The best grilled steak you'll ever eat might not come from a restaurant. Picture an inch-thick ribeye, tender enough to cut with a plastic knife. Inside: an even ring of gray wrapped around a light pink center. And the flavor! Just enough salt and spice to complement the steak's meatiness with buttery bits of fat melting on your tongue.
Impossible? Not for countless home cooks grilling consistently great steaks, including competitors at a recent steak cookoff in Athol, Idaho.
Maybe you're one of them. If so, organizations like the Steak Cookoff Association fork over big bucks to potential grillmasters, paralleling the rise of barbecue competitions (which are typically about chicken or pork and the all-important sauce).
The Texas-based Steak Cookoff Association, which members and the association both refer to as SCA, helps event planners standardize steak judging nationwide with a growing international membership. It was formed by restaurant industry recruiters and home-grilling enthusiasts Brett Gallaway and Ken Phillips, who realized cookoff judging varied from place to place. In 2013 they created SCA, which sanctioned 19 events the following year.
This year, SCA events may top 600, including international ones, according to Michelle Dang, who works both in medical care and as a SCA rep. Dang traveled from Texas to help coordinate the first-ever Idaho SCA event, held on July 23 at Super One Foods in Athol.
The North Idaho event featured 16 teams and two events costing competitors $160 each. Some cooks are local like Daryl Kunzi from Coeur d'Alene's Drummin Up BBQ food truck, who took third and eighth place, earning $500 total.
Others hail from as far as Oregon, like Alta Hertz and husband, Jason, who split the contests, each taking first place, winning $1,000 and a "golden ticket" to the 2023 championships, where top prize is $10,000.
"I like SCA because it's a level playing field," says Dang, explaining that SCA supplies the meat for every competition, which shifts the focus from who can afford the best raw ingredients toward who has the best cooking skills.
Dang leads the 10 am pre-competition meeting, reviewing rules such as how steaks should arrive for judging: one per styrofoam clamshell, nothing extra; no toothpicks, skewers or strings some cooks often use to keep their steaks uniform.
"I'm an operating nurse," she quips. "We count what goes in, we count what comes out."
Following the meeting, competitors queue up to select the two steaks they get per cookoff, in this case, gorgeously marbled USDA Choice Angus ribeyes, which Super One ordinarily sells for $15.98 per pound, according to event organizer Dan Wright.
Competitors have 30 seconds to choose what they hope are winners, then hustle to their individual tents.
Sandpoint resident Josh Roberts and his son wear matching BBQ360 shirts. Roberts' equipment is new looking, and he moves like someone accustomed to athletic competition. He'll chill the steaks to firm them, after which he'll trim, skewer, tie, then marinate them.
Around 20 minutes prior to turn-in time, the steaks will go on the 540-degree grill, says Roberts, who works in medical sales and cooks as a hobby.
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"Then you cross your fingers and hope it works," says Roberts, who snagged $200 for his fifth-place finish.
Jake Parli has driven up from Lewiston, Idaho, with the black Weber kettle grill he inherited from his father and fond memories of backyard cookouts. A paper towel with the words "Not a Pitmaster" hangs in his tent.
"Normally I have a banner but I forgot it," says Parli, who works as a traffic signal technician.
Parli is wearing gray camo shorts, a purple Team Thrash hat, and a black T-shirt that reveals a dirt bike tattoo covering one arm and a hydra-themed sleeve on the other. He accepts a piece of steak from Tanya Schoonover-Turner (who will turn out to be a second-place finisher), and chats amiably with other competitors.
"Everyone is really friendly," he says. "They've helped me out a ton."
At the end-of-day award ceremony, after sheepishly admitting he dropped one of his steaks, Parli has pocketed $400 for his fourth- and ninth-place finishes.
SCA is like family. It isn't like other competitions. You hear these remarks from competitors, anyone who's judged before and SCA representatives.
Another difference: In addition to providing steaks, SCA offers judging workshops, which are also open to would-be cooks. It demystifies the evaluation process, makes judging fun and helps create a network of well-trained evaluators.
"Every box that comes to you ... it's a 10," Dang says during judges' training, which includes practice evaluation of two steaks.
Rebecca Boifeuille, who works in Super One's floral department, signed up for the judging class to discover secrets to cooking good steaks.
"And I like to eat 'em," she adds.
At the appointed hour, steaks begin arriving, one per styrofoam box, to which is taped an empty envelope and randomly assigned ticket for the double-blind judging process. Dang opens the container, cuts the steak in half, closes the container, and hands it to one of the judges. She wipes her knife and waits for the next box.
"You're not comparing box to box," Dang reminds the 10 male and three female judges. "You're judging each box on its own."
Like the other judges, Gary Tellesen paid $100 to learn SCA's critique method ($60 of which was refunded by the event organizer). Tellesen, whose sons Dusty and Kacy Tellesen created Spokane-based Nordic Smoke BBQ, also took the previous night's cooking class ($125), taught by championship griller Marty Plute.
Plute knows steak. He's the current Alabama and Georgia cookoff champion, an SCA top-10 points earner with six wins this year, and has his own line of rubs called Twisted Steel.
Competition steaks are judged on appearance, doneness, texture, taste and overall impression, explains Plute, who notes that texture was the most challenging category for him. He uses both manual tenderizing and marinades, varying the time depending on the steak.
"I have learned to let my steak tell me what it needs," says Plute, an Illinois-based cabinetmaker by trade. "Each steak is different and has to be approached differently."
Other tips: Let the steak warm up prior to grilling, which helps meld the rub into the meat, and use a temperature probe inserted into the steak for continuous feedback. Plute also uses lights matching those in the judging area so he can see what the judges see.
"For competition, they are looking for a medium steak, or warm pink center, and lighting can make or break you there," says Plute, who offered to teach the steak cooking class to help grow SCA's reach in the Pacific Northwest.
Plute's must-have equipment includes duck fat to oil the grill grates and provide a sheen to finished steak, a reliable way to check the temperature of both steaks and grill, sharp knives, a timer and, of course, a grill and fuel.
He also includes "good music and good friends" on his list of essentials.
"Because in the end," Plute says, "it's the friends I have made from all over the country that make me keep coming back for more." ♦
The original print version of this article was headlined "Ace of Steaks"
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