BBQ Sauce
 

How much sauce for 200?

200 servings :wink:

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

I was thinking more like 3 or 4 kegs to start with...

Okay, I'll venture a serious reply now. :grin: Without more specific information on what you are serving, how it is being served, etc here is what I would suggest.

Not everyone uses sauce. In my experience, in my area anyway, only about 50% use sauce. And the average usage for our customers is approx 3 oz per sammie. Therefore I would plan on a minimum of 3 gallons of sauce.
((200/2) * 3 oz)/128 oz = 2.34 gals

We do an annual event that serves right at 300 customers with pulled pork/brisket sammies and we have always taken 3 gallons (it is self serve on the sauce end). We have never run out but have always had to open the third gallon near the end of the event.

Your mileage may vary but remember that it is always better to have extra and not need it than to run out.

Hope this helps.

Take enough!!! we had to close our BBQ trailer one day when we first started cause we ran out of sauce. We make 8 gallons 3 times a week and I always put a 5 gallon bucket on the truck every morning. You talk about embarassing having to tell customers you are shutting down cause you ran out of sauce.
Thanks, Jeff Therrell
Sweetfire BBQ

More info on how it's being applied would be helpful. 2 gallons should be plenty but like Jeff said you don't want to run out. My rule of thumb as a chef is one 1 oz per person. Some probably might use a little more and a small few would not use any at all.

@Jeff Therrell
How do you make your sauce in large quantities? I have tried doing the my recipe x3 and x4 and it doesn't come out the same is if I make 1 gallon at a time. Any tips?

When you make large quantities you have to simmer the sauce a lot longer to marry the flavors. When I'm making multiple gallons of sauce at work I let it cook for a minimum of 30 min.