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SCA

Steak Cookoff Association — the circuit that took the simplest thing in the world, cooking a steak, and turned it into a sport with strict rules. One piece of meat, one verdict, no excuses.

What SCA is

Born in Texas, the SCA is today the largest steak-cooking competition organisation in the world. The contrast with KCBS is sharp: there it's four meats and a whole day, here everything is focused on a single star — the ribeye — and a single question: who cooks it best? Fast contests, concentrated adrenaline, and a great way to get into competition without the commitment of a full Master Series weekend. And there's another fundamental difference: here you compete solo — a single cook, not a team of people like in KCBS.

The format: one steak, done right

They give you the meat

No edge for whoever shows up with the "right" cut: the ribeye is supplied by the organisers, the same for everyone (at least Choice grade, at least 1⅛ inch thick, ~2.9 cm).

The number draw (the "snake" order)

To choose your steaks you draw a number, and with that number you go to the table and pick them — through a system built to keep things fair. Here's how it works: say there are 10 of you and you draw a 7.

• For the first steak selection runs in ascending order, 1 to 10: you pick seventh.
• For the second steak the order reverses, 10 down to 1: number 10 picks first, then 9, then 8… and you, holding the 7, pick fourth.

The upshot: whoever picks late on the first picks early on the second. Nobody is always stuck with the leftovers — the luck of the number evens out.

Single, double or triple

In each steak contest you pick two steaks: the one you turn in and a backup. But SCA events are almost always double steak — two steak contests in the same event, with two separate turn-ins (and four steaks in all). Sometimes they're triple: three contests, three turn-ins, six steaks. You can enter just one or all of them.

The clock

You get roughly 3-4 hours to work it — you can trim, brine, inject, sous vide, whatever you like — up to the 30-minute turn-in window.

What you turn in

You turn in the whole steak, in a clamshell box with a foil disc on the bottom. No twine, no toothpicks, and no garnish: green doesn't go in here. How you position it matters a lot: the organisers are the ones who cut it, and they do so based on how they find it in the box. Set the spinalis (the "cap" of the ribeye, the prized part) carefully — its orientation decides how the steak gets cut and shown to the judges.

How judging works

Judging is strictly blind: the box carries only a number, the judges never know which team it belongs to. At the table sit 5 judges, and each scores five criteria, every one from 7 to 10 points:

• Appearance
• Doneness
• Tenderness (texture)
• Taste — here judges can add a decimal (0.1 to 0.9): the max becomes 10.9
• Overall impression

Two big differences from KCBS: here there's no weighting between criteria and no score is dropped — they all count. The perfect score is 254.5 points (5 judges maxing out everything).

How it gets cut

Here's an SCA quirk. You don't cut the steak — you turn it in whole and the organisers do it, slicing it horizontally following how you positioned it in the box, which is why orientation counts. The two pieces are then offset, so the judges can see the colour inside and assess doneness. From there:

• the top half goes to the visual judgment (appearance);
• from the bottom half each judge cuts a small piece (about an inch, ~2.5 cm) and judges everything else — taste, tenderness, overall impression.

Doneness: medium is the law

This is the heart of the SCA, and what trips up beginners. On the doneness criterion there's a precise reference: the score depends exactly on how done the steak is, and only medium earns the 10. Here's the official scale:

Translation: a perfect medium — warm, pink centre — is the only full bullseye. A touch under or over (med rare or med well) and you're already at 8-9; rare or well done drops you to 7. Cooking it well isn't enough: you have to cook it right, dead on the mark.

In case of a tie

If two steaks finish level, the tiebreak order is: Taste, then Doneness, Tenderness, Appearance and finally Overall impression. Same philosophy showing through: above all, it has to taste good.

Beyond the steak: ancillaries

Alongside the ribeye queen, almost every SCA contest runs ancillary categories: chicken, burgers, ribs, desserts and themed categories that change each time (sometimes hilarious, like "anything with lime"). There's also whole hog — also supplied by the organisers, usually pigs of around 30-35 kg (about 65-75 lb). They're the perfect way to bring home more wood for the fire at the same event.

How you qualify (and the SCA World Championship)

The SCA has its own World Championship too — for both the steak category and the ancillaries. And here too you don't just sign up: to get invited you have to win a contest and earn the golden ticket. Win, grab the ticket, fly to the Worlds.

In 2025 and 2026 we earned the golden ticket with both Carlo and Alex; Alex went to the 2025 World Championship.

The official rulebook