Need ideas for pulled pork sauce

[chomper's bbq]

I am in search of recipes other than BBQ sauce to preserve or enhance the flavor of pulled pork I am vending at my next cook-off. I need to keep the pork hot for an extended period of time and my wife feels my usual sauce has too much vineger in it.

[mrfusion]

You might try my brother's Pulled Pork Italian Style.

Brine:
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Gal. Water.

Rub:
Equal parts black pepper, garlic and onion powder

Sauce:
6 lemons
1 cup chicken stock
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp fresh rosemary
1 tbsp dried fennel seeds
Red pepper flakes to taste.

I won't bother telling you how to smoke the meat ;)

Juice all the lemons reserving 3-4 strips of the zest. Puree all the sauce ingredients (including the zest) and add to your pulled pork to taste.

I've made this a couple of times and it always is a big hit.

[DirtyDirty00]

Im dyin to try this... havent gotten to yet tho :(

its chris lillys recipe....

1 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
2 slices of lemon

look him up on youtube chopping up the pulled pork and see how he uses the sauce. not a lot, he just squirts it around the whole batch and then mixes it up. looks tasty!

[DirtyDirty00]

oops sorry. didnt see the part about the vinegar. ya i wanna try a vinegar based. maybe dont use this then. i did it one time but i just dumped the vinegar sauce on not realizing that you are only supposted to put a little bit on the whole thing, not just dump it on like a regular BBQ sauce.

[deguerre]

Too much vinegar, and y'all are only three hours away from where Wicker's comes from? Oh, the humanity!

[Dave Russell]

Im dyin to try this... havent gotten to yet tho :(

its chris lillys recipe....

1 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
2 slices of lemon

look him up on youtube chopping up the pulled pork and see how he uses the sauce. not a lot, he just squirts it around the whole batch and then mixes it up. looks tasty!

Not to hijack, but used it for the first time for the Family Reunion Saturday. Very good stuff.

First, squirt a little like Chris Lilly does, but when no vinegar or cayenne haters are looking. Then, suggest that everybody at least squirts on a little (more!) when serving. Next thing you know, the sissies and vinegar haters are trying it when you're not looking and chowing down.

I've tried Carolina "dips", both with or without ketchup, and this simple "sop" stands up to 'em all IMHO. No red sauce required!

[Lake Dogs]

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ight=infernooo (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99442&highlight=infernooo)

James, didnt you ask this same question yesterday?

[Lake Dogs]

Found another good link:

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115704

[Fat Woody]

A few random thoughts:

No offense to the Mrs., but what do others say about your pork? My wife and I don't always like the same flavor profile, but I don't think one person's opinion is worth tossin' the baby out with the bathwater.

How are you planning on holding your pork? We did pulled pork sliders for a People's Choice awhile back and just kept covered pans on the smoker at around 200* (BTW - we ran through 20 lbs of pork in about 45 min. so keeping it hot wasn't much of a problem!).

I know you said alternatives to BBQ sauce, but if you're just lookin' to change things up, BH Tenn Red is popular. You could thin it considerably with AJ and still keep a bit of the vinegar profile if you like.

[chomper's bbq]

Thanks for all of the great comments and yes I did ask yesterday but recieved very few comments so I tried again with a different heading with by the way great replies.

[Wampus]

I've tried Poobah's Pulled Pork sauce before. Simple and real tasty!
It's in the Brethren Cookbook as:

Ingredients:
32 oz. cheap ketchup. 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar. 1 cup sugar. 1 stick of margarine. i cup of lemon juice. 2 Tsp. black pepper. 2 Tbsp.crushed red pepper (red pepper flakes)
Cooking Instructions:
Put in a pot and bring to a boil. Keeps for weeks(months even) in the fridge. Good stuff


My personal favorite is South Carolina Mustard Vinegar sauce out of Steve Raichlene's BBQ USA. Sorry I can't recall the exact recipe now, but it has Dijon, white vinegar, onion and butter and hot sauce in it and that's it.

[Dave Russell]

James, you been using ACV in your finishing sauce? After trying the Big Bob Gibson Sop that I mentioned (after Deguerre suggested it last week :thumb:), I'm convinced that plain distilled vinegar is far superior to cider vinegar when it comes to pulled pork. Honestly, I think some folks aversion to vinegar might've been from either a strong hand, or dips with lots of ACV.

As to what to use to keep the pork moist and juicy, I'd be careful since it seems like that's where we run into trouble. I don't cater, but the best thing I've done is to simply be careful to not pull the meat into shreds (thumb-sized chunks stay moist better) and also beware of residual cooking in the foil after a cook...use smaller pans for serving, pulling out another as needed. One of the worst things I ever "learned" on bbq forums was that you could hold pork butts and keep 'em hot in a cooler for several hours if done early. I learned the hard way that was a good way to get dry and mushy bbq that needed "fixing".

[Lake Dogs]

Please take a look through the 40 or 50 recipes in infernooo's thread (link provided above). There are LOTS of good suggestions there as to what goes great with pulled pork, and most aren't vinegar based. He's even made 10 or 15 of them and scored them. Mind you, it's his opinion, but he offers additional suggestions and talks at length on each one, merits, etc.

IMHO most of the over-the-counter sauces are very thick (very flavorful and mask meat flavors) and have smoke flavorings in them that can conflict with pork rather than preserve or enhance it's flavor. As such, our sauces that we (me as well as other team members) use contain no smoke flavorings. Also, we dont use any sugars in our rubs, so our sauces tend to err slightly on the sweet side (you'll see how sweet if you read infernooo's thread). They're thin so as not to just cover the meat with flavor. They're intended to be put on HOT, but can be applied cool or cold. You'll find a few vinegar recipes that fit this, but we're also not huge fans of vinegar sauces (although I am, most of the rest of the team isn't), so we only use small amounts of vinegar in our sauces (by way of Blues Hog Tennessee Red). Our competition sauce still has a hint of vinegar, but I'll let Infernooo say it. If you do decide to try ours, note we had a typo in the original post of the recipe. I think it's on a subsequent page of that thread that we corrected it, before infernooo made him a batch.

[chomper's bbq]

Thanks for the input. Lake Dog. could you pleaSE RESEND THE LINK. or possibly I don't know how to retreive it.

[EastSideRich]

If it's just too vinegary, might I suggest diluting your usual with the drippings?
Last time I made a butt, I made a typical apple cider vinegar sauce and diluted it by about half with the drippings from the meat (fat skimmed off).
It was freakin awesome.
Cuts the vinegar's bite (but it's still there) and adds yummy pig flavor.

I think this is the link referenced above.
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99442
looks like I've got some reading to do as well.

[Lake Dogs]

It's a long read, and the first page or two are strange complaints. However, I think infernooo did great reviews on all the sauces (more indebth than I'd have imagined), with pics, etc.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ight=infernooo (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99442&highlight=infernooo)

[CMALANGA]

Sweet Baby Rays 18oz, 3 tab spoons butter melted in 1/4 cup honey. Not fake smokey tasting, which I agree stinks, and not overly sweet as it may seem from the ingriedients.

[Warthog]

Pulled pork on a bun with coleslaw.