HUDSON — Neither rain, snow, sleet, nor hail will keep a true chilihead away from a New Hampshire State Chili Championship.

Despite Saturday's relentless downpours, nearly two dozen chili cooks, mostly from around New England, set up tents equipped with makeshift kitchens at Hill House for the championship cookoff, otherwise known as the Bronco Belly-Bustin Chili Fiesta. And at 8 a.m., they turned on the heat.

“We started this 10 years ago to support the music program at Alvirne High,” said Don Ouellette as he ladled out samples of chili verde for Hudson resident Terry Watterson, and his dad, Arthur.

“The green stuff is fantastic,” Watterson said, noting that wind and rain are irrelevant when chili is involved.

The Chili Fiesta is one of a series of cookoffs sponsored by the International Chili Society, which was launched in 1967 to promote chili appreciation and to support the chili community and their chosen charities. The society has raised more than $1 million for different causes with cookoffs that take place around the country.

Ouellette and his wife, Debbie, compete regularly in the traditional red and chili verde categories as Top Hat Chili of Hudson. There's also a salsa category that had 13 entries this year.

According to the rules, recipes can include any type of meat, chili peppers, spices and other ingredients with the exception of beans and pasta. The judges rank entries according to taste, texture, color, aroma and bite, or the hot aftertaste.

The Ouellettes' red chili is made with tri-tip sirloin; the green batch starts with pork tenderloin.

“It's kind of an expensive hobby,” said Ouellette, who uses five types of peppers for Top Hat's traditional red.

But Ouellette thinks a great chili is about more than its ingredients.

“It's timing,” he said. “It's when you add what you add.”

Isaiah Frenchette held down the tent, literally, for Dragon Fire Family, a team of cooks from Ellington, Conn.

“We cook together, me, my dad, and my brother, Jason,” he said.

The Dragon Fire Family likes to mix it up a little with variations like their bourbon-bacon-cheeseburger chili which they've served at past cookoffs.

“It went over pretty well,” said Frenchette.

He said there's a certain degree of spontaneity in chili.

“A lot depends on the weather,” he said. “When it's snowing and ugly out, you do a hot chili.”

Like Frenchette, Linda McGrath made the trip up from Connecticut for Saturday's cookoff. And like Frenchette, she's cooked in conditions more challenging than steady, pelting rain.

“We're chili gypsies,” she said. “We've been in North Conway cooking in three inches of snow and sleet.”

McGrath travels to cookoffs with her husband, Sean, whom she also competes against.

“We have our own different styles of chili,” she said. Lately, her interest has turned to salsa and getting people to accept an all-fruit recipe.

The Londonderry Chilicats, more commonly known as Mike and Mary Alice Kropp, are another chili couple, and sometimes a chili family when their daughter Stephanie doesn't have to work.

Mary Alice Kropp said the three-hours that cooks have to pull a competing chili together are enough, but a little extra time makes a difference.

“It's like anything, a potato salad, a salad dressing, if you taste it immediately , and then taste it an hour later, it will taste better because the flavors will come together,” she said.

The team of more than a dozen judges began tasting the entries around 2 p.m., so there was plenty of time for those spices and flavors to meld.

Still, picking the top three red chilis from a field of 18 can be tough.

“I start by eliminating some right off the bat,” said Rick LaFrance of Worcester, Mass., a judge for Saturday's cookoff. “The chilis are all similar; you have to look for the subtle nuances.”

Top honors went to Scott Navaroli of Leicester, Mass., who took home a chili pot trophy, $300 in prize money and the right to compete in the International Chili Society's world championship in West Virginia in October. Local favorite Lori Skinner, from Milford, picked up the People's Choice award for salsa.

Gerry Bastien, director of Alvirne High's music program, was disappointed that the school's jazz band scheduled performance was rained out, but he was all smiles about the number of cooks and chili aficionados who turned out for the event.

“The cookoff has given us a lot of support, and it's a lot of fun,” he said.