Backyard on the Grape 2025
Load In – Friday, March 7, 2025
Turn Ins / Awards – Saturday, March 8, 2025
Backyard on the Grape 2025: A Spring Training for BBQ Enthusiasts
Ready to kick off the BBQ season with fun, practice, camaraderie, and learning? Backyard on the Grape 2025 is the perfect opportunity for both seasoned teams and newcomers to refine their skills, connect with real BBQ judges, and enjoy a relaxed competition atmosphere. This event blends competition with collaboration, making it the ultimate training camp for BBQ enthusiasts.
What Is a “Backyard Event”?
A Backyard BBQ Contest is an informal, low-pressure competition designed for both experienced teams and novices:
- For seasoned teams: It’s a chance to keep skills sharp, test new recipes, and stay competition-ready between official events.
- For newcomers: It’s an opportunity to experience the feel of a real competition without the high entry fees or intense pressure.
Our flexible schedule accommodates everyone, allowing teams to begin preparation on Saturday for added convenience.
Why Attend?
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Learn from the Pros:
- Experienced teams often share tips on meat preparation, box presentation, and more (by request only).
- Judges provide live feedback on your entries, helping you understand competition standards and refine your techniques.
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Practice Key Skills:
- Novices can simulate competition timing and prepare for formal turn-ins.
- Experiment with recipes or techniques you wouldn’t risk in a high-stakes contest.
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Receive Constructive Feedback:
- Judges will discuss entries openly, offering insights into flavor, tenderness, appearance, and scoring.
- Feedback sessions help cooks and judges alike refine their craft.
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Connect with Others:
- Share your BBQ with other teams after the competition and enjoy the camaraderie of this laid-back event.
Event Details
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Competition Categories:
Cook any of the standard meats: Chicken, Pork Ribs, Pork Shoulder, Brisket, or Tri-Tip.
You’re free to prepare one, all, or even multiple variations of a single category. -
Judging:
- Judges and peers will use knives and forks to evaluate your entries.
- Teams are encouraged to stay in the judging area to gain maximum exposure to feedback.
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Feedback First:
- Live feedback takes precedence over strict turn-in timing. Teams are assigned a specific turn-in time (7-8 minutes per entry) to ensure every cook receives meaningful critique.
Amenities
This event is hosted at the Lodi Grape Festival Grounds and includes:
- Large, level team sites with grass or pavement options.
- 20/30/50 amp power included from arrival to departure.
- On-site amenities:
- Real bathrooms with showers.
- Water hookups, dump stations, ash disposal, and grease disposal.
- Full kitchen access with a 3-basin hot water sink for cleanup.
- RVs welcome! Arrive as early as Friday and depart as late as Monday at no extra cost.
Entry Fee
- $175 per team.
- A minimum of 10 teams is required, with space for up to 35 teams.
Special Features
- Judging Flexibility: Teams can turn in entries in any order. Experiment with new recipes (e.g., cherry cola ribs) or refine traditional favorites.
- Awards: Only the best scoring entry per team in a category will qualify for awards. No overall winners are crowned to keep the focus on learning and fun.
What’s New for 2025?
By popular demand:
- The Certified BBQ Judges (CBJ) and Table Captains (CTC) class has returned to Sunday, with the main Backyard event on Saturday. Participating team members or support staff receive a 10% discount on the class.
Join Us in 2025!
Whether you’re honing your skills, trying out new techniques, or just looking to enjoy some BBQ camaraderie, Backyard on the Grape 2025 offers a fun, relaxed way to connect with the BBQ community.
Spaces are limited, so register now to secure your spot at this one-of-a-kind event!
For questions or more information, feel free to reach out. Let’s fire up those grills and make 2025 unforgettable!
The Details
What are we cooking?
Cook any (or all) of the standard competition meats – chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder or butt (for pulled pork), brisket and/or beef Tri-Tip! If you really want to cook only 1 or all 5 meats, that’s ok with us!
All cooking MUST be done on site!
How does this work?
Judges and peers may be instructed to use knives and forks.
It is STRONGLY Recommended that ALL team members stay in the judging area as long as possible to gain the most insight as to what the judges think, not just during your teams turn in, but other teams turn ins as well. Turn in times will be assigned so as to maximize this exposure.
All present MUST understand that pictures, and/or (audio/video) recording is ENCOURAGED! Bear in mind that this is NOT for public posting/sharing, but for the private review of fellow teammates.
The thing that’s THE most important at this contest is the feedback the judges provide to the cooks. This comes at a sacrifice of maintaining any semblance “standard” turn in times, it’s just not possible to do both at the same time. Once you have your taste and tenderness recipes and formulas down, you can practice your timing at home, with your own clock, for all competition meats. We feel that the value of live feedback is far more important than teaching how to be a “hall monitor” of timing. That said we still want to impress upon the cooks that timing IS very important, as such we’ve come up with a turn in schedule that provides 7-8 minutes per team to be judged (which we’ve seen is a good number). Since not all teams will be cooking all meats the judges will get some breaks and will have the option to get up and have someone take over nearly anytime.
So based on this we are going to use this turn in schedule, this matrix scrolls DOWN! Teams Highlighted in Yellow are pending.
The turn in times listed above are NOT “turn in” windows, but should be considered your assigned turn in time. Please do your best to be there 2 mins. before this time (entry in hand) to get the maximum exposure with the judges. Judges will begin on the next entry as soon as it arrives and as long as they are done with the previous entry. This way no entries are sitting for long periods while others get stuck in a traffic jam.
We have also found that this has been a good place for even experienced teams to experiment – i.e. want to try cherry cola ribs out on judges or another creative recipe that you wouldn’t risk in a real contest, this is the place to give it a try.
Why are the turn ins not specified?
This is another idea we’ve come up with over the past few years. Turn in your entries in any order, or any way you want….meaning if you want to do 5 different rib preparations for your 5 turn in’s that’s fine with us. Otherwise, use a format that works best for you be that standard KCBS or PNWBA or reverse. Ask us why this could be important!
The only thing to note here is that any team can only win ONE award in any given category, so just because you turn in 5 rounds of ribs, you cannot win first AND second (or first AND third, or second AND third, you get the idea). Your BEST scoring entry will be put up against all other entries in that category. As such we do not award an overall winner (no GC at this event).
What’s with the name “Backyard on the Grape”?
For 10 years we’ve had the pleasure to be hosted by longtime CBBQA member Dave Bart at a private water ski lake/club, where this event was titled “Backyard on the Lake”. Since we’ve moved to the Lodi Grape Festival Grounds, it seems like a fitting tribute to call this event “Backyard on the Grape”. 2025 marks the 21st year of this event.