How to make BBQ sauces???

  • Thread starter Yellow Dog BrewCo
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Yellow Dog BrewCo

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I would like to experiment with making BBQ sauces.
Personally, adding brown sugar to bottled ketchup doesn't qualify as making a sauce.

My favorite sauce is Gates Original Recipe out of Kansas City.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how I can get there with out using a bottle of Heinz?

Thanks for the help!
 
Ketchup is really just tomato puree cooked up with salt, vinegar and various incarnations of sugar.

So, if you want to REALLY go from scratch on your sauce, you could try this (or something like it):

1 1/4C. tomato puree
1/4C. molasses
1/3C. Cider Vinegar
1/4C. dark brown sugar
3T GOOD bourbon (Optional, but highly reccommended. I prefer Maker's Mark)
2T Worcestershire
1t liquid smoke (completely optional)
1T of your favorite rub
OR
1t granulated onion
1t granulated garlic
1t chili powder
1t paprika
1/2t salt
1/2t black pepper


This is just a basic sauce off the top of my head and the measurements are pretty approximate. You'll have to adjust stuff to your preference, but it will give you a place to start.
 
I guess you'll not be using Gate's anymore if this is true...

This recipe was supposedly shared with viewers of the Martha Stewart show by none other than Mr. Gates himself. It's probably not an exact duplication of the commercially produced sauce, but it comes pretty darned close.
INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 2 tablespoons celery seeds
  • 2 tablespoons ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoons ground red pepper
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 2 quarts ketchup (Hunt's probably, because of a Hunt's KC connection)
  • 2 cups apple cider vinegar
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons of liquid smoke, hickory flavored
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Combine the sugar, salt, celery seeds, cumin, red pepper, garlic powder and chili powder in a small bowl. Mix the ketchup and remaining ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in the dry ingredients. The sauce can be served warm or at room temperature.
​
 
I have seen this Gate's recipe before.
I was hesitant to use because of the ketchup.

Maybe I will use Southern Homeboy's suggestion of using tomato puree instead of ketchup and see where that gets me.

BBQ Grail said:
I guess you'll not be using Gate's anymore if this is true...

This recipe was supposedly shared with viewers of the Martha Stewart show by none other than Mr. Gates himself. It's probably not an exact duplication of the commercially produced sauce, but it comes pretty darned close.
INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 2 tablespoons celery seeds
  • 2 tablespoons ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoons ground red pepper
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 2 quarts ketchup (Hunt's probably, because of a Hunt's KC connection)
  • 2 cups apple cider vinegar
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons of liquid smoke, hickory flavored
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Combine the sugar, salt, celery seeds, cumin, red pepper, garlic powder and chili powder in a small bowl. Mix the ketchup and remaining ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in the dry ingredients. The sauce can be served warm or at room temperature.
​
Click to expand...
 
I see no issue with using ketchup, I actually make my own ketchup when I grow tomatoes and it is just another ingredient. I certainly don't make my own Worcestershire sauce, or vinegar etc...

I would say, home made ketchup is, in itself, an excellent sauce for meat.
 
I don't understand why you have such a prejudice against ketchup as an ingredient. It's not just a condiment. A good quality ketchup will yield a good quality BBQ sauce, provided you have other good quality ingredients.
 
Oh, one more thing...

Landarc can I score some of your homemade Ketchup?
 
Not to pile on, but I have to agree with BBQGrail and Landarc. You can make some great sauce with Ketchup as the base. I agree that just adding some brown sugar doesn't make a great sauce, but including some good sweetners like honey, and some heat and spices can make some pretty tasty stuff.
 
Last edited:
Maybe he just doesn't like ketchup? Just saying. That said...I remember not liking what happened to sauces when I added ketchup a few years ago, but that was also before I started using high quality vinegars too. Once I started using the good vinegar my sauces improved immediately, and recently I have started adding ketchup into sauces again and actually liking it. Strange, I know, and I probably can't chalk it ALL up to the vinegar (a lot has changed in the last few years), but at this point adding ketchup is not a problem at all for me.
 
Ketchup is usually the cheapest form of tomato you can buy when you are buying in bulk. I know it doesn't make sense that plain tomato sauce should cost more than tomato sauce + sugar + spices, but that's the way it works much of the time. As such it's often the go-to tomato base for anyone making large quantities of sauce.

I make over a dozen different varieties of sauce, and about half use ketchup. Non-tomato sauces obviously don't, and I also skip the catsup in favor of plain tomato sauce for products that I want to have a brighter tomato component, like my Pickett, my Vidalia/Peach sauce.
 
Wrench_H said:
Not to pile on, but I have to agree with BBQGrail and Landarc. You can make some great sauce with Ketchup as the base.
Click to expand...

Concur with this and the others. Why re-invent the wheel? Ketchup is just tomato sauce with additional spices added. It is a fantastic base for the 2 sauces I make and neither of them even remotely resemble "ketchup and brown sugar".
 
Ketchup is not "cheating". The truth is that you can buy higher quality "tomato base" in the form of ketchup (for the money) than many other ways.

Buy Paul Kirk's book and you will have more recipes for sauce, kethcup, french dressing and everything else than you can handle. It will make you appreciate the ingredients more.

Kind of like the first time you did an all grain batch.......
 
There's nothing wrong with ketchup as a base, but as with any recipe, you have to watch the ratios. When I cut down the ketchup to vinegar ratio and the ketchup to sweet (honey, brown sugar, etc.) ratio, I think I wound up with a much better pallet to paint my other flavors on. I all depends on what you like I guess.
 
@YellowDogBrewCo: As a final thought on kethcup, once you add sugar, or corn syrup, vinegar, garlic and onion powders to tomato sauce or watered down tomato paste, you have ketchup. One of the big two is making thier ketchup now with sugar instead of corn syrup if high fructose corn syrup is a hang-up. A lot of people don't like corn syrup for some reason.

John

John
 
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