Competition: Who has the best BBQ Sauce.

h00kemh0rns said:

This is like reading a series of books and waiting for the author to finish the next book. Keep up the good work Infernoo and hurry up to my sauce.

Click to expand...

Yeah, like when King did the Green Mile.

Great thread, great work inferno. Your reviews are so detailed, I can't wait for you to continue.

Next we have the 10th entry - gixxers (AKA TIMMAYs) sauce!

Thank you for the entry :clap2:

#10 gixxer (aka TIMMAY) (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1526625&postcount=40)

I have made this one a couple times, got it from one of Steven Raichlen's books. If you like to drink the bourbon whisky then this one is for you. I am a scotch man myself but this sauce still tastes pretty good. One suggestion I have is don't put crap whisky in it. If you aint gonna drink it then dont cook with it.

From Barbecue! Bible : Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes ~ Steven Raichlen
STILL HOUSE BARBECUE SAUCE

• 1 cup Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup onion, very finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke

Combine all the ingredients in a large, heavy, nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and briskly simmer, uncovered, until richly flavored and slightly thickened, about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon. Use right away or transfer to jars, cover, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate. The sauce will keep for several months. Makes about 4 cups.
Brush this sauce on ribs, chicken, or pork during the last 10 minutes of cooking. And serve plenty of it on the side.


Recipe Review:

Notes: As specified in the recipe, I used Jack Daniel's whiskey, ketchup was Heinz, and the wooster sauce was lea & perrins. I also used my regular combination of tones, colgins and wrights liquid smoke.


Ingredients: A very simple looking sauce, with an obvious sweet-sour-whiskey predominance to it. Apart from those in the ketchup, wooster sauce and the tabasco, there is basically no added spice, so most of the flavour depends on these ingredients.

Ease of preparation: Nice and easy, simply a matter of combining and simmering.

Modifications and variations tested: I tested this one on ribs (pork), as well as pulled beef and chicken wings.

Taste/Texture: This sauce has a nice mouthfeel, with an ever so slight burn at the back of the throat due to the alcohol in the whiskey and a tingling on the tongue from the tabasco and black pepper. If you do not like alchol or the flavour of whiskey, then this sauce is not for you. Whilst the alcohol flavour is not over dominating, it is most certainly present, and one must appreciate the flavour of whiskey to enjoy this sauce. In terms of texture, you have to be careful with this one - due to the whiskey, cider vinegar and wooster sauce, it can be a bit liquid if not cooked for long enough, and it does not thicken very much once it has cooled.

Recommendations: For those who are not big fans of sauces with spirits in them, you may like to cut the whiskey in half to tone it down a bit, flame it first or cook it a bit longer. Even though the sauce is simmered for a while and the alcohol content reduced, it definitely retains a bit of the "bite" of the whiskey and certainly the flavour of it. Given the proportions, I found the amount of tabasco and pepper enough to give it a bit of a kick, so those who enjoy spicy sauces will enjoy this, as it treads the fine line between mild and spicy.


Ratings:

Appearance: 8.5/10 A good looking sauce! The whiskey seems to give it a nice glossy look, and it is nice for a change having a sauce that is not as dark as the night due to colouring, and one with little flecks of black pepper.

Consistency: 7/10 As the thickness is controlled by reduction and not thickeners, you can control how thick it becomes. If you want it thicker, you will need to cook it for longer, as the liquid ingredients (whiskey, wooster, liquid smoke and vinegar) outnumber the thicker ingredients (ketchup, brown sugar). 20 minutes will result in a relatively thin sauce. I would recommend cooking it until a bit thicker if you are to use it as a glaze on ribs.


Taste: 7/10 I have the feeling that due to the large amount of whiskey, this will be a love-or-hate sauce for most people. I found the balance of flavours (sweet from the ketchup and sugar, sour from the vinegar, salty from the wooster and tabasco, heat from the tabasco) to be quite good, but it is definitely on the tangy and "bitey" side (i.e. tangy from the vinegar, "bitey" from the alcohol). The liquid smoke provides the slightest background flavour and thankfully does not take over the sauce but complements the smoke from the meat.

Versatility: 5.5/10 I find that alcohol based sauces can be very hit-and-miss with different meats, and definitely with the rubs used on those meats. With this sauce, I would have to say be careful with the rub, as some ingredients may clash with the sauce (for this sauce, I found that rubs with celery salt and ground coriander did not fare too well). For me, it worked very nicely on ribs, glazing up well, and as you are not drinking the sauce straight, the high whiskey content did not kill the other flavours. I did however find that it did not work well on the chicken or pulled beef.

Overall Rating: 7/10. An interesting sauce. As I mentioned above, I have the feeling that people will either love or hate this sauce, so the best way to find out which side of the coin you are on is to try it. Mr Raichlen has done a good job with this sauce, but I do feel its applications are limited. Whilst I would recommend it to people who love whiskey based sauces, I would not say it is the best sauce to use as an introduction to spirit based sauces as the whiskey is such a large part of this recipe (see recommendations).


Photos of sauce construction:

1.) The ingredients:

Clockwise from left:

Cider Vinegar + Black Pepper + Liquid Smoke + Tabasco + Worcestershire Sauce, Brown Sugar, Ketchup, Whiskey. (Onion not shown).


2.) Ingredients in the pot:






3.) Ingredients after cooking for 30 minutes:





4.) Finished sauce:





5.) After a day in the fridge:

As always, thank you for submitting your recipe :grin:

Next up, #11 - justjack

Because of this thread I've become engrossed in sauce-making. I'm having more fun with these recipes than I am smoking.

I had never made a mustard sauce before seeing these recipes, but I'm happy to report that my office just loved it when I served it with some pulled-pork last week.

Thank You! Thank You! to all who have submitted recipes, and to Infernooo for the reviews.

On to the eleventh sauce - thanks going to justjack for this one.

#11 justjack (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1526634&postcount=41)

Mate, I don't measure when I make sauces, but I'll give you an outline. Biting my tongue on the rest, but I bet you're a bit of a mind reader, eh?!

30 - 40 birds eye chillies, chuck in a handfull of chipotles too, if you like
5 habs, either choc or orange
1 whole pineapple fresh
2 whole mangoes
1 onion minced
1 carrot grated
2 litres breakfast juice
2 tbs fresh ground black pepper
couple shots of Inner Circle.. more if I can bear to part with it
2 - 3 cups vinegar, apple cider usually, also some white balsamic for flavour
Garlic, lots

Simmer to reduce, blitz with the missus's little mate, salt to taste, add whatever it needs to round it out. It ain't rocket science mate, so I tend to tip and guesstimate.

Recipe Review:

Notes: I used apple cider vinegar (Cornwell’s brand), homebrand breakfast juice (as specified), and Inner Circle Rum. Garlic amounts were not specified, so I ended up using 6 large cloves, minced.


Meats tested, variations tried: Pork tenderloin, pork ribs, pulled beef, lamb and chicken breast. I tested the sauce pureed as a sauce/glaze, and semi-chunky as a dipping sauce.

Ingredients: It is quite apparent that this is a fruity, tropical sauce, reminiscent of a mango-pineapple hot-sauce. The breakfast juice contains a range of fruits, (apple, pear, orange, mango, grape, peach, apricot, guava, lemon, passionfruit), which should complement the apple cider vinegar well. There are a LOT of chillies, and I will start off by saying I will not be adding them all, but will add some chipotles as suggested in the hope that this will lend the applicability of the sauce to beef slightly more so.

Ease of preparation: Almost as simple as recipes get, the only lengthy process being peeling the pineapple, mangos and deseeding some of the chillies. Simmering does take a short while, but I found that after about 30-45 minutes, it was at a nice consistency for pureeing and finishing.

Taste/Texture: VERY spicy... unless you are accustomed to very spicy foods and have a mouth and stomach of steel (think Homer Simpson in the chili competition episode where uses candle wax in his mouth due to the heat of Chief Wiggums chili), all you will get is heat, and it will be hard to appreciate the other flavours. The chilli gives the sauce a great kick, and in combination with the mango, pineapple and breakfast juice, the result is a very fruity, complex sauce with a range of flavours happening. The onion, garlic and black pepper provide a savoury aspect to the sauce, bringing it back from being too fruity (like a desert sauce minus the chilli). I found that black pepper works nicely with tropical fruits such as mango and pineapple, and it doesn’t let down in this recipe. The cider vinegar counteracts some of the spiciness as well as the sweetness of the fruits and breakfast juice. Finally, the shot of rum gives it a nice alcoholic kick, and as we all know, booze and tropical fruits go together very nicely. Texture can be controlled by reducing to the appropriate amount of liquid and then blending to the desired consistency (chunky or smooth).

Recommendations: To start, most will want to cut back on the number of chillies to at least half the amount in the recipe. I would also replace some with a chipotle or 2 to introduce a slight smokiness and a savoury yet fruity note (contradictory, but chipotles seem to have this effect). As suggested at the end of the recipe, be sure to add salt to taste as it will need it to bring out the flavours and balance the other elements of the sauce.

Ratings:

Appearance: 8/10 Depending on the colour of the chillies used (I used red and only a few chipotles), you will either have a fairly bright red/orange sauce, or a slightly darker sauce. Using orange habaneros and red chillies will result in the nicest looking sauce, whilst using green chillies, lots of chipotles and chocolate habaneros will darken the sauce and result in a slightly less pleasant looking sauce. I found the sauce to look great whether it was still chunky or baby smooth. The flecks of pepper look great in the sea of orange, as do the seeds from the chillies.

Consistency: 8/10 As consistency is controlled by the reduction and subsequent blending of the sauce, it is entirely up to you as to how thick, thin, chunky, or smooth you would like it. For glazing, and brushing purposes, smooth is best, but you can also blend half of the sauce and pulse the other half, leaving it chunky for dipping or adding to other recipes. The sauce is “naturally thickened”, meaning that there are no added thickening agents such as starches or gums, so if you want your sauce thick and sticky, you have to cook it down until quite syrupy, then blend and possibly reduce it a little more. This will result in a darker, less fresh tasting sauce, but perhaps one more to your liking in terms of consistency.

Taste: 7.5/10 Fruity, spicy, tropical, tangy and sweet with subtle vegetal undertones. Due to the lack of added spices, molasses, and tomato, it does lack that classical “bbq sauce” flavour which makes it even more unique and less susceptible to clashes with underlying spice rubs. Whilst you do not really feel that it is let down by this, it does leave you wondering how it would taste if modified to include some sweet spices (ginger, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, coriander, juniper etc).

Versatility: 6/10 One of the few letdowns of this sauce. It simply does not translate well for certain meats. Whilst it was (excuse the less than scientific and slightly immature use of language) freaking awesome on pork ribs, pork tenderloin and chicken, it was less than impressive on beef, lamb and duck. As a dipping sauce, it works very well, and I can recommend it for occasions requiring a spicy yet fruity sauce.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10. There is no doubt that we have a very interesting sauce here with a great depth of flavour and good balance of elements. I would also like to play around with added spices at some stage and possibly with some added butter to carry the flavours. My only major criticism is the lack of versatility inherent with such a distinctly fruity sauce. On the “right” meats, this is a VERY nice sauce – very Moorish and flavourful without being too rich or over powering (provided you dial back on the chillies).


Photos of sauce construction:


1.) The ingredients:

Clockwise from top (Salt not shown):

Chillies + Garlic, Chopped Pineapple, Mushed Mango, Breakfast Juice, Apple Cider Vinegar + White Balsamic + Inner Circle Rum, , Onion + Carrot, Black Pepper.

2.) After cooking for about 30 minutes until reduced and thick:

3.) Blending:

4.) Half chunky, half smooth:





5.) After cooling:

Thanks justjack for the recipe :clap2::clap2:

Next up, lake dogs second sauce!

[FONT=&quot]Up next, we have sauce #12 – compliments of Mr. Lake Dogs (again!)

#12 Lake Dogs (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1526640&postcount=42)

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]I know I've already submitted mine with 2 variations. This is a sauce that I make every once in a while and will probably make another batch tonight. It's a very regional vinegar pepper sauce in the vein of Blues Hog Tennessee Red. Someone in another thread asked "who trained/taught the experts" and I said "old guys, many who are no longer with us". This recipe is just that, a VERY old recipe (probably 70 or more years old) where the author is no longer with us. RIP Ray.

Ray's BBQ Sauce:

1 Quart Twelve Oaks Colored Vinegar (no substitutes)
1 Pint Ketchup
2 T Salt
1 T Black Pepper
1 tsp Ground Red Pepper
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
Juice from 1 Lemon

Mix in pot and bring to boil, stir to keep from sticking.
Let cool, put in storage container and refrigerate.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]__________________[/FONT]
Unfortunately, I have been unable to get my hands on the most important ingredient in this recipe (“Twelve Oaks Colored Vinegar (no substitutes)”), so rather than risk not doing the recipe justice by not recreating it properly, I will move on to sauce #*13 – fattymacs.

Cheers, thanks for the review. Goes well on egg and bacon burgers in muffins too, also hamburgers. I agree about the beef as a rule though, it's much more of a chicken \ pork sauce.