Kansas City Barbeque Society Launches Fourth Great American BBQ Tour

Tour to stop at 20 barbeque competitions across the country

KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Great American BBQ Tour is hitting the road again to share tips and techniques of competitive barbeque with backyard grilling and barbeque enthusiasts throughout the country.

“For more than 25 years now, our mission at KCBS has been focused on celebrating and enjoying BBQ as a culinary art form”

This is the fourth year in a row that the Kansas City Barbeque Society, a nonprofit organization, has launched the tour to educate and share secrets about professional barbeque at some of the nation’s premier competitions and food festivals.

The 2011 tour kicks off April 8-9 in Columbus, Miss. at Grillin’ on the River and includes 20 event stops as it winds its way from coast to coast through 18 different states.

“For more than 25 years now, our mission at KCBS has been focused on celebrating and enjoying BBQ as a culinary art form,” said Carolyn Wells, executive director and co-founder of KCBS. “Thanks to our partners, The Great American BBQ Tour allows us to do that in a very creative, entertaining and fun way.”

The cross-country tour features the husband-and-wife team of Mike and Christine Peters, who share grilling supplies and tasty food samples with event attendees.

At every tour stop, attendees will have the opportunity to compete to see who is the master of the grill. Two lucky audience members are chosen for a Grill Master cook-off. Participants are tasked with cooking a piece of chicken with Weber Seasonings and Kingsford Charcoal, two of the tour’s national partners.

Using the official cooker of the tour, Good-One Smokers/Grills, as well as the tour’s official grilling accessory, Grate Chef, the participants are judged by the audience on the KCBS standards of appearance, taste and tenderness. At stake is a prize pack loaded with grilling essentials from KCBS, Master of Mixes, Redwood Creek, Tyson, Cavanaugh Sausage and other tour partners.

In addition to the food sampling and entertainment for event attendees, the Great American BBQ Tour also offers some additional benefits to the professional teams competing in barbeque contests.

For example, two of KCBS’s national partners, Kingsford Charcoal and Reser’s Fine Foods, are offering barbeque teams a chance to earn additional bragging rights and win almost $50,000 in prize money. All they have to do is compete successfully in the Kingsford Points Chase or the Reser’s American Classics Summer Series (a potato salad contest). To find out more about these unique competitions, visit www.kcbs.us.

It’s estimated that more than 5,000 teams compete on the KCBS barbeque circuit. With more than 14,500 members, KCBS has been sanctioning events and training certified barbeque judges nationwide for more than 20 years. Using an objective, blind judging process, the society sanctions approximately 350 barbeque competitions throughout the nation each year.

To learn more about the Great American BBQ Tour and its full schedule, visit www.KCBSTour.com or follow the tour on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KCBSBBQTour and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/greatamericanbbqtour.