Happy hunting ground
Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship is their spot: an average finish in the top 20% across 2 visits.
- 2 visits
- best finish 4th
- average top 20%
Master and Backyard overall scores sit on different scales (Master is out of 720, Backyard out of 360), so they're kept separate — averaging them together would be misleading.
This team cooks the Backyard series — its own boards, records and Team of the Year are here.
Each card leads with the number that made it a story — read straight out of their results, no editorialising.
Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship is their spot: an average finish in the top 20% across 2 visits.
A call in 13 of 14 contests
A top-10 category call in 93% of their 14 contests — they get to the stage more often than not.
95.5% of a perfect 720
Their best day on record: 687.3712 at Barbeque on the Bow Festival — 95.5% of a perfect 720.
Fire BBQ has finished one call ahead of Just Katie 2 times — their closest competition in the data.
SMELLAQUE ahead in 100% of their meetings
SMELLAQUE has come out ahead in 12 of their 12 shared contests.
Pork Ribs is where the weekend gets away from them — it averages 6.86 points below their chicken, and turns into a call 62% of the time against 77%.
Ahead in 100% of their meetings
They've finished ahead of Mark's Meats and Treats in 10 of their 10 shared contests.
Finished 3 of 16 at their very first tracked contest, Smoke, Wind & Fire (2021-07-10).
EFFIN'EH GRAY'S has landed one call behind them 2 times.
Their overall lands within ±1.99% of a perfect score of their own average — whatever the field, you know roughly what they'll turn in.
The nearest teams in the power rankings, with a different reason on each card — six teams on one rating are rarely on it for the same reason. Rating decides who makes the list; where teams tie on it, the ones this team has actually cooked against come first, then teams at a similar point in their own career. KCBS doesn’t publish where a team is from, so nothing here is inferred from geography.
48 rated teams sit within a point of this rating, so a place on this list means the numbers match — no more than that.
This is the highest they've ever been rated, 13 rated contests in — a team sitting at its own career peak.
⚔ Head-to-headCareers of much the same size, 15 contests to 14, so neither rating has had more chance to settle than the other.
⚔ Head-to-headTheir last contest in the data was back in 2018, 7 years before Just Katie's most recent — their rating stopped moving when they stopped cooking.
⚔ Head-to-head16 contests and no Grand Championship yet — a rating made of 19% top-10 finishes rather than wins.
⚔ Head-to-headLevel with Just Katie on power rating, which is the whole reason they're on the list.
⚔ Head-to-headThey were already cooking in 2016, 5 years before Just Katie's first contest.
⚔ Head-to-head| Opponent | Meetings | Ahead | Behind | Win rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kreiser Barbecue | 13 | 5 | 8 | 38% | ⚔ compare |
| Homestead Smoke Shack | 12 | 4 | 7 | 33% | ⚔ compare |
| SMELLAQUE | 12 | 0 | 12 | 0% | ⚔ compare |
| Fire BBQ | 11 | 9 | 2 | 82% | ⚔ compare |
| Mark's Meats and Treats | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100% | ⚔ compare |
| Bad to the Brisket | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% | ⚔ compare |
| Brisket Butts | 10 | 4 | 6 | 40% | ⚔ compare |
| MOTLEY QUE | 9 | 8 | 1 | 89% | ⚔ compare |
| ROKER Q | 9 | 8 | 1 | 89% | ⚔ compare |
| HOME COOKIN' BBQ | 9 | 6 | 3 | 67% | ⚔ compare |
| Hogparts School of Smokecraft and Brew'ery | 9 | 5 | 4 | 56% | ⚔ compare |
| Slam Dunk BBQ | 9 | 5 | 4 | 56% | ⚔ compare |
| Q Cartel | 9 | 2 | 7 | 22% | ⚔ compare |
| Murfy's BBQ Co. | 8 | 8 | 0 | 100% | ⚔ compare |
| Rack Addicts BBQ Team | 8 | 8 | 0 | 100% | ⚔ compare |
| Category | Entries | Calls | Wins | Podiums | Best | Worst | Average | Avg finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken | 13 | 10 | 1 | 6 | 178.8572 | 161.7144 | 171.33 | top 30% |
| Pork Ribs | 13 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 173.1428 | 151.3944 | 164.47 | top 46% |
| Pork | 11 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 171.9772 | 163.4400 | 168.45 | top 49% |
| Brisket | 11 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 174.2856 | 155.9656 | 168.20 | top 38% |
“Calls” = top-10 category finishes (getting called to the stage). Scores here are the final weighted totals KCBS publishes; per-criterion appearance/taste/tenderness marks aren’t in the public results feed.
| Where | Contests | GCs | Avg finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| AB | 11 | 0 | top 33% |
| SK | 1 | 0 | top 67% |
| Field | Contests | GCs | Avg finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small (<20 teams) | 2 | 0 | top 30% |
| Medium (20–39) | 10 | 0 | top 36% |
| Large (40+) | 1 | 0 | top 38% |
| Contest | Visits | Best | GCs | Avg finish | Last visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barbeque on the Bow Festival | 3 | 4 | 0 | top 27% | 2025-08-30 |
| Didsbury Lions BBQ | 2 | 15 | 0 | top 50% | 2025-07-26 |
| Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship | 2 | 4 | 0 | top 20% | 2025-05-24 |
| Swing | Contest | Date |
|---|---|---|
| +10.6 | Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship | 2025-05-24 |
| +10.6 | Barbeque on the Bow Festival | 2025-08-30 |
| +9.7 | Smoke, Wind & Fire | 2021-07-10 |
| +8.5 | Barbeque on the Bow | 2022-09-03 |
| +7.7 | Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship | 2024-05-25 |
| Swing | Contest | Date |
|---|---|---|
| -3.9 | Smokey Skies BBQ Competition | 2025-06-21 |
| -2 | Small Town Smoke Down | 2024-06-08 |
| -1.4 | Barbeque on the Bow Festival | 2023-09-02 |
| -0.6 | Didsbury Lions BBQ | 2024-07-27 |
| Season | Contests | GCs | Top-10s | Category wins | Walk rate | Avg finish | Best overall (% of perfect) | Avg overall (% of perfect) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 100% | top 34% | 95.5% | 93.8% |
| 2024 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100% | top 41% | 94.7% | 93.7% |
| 2023 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100% | top 40% | 94.6% | 93.7% |
| 2022 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 50% | top 17% | 91.1% | 91.1% |
| 2021 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100% | top 19% | 87.8% | 87.8% |
| Date | Event | Overall | Chicken | Ribs | Pork | Brisket |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-08-30 | Barbeque on the Bow Festival Calgary, AB | 4 / 38 (687.3712) | 8 (173.1200) | 10 (171.4056) | 12 (171.4056) | 7 (171.4400) |
| 2025-07-26 | Didsbury Lions BBQ Didsbury, AB | 15 / 32 (671.3484) | 7 (172.0000) | 9 (171.4056) | 17 (168.5256) | 24 (159.4172) |
| 2025-06-21 | Smokey Skies BBQ Competition Kipling, SK | 18 / 27 (659.3596) | 24 (162.2628) | 24 (164.5484) | 21 (163.4400) | 8 (169.1084) |
| 2025-05-24 | Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship Calmar, AB | 4 / 34 (684.0112) | 3 (174.2628) | 9 (168.5828) | 9 (168.5828) | 7 (172.5828) |
| 2024-08-31 | Prairie Dog on the Bow Calgary, AB | 12 / 24 (674.8688) | 23 (161.7144) | 10 (168.6060) | 9 (170.2628) | 3 (174.2856) |
| 2024-08-31 | Barbeque on the Bow Festival Calgary, AB | 12 / 35 (681.0968) | 15 (170.2856) | 7 (173.1428) | 24 (165.1200) | 12 (172.5484) |
| 2024-07-27 | Didsbury Lions BBQ Didsbury, AB | 15 / 28 (666.7768) | 7 (171.4172) | 26 (155.9428) | 16 (166.8112) | 7 (172.6056) |
| 2024-06-08 | Small Town Smoke Down Bassano, AB | 10 / 27 (668.4684) | 8 (170.8228) | 25 (157.7028) | 14 (169.1200) | 9 (170.8228) |
| 2024-05-25 | Embers and Ice Pitmaster Championship Calmar, AB | 11 / 39 (681.7260) | 3 (177.1544) | 17 (165.1544) | 13 (171.9772) | 15 (167.4400) |
| 2023-09-02 | Barbeque on the Bow Festival Calgary, AB | 15 / 40 (668.4568) | 2 (178.8572) | 24 (165.6800) | 17 (167.9540) | 25 (155.9656) |
| 2023-07-20 | Smoke, Wind & Fire Raymond, AB | 5 / 12 (681.1084) | 3 (174.8572) | 3 (172.5944) | 7 (169.7028) | 8 (163.9540) |
| 2022-09-03 | Barbeque on the Bow Calgary, AB | 6 / 36 (328.0232) | 1 (176.0116) | 7 (152.0116) | — | — |
| 2022-06-03 | Small Town Smoke Down Bassano Alberta Bassano, AB | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2021-07-10 | Smoke, Wind & Fire Lethbridge, T1J4R3 | 3 / 16 (315.9544) | 3 (164.5600) | 5 (151.3944) | — | — |
| Year | Series | Overall | Chicken | Ribs | Pork | Brisket |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 ↗ | Master | #473 (404 pts) | #548 (374 pts) | #602 (334 pts) | #598 (294 pts) | #512 (374 pts) |