Homemade vs store bought sauce

I have been making my own sauce for my BBQ lunch service since last July, but recently I've gotten a bit lazy and started putting out Cattlemen's Sauces. I let everybody know I transitioned to "store-bought" sauce and for the most part people are OK with it. I am still making a Cherry Chipotle sauce inspired by Diva Q's sauce in her book though. Personally I LOVE Cattlemen's sauces and it's quite a bit cheaper buying this stuff by the case...and a heck of a lot less time consuming. I was spending roughly 5-7 hours per week making sauce, and now I have that time back to myself.

My only gripe with commercial sauces is the insanely high usage of HFCS. This is why I 100% will not ever buy Sweet Baby Ray's sauce....and I've met Sweet Baby Ray (Raymond) at a BBQ convention and he's a hell of a nice guy. In all of their sauces the #1 ingredient is HFCS and I can't get on board with a sauce composed of mostly a garbage sweetener. On occasion I'll use a bottle of Sonny's sauce from Sam's Club as well, but mostly I stick to Cattlemen's sauces.
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
I have been making my own sauce for my BBQ lunch service since last July, but recently I've gotten a bit lazy and started putting out Cattlemen's Sauces. I let everybody know I transitioned to "store-bought" sauce and for the most part people are OK with it. I am still making a Cherry Chipotle sauce inspired by Diva Q's sauce in her book though. Personally I LOVE Cattlemen's sauces and it's quite a bit cheaper buying this stuff by the case...and a heck of a lot less time consuming. I was spending roughly 5-7 hours per week making sauce, and now I have that time back to myself.

My only gripe with commercial sauces is the insanely high usage of HFCS. This is why I 100% will not ever buy Sweet Baby Ray's sauce....and I've met Sweet Baby Ray (Raymond) at a BBQ convention and he's a hell of a nice guy. In all of their sauces the #1 ingredient is HFCS and I can't get on board with a sauce composed of mostly a garbage sweetener. On occasion I'll use a bottle of Sonny's sauce from Sam's Club as well, but mostly I stick to Cattlemen's sauces.
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Have you tried Bullseye Original? Aside from Blues Hog, i find it one of the better widely available sauces, much better then Cattlemen's. I don't know about the HFCS as i dont have a bottle near me right now to check.
 
I cannot stand a sweet sauce on pulled pork or chicken. I ran across an interesting sauce at Kroger recently, though. Private Selection Carolina Inspired BBQ. Good vinegar and mustard flavor with just enough sweetness to not pucker your lips or other orifices! Haven't tried it on chicken yet, but it is damned good on pork. Cheap, too, $2.25 for a 19 oz. bottle.
 
BH 50/50 and Yes Dear Comp. There are several others that I use when we have folks over. Stubbs is always a good go to sauce.
 
The folks recommending a 50/50 mix of Blues Hog Red and Blue couldn't be more right. I couldn't find the red for a long time and ordered it online. Made my first mix of 50/50 and couldn't believe how good it was. Truly incredible stuff.
 
the only sauce I make on a regular basis is shack sauce. its vinegar based sauce traditionally used for bbq pork.

just like rubs its something I think is important to learn starting out. for home use its easier to just buy quality stuff that I can get online. quality products with ingredients I cant readily buy myself. I just dont use enough sauce or rub to justify buying everything needed to make a batch. I will make my own stuff for large cooks
 
LYU370 said:
If you try making your own sauce, please, please, please write everything down. Years ago I made a sauce based on one of Dr. BBQ's recipes. Didn't have all the ingredients, so I sort of improvised. My mistake was not writing things down. Had a bunch of friends over for some que and everyone went nuts over the sauce. Did I have the recipe to make some more? Nope.

Attempted to re-create it, but never could.
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I have done the same thing, but I still don't write stuff down. Apparently I don't learn, even the hard way.
 
I'm surprised no one has said the Weber BBQ sauces. No HFCS in them. I like them a lot.
I do both, make my own and use store bought stuff when I'm lazy.
To all of you that "gave up" on making your own or just don't...How come?
Time and effort, or can't match the taste profile?
 
sudsandswine said:
I dont make my own BBQ sauce for the same reason I dont bother making my own rubs (aside from a SPOG or something)....the economies of scale for ingredients + effort involved dont add up for the volume of food I cook, let alone not having to go through all the trial and error perfecting the right recipe. Cooking hundreds of pounds of meat per day....well then maybe.
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Bingo!

I have tried recipes that were just ok...and I had to throw “good ingredients after bad” to get a final product that I only use just a little bit of...and then have to toss the rest because it sits in the fridge for far too long.
 
I make my own and freeze it but still buy store bought when I'm out.

A fellow Brethren posted a historical sauce from his region. It's a vinegar with ketchup and brown sugar for the sweetener. Bunch of other ingredients but it's on my other computer or I'd post it.

Lately unless requested by guests most of my Q has sauce on the side.
 
I agree with the consensus. There are a lot of really good store bought sauces out there. My kids have zeroed in on what they like. Huge time savings to just keep a few jars around.
 
I grew up with my dad making his own rubs and sauces so that's what I did/do. I did spend years writing down everything until I finalized my rubs and sauces. Now I have everything in a spreadsheet so I can easily adjust for quantity.
 
LYU370 said:
If you try making your own sauce, please, please, please write everything down. Years ago I made a sauce based on one of Dr. BBQ's recipes. Didn't have all the ingredients, so I sort of improvised. My mistake was not writing things down. Had a bunch of friends over for some que and everyone went nuts over the sauce. Did I have the recipe to make some more? Nope.

Attempted to re-create it, but never could.
Click to expand...


I've had that happen with few different things I made


I made some Bahnmi and just hodge podged recipes and amounts at the time. Everyone loved it, never could recreate it exactly
 
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