biggest — and smallest — numbers anybody has ever put in front of six judges.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
24-team field · won the contest
Four meats, six judges, one afternoon. The biggest total anybody has ever assembled.
Brews and Ques BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Tailgate Showdown (BACKYARD ONLY) Oct 25, 2025
won the board
The Backyard board runs on its own scale, so it keeps its own record — pooled with Master it would never surface at all.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won the category with it
The best chicken anybody has ever turned in. 180 is the ceiling — every judge at the table handing back a nine — so a tie goes to whoever got there first.
Q Cartel at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won the category with it
The best pork ribs anybody has ever turned in. 180 is the ceiling — every judge at the table handing back a nine — so a tie goes to whoever got there first.
Grassmere Family Restaurant at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won the category with it
The best pork anybody has ever turned in. 180 is the ceiling — every judge at the table handing back a nine — so a tie goes to whoever got there first.
Brisket Butts at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won the category with it
The best brisket anybody has ever turned in. 180 is the ceiling — every judge at the table handing back a nine — so a tie goes to whoever got there first.
Brisket Butts at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
finished 2nd, behind Bigg Smoak BBQ
A day this good takes a Grand Championship almost anywhere. These are the ones that ran into somebody having a better one.
PRAIRIE SMOKE & SPICE BBQ at Winnipeg Barbeque and Blues Festival Aug 21, 2015
and still beat 21 other teams
The days the judges gave nothing away. Somebody still had to win, and this is the smallest number that ever did it in a real field.
Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
24 teams · won with 703.4056
What it cost to walk. At these contests a total that wins most weekends was only good enough for tenth.
Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
24 teams · top score 703.4056
Judging tables are not interchangeable. At these contests the whole field scored high — not just the winner.
Winnipeg Barbeque and Blues Festival Aug 21, 2015
22 teams · even the win only took 667.9544
The other end of the same measurement: the contests where hardly anybody got a good card all day.
PRAIRIE SMOKE & SPICE BBQ at Winnipeg Barbeque and Blues Festival Aug 21, 2015
over BIGG SMOAK BBQ
Not a contest so much as an exhibition — the runner-up in each of these was closer to tenth than to the winner.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
over Brisket Butts
A whole weekend — four meats, twenty-four judging cards — decided by a rounding error.
Grand Championships, reserve finishes, dynasties and droughts.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ Jun 30, 2025
from 2 contests · first in 2025
Held jointly by 3 — nobody has beaten it.
The headline record of the sport: how many times a team has walked away with the whole thing.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ Aug 21, 2015
from 2 contests · 1 title
Held jointly by 3 — nobody has beaten it.
Second overall is the hardest place to finish. These teams have done it more than anybody.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won it with 703.4056
Every Grand Championship counts the same in the standings. Not every one means beating this many people.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
the title finally came in 2025
Held jointly by 2 — nobody has beaten it.
Proof it is worth going back. Every team here cooked for years before the call finally came.
The four meats: who wins them, and who has been handed a flawless card.
Brews and Ques BBQ Oct 25, 2025
across 2 of the four meats
Every category win is a walk to the stage. This is the longest walk in the sport.
Brews and Ques BBQ Oct 25, 2025
the 2025 season
One team, one year, and a stack of first-place calls that would furnish most careers.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
Chicken · Jun 30, 2025
Where the 180 club starts. These are the oldest perfect cards anywhere in the data.
Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
shared by 2 teams in a field of 24
Some tables run hot. At these contests the judges handed out flawless cards all afternoon.
Longevity — the teams who keep turning up, and keep turning it in.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ Jun 30, 2025
2015 → 2025
Held jointly by 5 — nobody has beaten it.
Before anything else, competition barbecue is showing up. Nobody has shown up more often than this.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ Jun 30, 2025
2 contests, 2015 → 2025
Held jointly by 3 — nobody has beaten it.
Not just a long career — a busy one, season after season, with no quiet years in the middle.
Brews and Ques BBQ Oct 25, 2025
the 2025 season · 1 title
Held jointly by 2 — nobody has beaten it.
A season spent almost entirely in a parking lot somewhere, next to a smoker.
BIGG SMOAK BBQ Jun 30, 2025
from 2 contests
Held jointly by 3 — nobody has beaten it.
The measure of a team that is always in it — not always winning, but always there at the end of the day.
Brews and Ques BBQ at Blue Bombers BBQ Tailgate Showdown (BACKYARD ONLY) Oct 25, 2025
2025 → 2025 · won it 1×
Held jointly by 10 or more — nobody has beaten it.
The contest a team never misses — on the calendar in ink, every single year.
Records held by the contests themselves rather than by the teams.
Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025
won with 703.4056
The largest gathering of smokers the data has ever recorded in one place.
Table Captain Class Aug 16, 2014
2013 → 2014
The institutions. These contests have been feeding judges for as long as the data goes back.
Aug 21, 2015 Aug 21, 2015
across 1 states and provinces
Held jointly by 3 — nobody has beaten it.
One Saturday, this many contests, every one of them lighting a fire at the same hour.
The 2025 season Oct 25, 2025
across 1 states and provinces
The high-water mark for the sport itself — the year the calendar was fullest.
Somebody has to run the table. These are the ones who have run the most.
Brenda Black Oct 25, 2025
2020 → 2025
Held jointly by 2 — nobody has beaten it.
The people who make a contest a contest — table captains, score checkers, keepers of the rulebook.
Brenda Black Oct 25, 2025
the 2025 season
Held jointly by 2 — nobody has beaten it.
Thirty contests in a year means most of a summer spent beside a scoring table.
Brenda Black Oct 25, 2025
at 2 contests
Held jointly by 2 — nobody has beaten it.
How many separate teams have taken a Grand Championship at a contest this rep was running.
| Team | Category | Contest |
|---|---|---|
| Brisket Butts | Brisket | Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025 |
| BIGG SMOAK BBQ | Chicken | Blue Bombers BBQ Pit Master Showdown Jun 30, 2025 |
| Year | Series | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 ↗ | Backyard | DAWGS BBQ 🏆 | 1,356 |
| 2026 ↗ | Master | JANKY LEG BBQ 🏆 | 2,682 |
| 2025 ↗ | Backyard | Electro-Que-ted 🏆 | 1,414 |
| 2025 ↗ | Master | GETTIN' BASTED 🏆 | 2,826 |
| 2024 ↗ | Backyard | WEEZ'S GROOVIN' BBQ 🏆 | 1,404 |
| 2024 ↗ | Master | CHUNKY BBQ 🏆 | 2,734 |
| 2023 ↗ | Master | JANKY LEG BBQ 🏆 | 2,773 |
| 2022 ↗ | Master | Uncle Pig's Barbeque Pit 🏆 | 2,761 |
| 2021 ↗ | Master | GETTIN' BASTED 🏆 | 2,804 |
| 2020 ↗ | Master | GETTIN' BASTED 🏆 | 2,670 |
| 2019 ↗ | Master | B-S BBQ OUTLAWS 🏆 | 2,774 |
| 2018 ↗ | Master | GETTIN' BASTED 🏆 | 2,840 |
| 2017 ↗ | Master | CLARK CREW BBQ 🏆 | 2,850 |
| 2016 ↗ | Master | PORKY BUTTS BBQ 🏆 | 2,846 |
| 2015 ↗ | Master | CLARK CREW BBQ 🏆 | 2,843 |
| 2014 ↗ | Master | WARREN COUNTY PORK CHOPPERS 🏆 | 2,936 |
| 2013 ↗ | Master | WARREN COUNTY PORK CHOPPERS 🏆 | 2,940 |
| 2013 ↗ | Master | TRUEBUD BBQ 🏆 | 2,940 |
| Category | Entries | Avg score | Avg winning score | Perfect 180s | 180s per 1,000 entries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brisket toughest room | 46 | 160.22 | 176.03 | 1 | 21.7 |
| Pork Ribs | 51 | 161.98 | 171.99 | 0 | 0 |
| Chicken | 51 | 162.19 | 175.24 | 1 | 19.6 |
| Pork | 46 | 163.86 | 175.70 | 0 | 0 |
Sorted by average score — the category at the top scores lowest across the whole field, which usually means the judges are hardest to please there.