r/chili • u/silversurfs • 17d ago
Having a big chili cook off contest and had some questions
Hey everyone, so a group of friends and I have decided that we need to do a chili cook-off, and we're going to have partners and other friends blind judge them. It made me start thinking we probably need some sort of scoring system. I think most of us are coming in with different styles, which makes that kind of thing difficult to score. Do you have any suggestions for scoring?
2
u/_BreadBed 17d ago
Honestly in your situation I’d recommend just doing a quick google search for “chili scoring sheet” or something similar on google. I found this in that search and it could be good for you if you think your friends need an explanation for each category. I’d imagine you could probably find scoring rubrics for legit completions around the country if you’re trying to go more that route.
2
u/silverdeane 16d ago
I’m hosting a chili cook off for my birthday this year, and I figured we would use a basic voting system where ppl will vote for which one they like best, but they can’t vote for their own. It’s my first cook off of any sort, and it’s just for fun. If it becomes an annual thing, I would look at having categories or something closer to another poster suggested.
3
u/lascala2a3 17d ago
Taste, Texture, Color, Aroma, After Taste are the general criteria. I think most cookoffs just have one intuitive score (1-10) per judge for each entry. But you could have a separate score for some or all criteria. Most informal cookoffs aren't blind and have each attendee vote for a favorite. This invariably ends up being a popularity contest rather than chili judging. So I think making it truly blind is important. If it's small and the entries are wildly different then everyone will know who's is who's anyway though. If I were organizing it, I'd try to narrow the types to something that could be compared for quality rather than type preference (like Texas Red, etc.).