/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.5184828]

BBQ SAUCE THREAD
BBQ SAUCE THREAD
BBQ SAUCE THREAD

ITT: We are educated on the various types of regional BBQ sauces in the USA. We discuss our favorite types, share recipes, and tell each other why our favorite type of BBQ sauce is horse shit. Come /ck/ friends, lets talk sauce. Come unleash your maddest most deep seated autism in a safe, controlled, and supervised environment. We encourage it.

To begin the thread is a brief rundown of the major types of sauces. I'm sure there are countless different styles that I am failing to post, come tell us about them. But these are the big dawgs.

[Anonymous No.5184831]

>East Carolina Sauce
– Most American barbecue sauces can trace their roots to the two sauces common in North Carolina.[citation needed] The simplest and the earliest were supposedly popularized by African slaves who also advanced the development of American barbecue. They were made with vinegar, ground black pepper, and hot chili pepper flakes. It is used as a "mopping" sauce to baste the meat while it was cooking and as a dipping sauce when it is served. Thin and sharp, it penetrates the meat and cuts the fats in the mouth. There is little or no sugar in this sauce. Due to the sharp taste, it has more of a cult following amongst people not of the region.

[Anonymous No.5184834]

>Lexington Dip (a.k.a. Western Carolina Dip or Piedmont Dip)
– In Lexington and in the "Piedmont" hilly areas of western North Carolina, the sauce is often called a dip. It is a lot like the East Carolina Sauce (above) with tomato paste, tomato sauce, or ketchup added. The vinegar softens the tomato.

[Anonymous No.5184836]

>Kansas City
– Thick, reddish-brown, tomato or ketchup-based with sugars, vinegar, and spices. Evolved from the Lexington Dip (above), it is significantly different in that it is thick and sweet and does not penetrate the meat as much as sit on the surface. This is the most common and popular sauce in the US and all other tomato based sauces are variations on the theme using more or less of the main ingredients.

[Anonymous No.5184838]

>Memphis
– Similar to the Kansas City style, typically having the same ingredients, but tending to have a larger percentage of vinegar and use molasses as a sweetener.

[Anonymous No.5184841]

>>5184838

there's not much molasses in the sauce pictured, look how light the color is.

[Anonymous No.5184843]

>South Carolina Mustard Sauce
– Part of South Carolina is known for its yellow barbecue sauces made primarily of yellow mustard, vinegar, sugar and spices. This sauce is most common in a belt from Columbia to Charleston, an area settled by many Germans. Vinegar-based sauces with black pepper are common in the coastal plains region as in North Carolina, and thin tomato- and vinegar-based sauces are common in the hilly regions as in North Carolina.

[Anonymous No.5184847]

>Texas
– In some of the older, more traditional restaurants the sauces are heavily seasoned with cumin, chili peppers, bell peppers, chili powder or ancho powder, lots of black pepper, fresh onion, only a touch of tomato, little or no sugar, and they often contain meat drippings and smoke flavor because meats are dipped into them. They are medium thick and often resemble a thin tomato soup. They penetrate the meat easily rather than sit on top. Bottled barbecue sauces from Texas are often different from those used in the same restaurants because they do not contain meat drippings.

[Anonymous No.5184849]

>Alabama White Sauce
– North Alabama is known for its distinctive white sauce, a mayonnaise-based sauce, which is used predominantly on chicken and pork. It is composed of mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, salt and black pepper.

[Anonymous No.5184854]

>>5184843
My Mustard Sauce is mainly mustard, honey, brown sugar and vinegar.

So delicious.

[Anonymous No.5184857]

>>5184828
You're doing gods work op.

[Anonymous No.5184873]

>>5184854
Post recipe plox?

I love mustard sauce. At heart I'm a spicy meat drippins Texas sauce guy, but that mustard sauce is a close second. So good and tangy.

Least favorite I've had is the Kansas City stuff. Its just too thick and sweet for me, glorified ketchup IMO. I've never had the Alabama white stuff but it sounds nauseating. I'd still give it a go though just to see.

[Anonymous No.5184877]

intradasting

[Anonymous No.5184911]

>>5184828
nigga please

great meat wont need no damned sauce


>covering a great slab of meat with sauce spoiling it

[Anonymous No.5184926]

>>5184849

[Anonymous No.5184934]

>>5184911
>great meat wont need no damned sauce

Wholeheartedly agree. Good bbq is fine without sauce. But good sauce is still nice. We aren't talking about ketchup here (although Kansas City sauce is too close for comfort). Great bbq shouldn't require a sauce but if you don't think they go hand and hand and work then your a faggot. I always keep or request my sauce on the side so I can enjoy the meat with and without it.

[Anonymous No.5184936]

Awesome Basic BBQ sauce
It's a big recipe so scale it down
3 quarts ketchup
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups water
1c cider vinegar
3/4 cup liquid smoke
1/2c Worcestershire
1/2c yellow mustard
3 Tablespoons dark chili powder
2T Pepper
1T Salt
1T granulated garlic
2 teaspoons cumin
1t allspice
1/2t clove

Mix all simmer over low for 30 mins

[Anonymous No.5184941]

>>5184849
I'm from Georgia, also lived in Texas for years. I have never in my goddamn life seen mayonnaise based "bbq" sauce. That is an abomination. Also, why don't Texans like pork bbq? I try to get people fired up about smoking some pork shoulder and nobody really cares. But day brisket though...ooo yeah, gurl

[Anonymous No.5184960]

>>5184941
>I have never in my goddamn life seen mayonnaise based "bbq" sauce. That is an abomination.
Because it's a part of Alabama you haven't been to? I dunno. It's not that different than putting some mayo-dressed coleslaw on your pork sandwich, I suppose. My Georgia relatives do that (Columbus, 4 generations). I think it's an abomination too, but maybe if you have BBQ so damn often, you get into a mayonnaise mood from time to time, lol, dunno.

[Anonymous No.5184963]

>>5184831
>>5184834
My great-grandfather established his restaurant by being one of the first people in the area to combine the two styles and market it. I might be biased since I grew up on it but I haven't found any sauce that can compare.

[Anonymous No.5185012]

>>5184941
>why don't Texans like pork bbq?

We do, just not the same as we like our brisket and sausage. I've actually put alot of thought into why we don't into pork and other places do, I'll try to coherently explain my theory. Also, if I come across and condescending or whatever I mean nothing of the sort, all respect for the smoked pork and ribs yal are cooking elsewhere. This is just how I see it.

Ok brisket. Brisket isn't an easy meat to cook well, pork is much more forgiving. And brisket isn't a cheap piece of meat compared to pork. It takes a lot of trial and error, and it isn't an easy or cheap meat to perfect. Now historically Texas has been a ranching state. We have lots of land and lots of cows, for most of our history beef has been cheap and plentiful here whereas it was hard to come by or non existent in other areas. So, we've had a long time to perfect the brisket. Other areas were perfecting bbq pork because that is what was available or affordable, but IMO beef brisket is the best bbq meat and we just happened to have a lot of it. And because of that we didn't really mess with pork that much.

So, there you have it. Brisket is our main bbq meat, pork is the star elsewhere. Somewhat related is what is probably our second most popular bbq meat. Sausage. Lots of polish and german immigrants live here, mostly in central Texas. They brought the glorious sausage making traditions from Europe and we smoked them.

[Anonymous No.5185044]

>>5185012

Fellow Texan here.

I think it simply comes down to what was the most common source of meat when these traditions started. As you pointed out, Texas has always been known for cattle ranching so it's not suprising that beef brisket is classic Texas BBQ. It's a cheap cut of beef and it's large enough to serve a crowd--perfect for BBQ on all levels: price, size, and a piece of meat that benefits from long slow cooking. As for difficulty I'll agree that it's probably easier for a newbie to cook pork than brisket but just like it takes a lot of experience to cook a really good brisket, so it does for a top-notch hog as well.

I cook a great deal, got a few BBQ competitions under my belt. I do brisket, chicken, ribs, and suckling pigs. The first three are classic BBQ, I cook the pig Balinese style, stuffed with herbs and spit-roasted with constant basting. And after doing it over and over again I've come to learn that what I thought was "easy and perfect" the first couple times actually could be improved upon. Pork takes practice to get perfect just like brisket does.

[Anonymous No.5185077]

This is the BBQ sauce of all BBQ sauce.

[Anonymous No.5185090]

>>5185044
Noted. Yea I agree with what you say about perfecting a meat. Once again no disrespect to anyone. Perfecting pork is probably just as hard as perfecting brisket. I mean we are talking about perfection here, its hard no matter what you are cooking. What I was saying though is that pork is more forgiving. Its easier to make a "good" smoked pork than a "good" smoked brisket. We just happened to have a lot of beef so we into brisket, whereas other places focus on pork because the availability to how bad will I fuck this up ratio is favorable to pork over beef.

All I ever order or cook is brisket and sausage. The pork here isn't bad but why even do that when you have brisket and sausage. But I hope to someday travel around to areas that are known for god-tier pulled pork and pork ribs, I know they can be great.

Any recommendations on places to go for excellent smoked pork in Texas? I travel a bit, but not all over the state. I guess if you can make a triangle from Houston to Dallas to Austin, thats the areas I'll be in.

[Anonymous No.5185097]

>>5184960
Yeah but you don't bake your brisket in the coleslaw

[Anonymous No.5185103]

>>5185044
>>5185012
I'd like to chime in as a non-Texan who's had a good bit of BBQ.

I consider pork to be my favorite of the meats for flavor and versatility.

But if someone can make a perfect brisket, I'm much more impressed with their abilities. I feel like it's the gold standard of BBQ even if most of the time, I'd rather have pork fat dripping off my chin.

[Anonymous No.5185116]

>>5185103
Where you from bro?

[Anonymous No.5185125]

>>5185090
From someone who has done the competitive circuit in Texas, brisket is more bragging rights than anything else. I would actually argue that ribs are the more difficult meat to perfect competition wise, but brisket has its place due it its massively increased price in recent years. I will say that a pork shoulder can be cheated and no one will be the wiser, at home I never finish my pulled pork on the smoker, I almost always go to the oven just so I don't end cooking my life away. Not so with brisket. With ribs you have an exact cook temp, cook time, and texture you have to hit before you even begin to touch on flavor to be perfect. At competition I have only had exactly perfect ribs a few times and always walked away first when I did. I would never sauce meat for competition but for home I love to glaze and grill at the tail end.

[Anonymous No.5185139]

This thread gave me a boner

[Anonymous No.5185145]

>>5185125
Adding on, the real trouble with brisket in competition in my experience is time. You simply do not have enough of it from the time they let you start cooking till turn in to properly cook the meat at the temp for textural perfection. So you HAVE to wrap to get it cooked in time and that will get you nearly perfect but not quite where you should be. Beyond that you just have to learn to buy quality cuts, make a good rub, figure out a good mop, and remember to inject. Good wood can help but it isn't as important as people make it out to be. I have competed with oak and had the same results as apple, I personally would rather pay the 80 bucks for a cord of oak than the 200+ for the apple.

[Anonymous No.5185154]

>>5185145
I actually prefer oak over other woods, price not even a consideration.

[Anonymous No.5185162]

>>5185145
>>5185154
Post oak, in particular.

[Anonymous No.5185172]

Kansas City's best BBQ sauce, reporting in.

[Anonymous No.5185199]

>>5185154

Agreed.

[Anonymous No.5185204]

>>5185154
Oak is nice and benign and has a good temp to it. Apple and Cherry are your best bets for flavor accent but they cost so damn much it isn't worth it. I generally just mix 80% oak to 20% pecan. Wet pecan shells also can add a nice accent to your smoke.

[Anonymous No.5185224]

>>5185204
>wet pecan shells

Gonna make a mental note. My deceased grandmother has two huge pecan trees in her backyard that drop pecans like you wouldn't believe. The family still owns the house and property so its fair game. I don't personally like eating pecans but they are popular with people I know, I might go grab a bunch one day, shell them, give out the nuts and keep the shells for smoking.

[Anonymous No.5185231]

>>5185224
Just be careful, they can fuck the hell outof your temp.

[Anonymous No.5185286]

>>5185231
Noted. I think I've made a lot of mental notes ITT, I'm getting off my ass and grabbing a pen and paper. I'm almost drunk and, well I'm drunk. Will be taking hard copy notes from here on out. Carry on.

[Anonymous No.5185336]

Can anyone post some personal sauce or rub recipes?

[Anonymous No.5185353]

>>5184828
God's work, op

[Anonymous No.5185372]

>>5185224
Pecans are part of the hickory family, makes sense they would impart a good flavor.

[Anonymous No.5185387]

>>5184941

I'm not from the south, just a well traveled west coaster.

Saying that you've never even heard of White BBQ sauce as it's done in Alabama just means you have very limited life experience, and your knowledge, and taste is still the most basic there is.

Not liking something is ok, buy you are completely ignorant and shouldn't offer opinions on anything bbq related.

[Anonymous No.5186129]

>>5185286
>I'm almost drunk and, well I'm drunk.

[Anonymous No.5186204]

>>5184911
>Give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

[Anonymous No.5186212]

I've tried at least a dozen different BBQ sauces, some homemade, but Kraft original is my favorite.

You'd think a mass-produced sauce for casual cooks would be excessively sweet and bland. But it's far from that.

It has a potent herb and spice flavor. Lots of liquid smoke. Tart vinegar. The tomato sauce and sweetners take a backseat to the rest of the flavors.

[Anonymous No.5187677]

>>5186212
That stuff is absolutely vile. Its as bad as the McRib sauce. Burnt plastic tasting artificial smoke.