The dump method

A competition chili is cooked against a clock. Under CASI rules all judging starts at a single announced turn-in time and no cup is accepted after it begins; ICS cooking periods run three to four hours. Cooks therefore plan backward from turn-in, and the plan is organized around dumps: measured portions of seasoning, mixed in advance and added at set intervals. John Raven, writing for Texas Cooking, called the dump method one of the most favored techniques among cook-off contestants, and described the sound of kitchen timers across a cook-off reminding cooks to add the next one.

The reasoning Raven gives is that spices do not behave alike in the pot. Some, such as garlic, lose potency when overcooked and go in near the end. The champions' recipes CASI publishes follow that pattern. Tom Dozier’s 2018 recipe puts granulated onion, bouillon, cayenne and two chili powders into boiling broth and tomato sauce as the first dump, returns the browned meat, simmers it thirty minutes, and rests it off the heat. About forty-five minutes before turn-in he brings it back to a boil and adds the second dump of cumin, granulated garlic, white pepper, a pinch of brown sugar and two more chili powders, then boils fifteen minutes and lets it settle.

Other champions divide the work differently. Kathryn Cavender’s 2019 recipe uses three dumps at two hours, forty minutes and twenty minutes before turn-in, the last for small corrections of cumin, onion, chili powder, salt and heat. Greg Lindsey’s 2025 recipe uses two, with an hour’s rest between them. All three spread the chili powder across more than one dump and save cumin and garlic for the later additions. The method has no fixed form in either rulebook; it is a practice that cooks have refined and published, and it varies from recipe to recipe.