My attempt at making Apple City BBQ Sauce

MilitantSquatter

MilitantSquatter

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So, it was pretty cold today on LI (40's) So I checked the weather forecast and decided to do my BBQ'ing on Sunday instead as temps should be close to 60 deg.

Anyway I got antsy on my day off and decided to make some BBQ sauce. Today I attempted the awarding winning Apple City BBQ Sauce that Mike Mills created and wrote about in his book Peace, Love and BBQ....

So, I copied everything exact, except for one blunder that I thought was a good move. The recipe calls for bacon bits (ground in a spice grinder). While at the supermarket, I debated for about 10 minutes which to buy. There are the standard bits that look like red pebbles (but are not purely bacon when you read the ingredients) or they had Homel Real Bacon Bits in a thin jar. I figured going with the "real" bacon would be a good choice from a quality standpoint.

Well, After grinding them, they were still too big and fluffy and made the sauce quite lumpy. If I went with the cheap kind as the recipe probably intended, it would have probably busted up real small and blended in nicely and still gave a good flavor.

Anyway, from a taste standpoint, I found this to be the best sauce I have made in a while. It was very different but good !!!! It had a unique texture, not thick, but not pure liquid. It was sweet, and vinegary. If I did not mess up the choice of bacon it would have looked perfect as well.


Has anyone else tried this recipe ? What was your opinion of it ?
 
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Apple City BBQ Sauce

I was hesitant on making my own sauce. I bought all the ingredients, and bought a bottle of sweet baby rays for back up.. I ended up making the Apple city Barbeque sauce, and I am glad I did. I will be making this more often, taste better than any store bought sauce. I also ran into the same problem you did with the bacon bits. My sauce was lumpy but man it tasted good.:becky:
 
Just bought that book. Best BBQ book I have so far.
 
I'm going to make the sauce today and try it with some beer can chicken.
 
MilitantSquatter said:
So, it was pretty cold today on LI (40's) So I checked the weather forecast and decided to do my BBQ'ing on Sunday instead as temps should be close to 60 deg.

Anyway I got antsy on my day off and decided to make some BBQ sauce. Today I attempted the awarding winning Apple City BBQ Sauce that Mike Mills created and wrote about in his book Peace, Love and BBQ....

So, I copied everything exact, except for one blunder that I thought was a good move. The recipe calls for bacon bits (ground in a spice grinder). While at the supermarket, I debated for about 10 minutes which to buy. There are the standard bits that look like red pebbles (but are not purely bacon when you read the ingredients) or they had Homel Real Bacon Bits in a thin jar. I figured going with the "real" bacon would be a good choice from a quality standpoint.

Well, After grinding them, they were still too big and fluffy and made the sauce quite lumpy. If I went with the cheap kind as the recipe probably intended, it would have probably busted up real small and blended in nicely and still gave a good flavor.

Anyway, from a taste standpoint, I found this to be the best sauce I have made in a while. It was very different but good !!!! It had a unique texture, not thick, but not pure liquid. It was sweet, and vinegary. If I did not mess up the choice of bacon it would have looked perfect as well.


If all goes according to plan and we enter our first contest next season, I will definitely consider using this or some variation if my brother in law likes it when I have him taste it on Sunday.


Has anyone else tried this recipe ? What was your opinion of it ?
Click to expand...


I have been making this sauce for years since I bought the book and I think it is the best sauce I have ever used. Usually, I make it a 5 gal. batch and I use an immersion blender to grind up the bacon bits while it simmers.
 
The book says it keeps for 2 weeks. I would think it would last longer than that. I don't see anything that would go bad fast.
 
Pappy said:
The book says it keeps for 2 weeks. I would think it would last longer than that. I don't see anything that would go bad fast
Click to expand...

I would think that it is because of the bacon that is in there. I usually can mine whenever I make a batch.
 
Hahah funny. I guess the search is working! :grin:

I was glad it got revived. I made a few sauces back when I first started. Since then I've gotten caught up in the Blues Hog and a few others. But in general I don't like grocery store sauces, but am too overwhelmed with internet recipes and scared of failure to be able to decide on which one to make. It is nice to have a solid recommendation like this. I've had that book on my Amazon wishlist for a while and a birthday coming up....
 
Wow...it...

I was looking at the main page and saw the thread with mt name under it and was confused until I opened it to see this was my thread from 6.5 years ago and I did not even recall writing it !!
 
So, is it still the best sauce to date? Have you kept making it or moved on?
 
MilitantSquatter said:
I opened it to see this was my thread from 6.5 years ago and I did not even recall writing it !!
Click to expand...

Heck I've read posts from the night before that I don't remember writing! Usually some type of refreshing beverage is involved.
 
Just saw yesterday that my local Bi-Lo is now carrying Blue's Hog Original.:clap2:

This one sounds good enough to try! Thanks for bringing back the zombie thread!:thumb:
 
Vinny, I too did the same damn thing. I hated it. Then I was doing a consultation for a bbq place down here and saw a big ole bag of bacon bits... like 5 pounds of that cheap crap. I used it and it was like drinking Cytherea.
 
nucornhusker said:
:shock:
Click to expand...


Sorry about the Cytherea quote but I was trying to be precise. I could say Lexi Love but Mills adds grated apple so that would not be an appropriate comparison.


I will say this about the recipe. One day I had no apples and literally blended the contents of a few can of apple pie filling and reduced the brown sugar a bit. It was awesome and due to the pectin had less propensity to burn.

One more thing - in the book the order could be improved. Take all your non sugar dry ingredients and grated stuff and add the cider, and vinegars and soys or Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil no more than 3-5 minutes. This creates a flavor steep. Add sugars to dissolve, then add your thick stuff, ketchup mustard. Then also simmer 10-15 as the recipe says.

This is a good method for quickly mixing the flavors in ANY sauce as adding powdered spices to a thick slurry takes longer to marinate and one can tend to over compensate because of it.
 
after 6+ yrs, I'm not sure the analogy of using bacon bits to Cytherea reinforces my decision not to make it again

I remember going out to buy Hunt's ketchup instead of the Heinz in my fridge just because the recipe called for it, yet I improvised on the cheap arse bacon bits with real bacon bits... go figure. I don't recall if I upped the apple cider vinegar in place of rice vinegar which I likely did not have/buy.

Think I should just dig up the recipe for the Beale Street Red & Wett ??? :wink:
 
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Lets not mention things I have stolen and renamed Vinny. Another thing, as I look through my copy of Mill's book which looks so used it looks like it was used as a blotter underneath Allie Sin on her first go round, I noticed I saw "soy sauce OR Worcestershire sauce." I thought that was a strange ingredient to make optional. Thats like saying use mayonnaise or lard. Two completely different things. I always chose WS.
 
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