Commercial Sauces Without Added Smoke Flavor?

[ChrisBarb]

All the commercial sauces available around have added liquid smoke or smoke flavor added. IMO, it makes your food taste over smoked, as it laready has been smoked. What are your recommendations? (I know peeps will chime in with "make your own!". But I am going for easy/quick here.)

Thanks.

 

[Cook]

Make your own?

I don't do sauces with smoke flavoring either. Many restaurants in my area that serve local, "traditional" barbecue make their sauces with liquid smoke. Tells me there's a rat in the woodpile somewhere. Their barbecue doesn't taste a bit smokey without the sauce.

 

[IamMadMan]

I would say that the multitude of consumers do not know what real BBQ is. Most of these consumers cook in an oven or on a gas grill thinking that the sauce is what defines the meal as BBQ, so smoke flavoring is a bonus for them.

Look past the grocery store shelves that hold the sticky sweet smoke flavored sauces, visit farmer's markets and local BBQ Teams if any, and many of these sell their own quality sauces without artificial smoke.

If neither are available in your area, try mail order from a BBQ Supply. Blues Hog and Head Country are some of the most popular used sauces by BBQ enthusiasts by both competitive and backyard BBQ cooks.

Stubb's Original, Blues Hog, Head Country, Maull's, Phil's, and many others out there are great sauces to begin with either by themselves or by building upon them. If it all seems overwhelming, you can even experiment by making your own.

Many will use a commercial sauce as a base and build upon it, while others have successfully blended multiple sauces. Mike Mills, The BBQ Legend, wrote in his book "Peace, Love, BBQ" (2005) that Maull’s is the perfect base sauce to start with and add your own ingredients to make it your own "Secret Sauce". Johnny Trig (The GodFather of Ribs) remarked during a winning competition cook; He stated that his sauce has been perfected and he uses a mixture of bottled sauces, of course he did not say which ones.

Of course it is no secret that many people (both home and competition) favor a 50/50 mixture of Blues Hog Original with Blues Hog Tennessee Red, while other prefer a 60/40 mixture of the same products. Blues Hog Original is A thick syrup consistency and heavy-handed ingredients that adds a ton of flavor, this can be a little over-powering for the basic backyard cook. But mixing Blues Hog Original with Blues Hog Tennessee Red, which is thinner, not as sweet as the original, and has a tangy vinegar component, creates A thick vinegar based sauce with simple ingredients that delivers a good balance of flavors with a slight hint of heat in the mixture.

Mixtures are not just limited to Blues Hog products, many mix Sweet Baby Ray's with Head Country, while others mix Stubb's with a mustard sauce, and there are many more combinations out there. These are just common examples.

Feel free to peruse the variety of sauces sold on-line... https://www.atlantabbqstore.com/collections/bbqsauces

.

 

[Czarbecue]

I mix 4 parts Head Country to 1 parts honey mustard dressing. This will do until I make every part of it from scratch.

 

[ckoss]

IamMadMan that was a really informative post.

 

[IamMadMan]

Just for reference...

I recently did a Poll on Q-talk

11% didn't use a commercial sauce, the either don't serve sauce or some make their own.

89% Used a commercial sauce.

Of that 89%,
51% used it as is right out of the bottle, the other 49% either mixed, blended, or added other ingredients to customize the sauce.

Just food for thought...

 

[Czarbecue]

Just for reference...

I recently did a Poll on Q-talk

11% didn't use a commercial sauce, the either don't serve sauce or some make their own.

89% Used a commercial sauce.

Of that 89%,
51% used it as is right out of the bottle, the other 49% either mixed, blended, or added other ingredients to customize the sauce.

Just food for thought...

You should do a poll about commercial rubs.

 

[ckoss]

+1 for that poll.

 

[gtr]

...
Of course it is no secret that many people (both home and competition) favor a 50/50 mixture of Blues Hog Original with Blues Hog Tennessee Red, while other prefer a 60/40 mixture of the same products. Blues Hog Original is A thick syrup consistency and heavy-handed ingredients that adds a ton of flavor, this can be a little over-powering for the basic backyard cook. But mixing Blues Hog Original with Blues Hog Tennessee Red, which is thinner, not as sweet as the original, and has a tangy vinegar component, creates A thick vinegar based sauce with simple ingredients that delivers a good balance of flavors with a slight hint of heat in the mixture....

.

I'm not much of a sauce guy - I'll use homemade Shack Attack on pork, usually nothing on beef or chix, maybe the occasional light glaze on ribs - but - if I'm cooking for a group, it's good to have some kinda sauce around and what IamMadMan has described is exactly what I do - easy for me, everybody's happy - all good.