The mission of youth contests is to support youth in their quest to learn to cook and barbeque in a safe and fair competition, while continuing to build the future of BBQ, and cooking.
Kid’s Q Division
The younger kids 10 and under will prepare, cook, and box their entries from their sponsor team’s site. Parents should let the kids do as much as they are capable of, give age and abilities. The emphasis in this age group is bonding with their family/friends, learning how to cook and growing their skills with familiar mentors. The focus should be to encourage kids to have fun while learning.
Junior Q Division
The older kids 11-16 will get to compete in a kid-only environment, and allowed to challenge their peers much like they do in any other sport or activity that hosts competitions and tournaments. Parents can encourage their children, but cannot help/do any of the cooking. Each entry shall be cooked by one child only. The child must do the preparation, cooking, and presentation. This means that the child should be able to put his/her own protein on the grill/smoker, turn his/her own protein on the grill/smoker, remove the protein from the grill/smoker, and do all garnishing (if garnish is being used).