With a score of 177.142 out of a possible 180 for his ribs, Dennis Bowman of Christiansburg was recently named the world backyard grilling grand champion at a barbecue event in Kansas City, Mo.
When it comes to grilling in the backyard, Dennis Bowman has always been a connoisseur. Now, he has taken his skills to the highest level.
From Christiansburg, Bowman was recently crowned the world backyard grilling grand champion at a barbecue cook-off in Kansas City.
“I actually ended up winning first place in both meats we competed in (chicken and ribs), basically sweeping the event,” Bowman said. “A perfect score is 180, and I received a 178.857 in chicken and a 177.142 in ribs. I have some really complicated recipes I’ve created for competition BBQ, but I really started winning consistently in the spring of 2019 when I started using BBQ rubs from a company called JonesyQ BBQ,” Bowman said.
The event was sponsored by the Kansas City Barbeque Society and included the World Invitational, Team of the Year and the Backyard Series Overall World Championship, the latter won by Bowman.
According to Bowman, this was the KCBS world invitational, so teams around the country that compete in the Backyard Division had to qualify by winning first place in chicken or ribs at a sanctioned contest during the previous competition year. The Christiansburg grillmaster had qualified by winning first place in ribs in Franklin, N.C., and first place ribs in a Wytheville event.
Bowman was shocked with the grand championship though he had expected to do rather well. He did not, however, expect to leave Kansas City as the world champion.
”My goal was to place in the top 10. I’m still disbelieving about how the contest played out,” he said.
Throughout 2020, more than 2,800 “professional” and backyard pitmasters from across the U.S. and 42 countries competed in this program.
Bowman, an accountant executive for MSC Industrial Supply, got started grilling competitively in 2013. “I started with pork butts and then kept testing out different meats to cook with smoke. I was interested in BBQ competitions because of a TV show called BBQ Pitmasters and started looking up local competitions,” he said. “I signed up for Smoke in the Mountain in Galax in 2017 and immediately got hooked and started signing up for contests around the east coast shortly afterward.”
There are two divisions in competition BBQ: Master series and Backyard series. The difference is the cost of entry fees and the number of meats the competitors choose to enter. Bowman has competed at both levels but is currently focused only on backyard.
“Based on which division you compete at, I’ve cooked chicken, ribs, pork and brisket. However, I’ve also participated in side events at contests called ‘Ancillaries.’ In these, I have competed in turkey, sausage and steak. I even won first place in steak at a contest last March in China Grove, N.C.”
Bowman is originally from Hillsville, but he moved to the New River Valley in 2007.
At home, his specialty is pork tenderloin. “I tend to do a lot of grilling with [tenderloins] because they absorb flavors so well. In competition, it’s definitely ribs. Ribs are what I have been most successful with in competitions compared to other meats,” Bowman said.
And what is his grilling method of choice—gas or coals?
“I definitely prefer coals over gas. However, I cook only with live fire burning wood most of the time. I have a BBQ trailer/smoker that I use for competitions and larger cooks. It has a firebox that holds a large amount of wood to keep the heat up, so I burn a mixture of hickory and cherry logs to cook with,” Bowman said.
He is taking a few months off from competing and plans to start the 2021 season in March at a contest called BBQ Give Back in Urbana, Va. He plans to compete in at least 10 events on the East Coast next year and end the season again at the World Invitational in Kansas City. Depending on how the upcoming season goes, he may look at cooking in the Master Series Division full time the following year.