Favorite BBQ Sauce

Dreamland Barbeque sauce is our favorite. We order it over the internet. That way we can buy big meaty perfectly smoked ribs with no sauce from E&L (a local pit) and add the sauce. Not exactly like being at Dreamland, but very close.

Dinosaur. Interesting. The few places here have zero sugar. Out of the bunch including mine, there is only 1 bottled version, I think, and that's Blain Hill sauce. I can buy it at the grocery, but others do sell their sauce at their store. Blain Hill also ships. There are these here that NO sugar. Blain Hill, Eliots backstreet BBQ, Rib Cage, and a guy named Jerrome , not sure what he's up to. The whole thing seems to center in Monongahela Pa.
9out of 10 would not have it any other way.

i think it all started from a place they called the Rib Joint, dirt floor, in Monongahela. I never went there. They used to always talk about going to the Rib Joint in high school in the 60's.

Greg

gregys
Dinosaur. Interesting. The few places here have zero sugar. Out of the bunch including mine, there is only 1 bottled version, I think, and that's Blain Hill sauce. I can buy it at the grocery, but others do sell their sauce at their store. Blain Hill also ships. There are these here that NO sugar. Blain Hill, Eliots backstreet BBQ, Rib Cage, and a guy named Jerrome , not sure what he's up to. The whole thing seems to center in Monongahela Pa.
9out of 10 would not have it any other way.

I am talking about total amount of sugar per serving, not added sugar.
 
Bart

Not sure what adding sugar means.

I just wanted to say, I think BBQ sauce is specific, for basting, or dipping.Need sugar for basting, but none for dipping.

Greg

Really? Maybe in Pennsylvania. Do you know Joe?

gregys
Not sure what adding sugar means.

Well, for example, most fruits, including tomatoes, have sugar. So barbecue sauce with any fruits in it will have sugar, even if sugar is not listed as one of the ingredients. And sugar can have many aliases, such as corn syrup, fruit juice, honey, cane juice, high fructose corn syrup, etc.
 
Bart
 

molasses. 

My favorite sauce has varied throughout the years . I liked Big Bob Gibsons for a few years but have now grown tired of it. Current favorite is called "Blue Front" , A rather thin orange colored spicy sauce that originated in the restaurant of the same name in South Florida . Not sure if the restaurant is still open but thought I read somewhere it wasn't. Blue Front sauce is available at Publix in both mild and spicy I believe.

Went to the grocery today, they usually have good prices on generic sauces. I pick up about the last remaining sauce untested by me. Bulls Eye. Open it up, watch it slowly pour even thoough it's warm, turn around and toss it in the trash.

Must be over a dozen sauces pretty much all the same, except Stubbsaboriginal and the two local sauces.

Have not tried the other two Stubbs flavors. Sometime.

Greg

Why?

I used to buy the cheapest thing on the shelf.  Empty it in a sauce pan with a can of coke, cook it down and rebottle it.  It was a family favorite for years. 

I really have no favorite. What I do is buy what is on sale( as we really dont use bbq sauce except for my cocktail weiner recipe) and then when I have a few bottles-mix them together, add minced onions( as always)and use the concoction on whatever the meat on the grill needs. Please understand that Bob and I dont eat alot of BBQ, so it goes on stuff we feed others. They rave about my "sauce"! The sauce Bob and I love is from a place called Speed Queen, in Milwaukee. Best BBQ we have ever had( the only one he will eat), and one must arm themselves heavily after dark to get it.

I buy Chris and Pitts BBQ sauce at The 99¢ Only Store.  I also use it for my little smokey recipe.
 
I also usually don't put sauce on things I grill.  That's for later if someone (read MOM) wants it.
 
Chris and Pitts use that have a local restaurant so it's a tradition with me.  Is it good?  I guess so.
 
When Ellen was visiting Los Angeles we drove to a Chris and Pitts somewhere in the surrounding area.  I didn't use any of their sauce at that time because I ordered halibut.  Raw halibut.  I guess when in a BBQ place one should order what they're famous for.
 
Back to sauce...

Gates Extra Hot!

julieboyd


Gates Extra Hot!

very true!

I don't usually buy ot sauce. I just chew on habanero peppers as needed. You can always make a sauce hot. I have a bottle of Daves insanity sauce, which you add a drop at a time.

I just talked to brother. I got.his recipe, but not exactly.
Bullseye, Hunts ketchup, and tobasco. Seems promising. Let me take that bottle of bullseye out of the trash!!!!

Greg

I don't usually buy ot sauce. I just chew on habanero peppers as needed. You can always make a sauce hot. I have a bottle of Daves insanity sauce, which you add a drop at a time.

I just talked to brother. I got.his recipe, but not exactly.
Bullseye, Hunts ketchup, and tobasco. Seems promising. Let me take that bottle of bullseye out of the trash!!!!

Full recipe to make 10 oz.

3 parts Hunts ketchup
1 part Bullseye
3 shakes A1
5 shakes Tobasco.

I'm going to try it.

Greg

------------------

I don't like the result.

This is better but I didn't use a1, which I will try again.

1 part equals 1/4 cup

3 parts hunts ketchup
1/2 part Bullseye
1/2 part apple vinegar
1/2 part water
10 hards shakes tobasco
1 pinch black pepper
1 pinch celery seed
1 pinch ground cloves

Bring to simmer and cool.

Next time will skip the Bullseye and use 1 part a1 sauce.

Greg

I don't know as if I have a clear favorite, but we've been using a lot of Brooks BBQ sauce lately.
 
http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Overview/6053/brooks-house-of-barbq
 
We can smell the pits cooking from my brother's house when the wind is right. If we aren't eating there, we're cooking with their sauces seems like.

If I don't use my own, which is the majority of the time, I'll crack open a bottle of BullsEye. Since they stopped using HFCS and branched out to having different styles they've really taken things up a notch.

Gates Extra Hot! I live outside of KC and order it buy the case very often!

This is an interesting discussion. For me, I find that while there  are a lot of commercial bbq sauces available that aren't that good, the best are at least as good as I can make myself, and some are better.
 
I don't draw any lines between sweet or savory, or thin and thick. If it's good, I like it. What I don't like is fake smoke taste.
 
Stubb's is pretty good; what I like is that it is distinctive.
 
My favorite not so sweet sauce is Dinosaur. This is what my own sauce tastes like, sort of, but I like Dinosaur better. My favorite sweet sauce is Tasty Licks, from Fred's Music & BBQ Supply in Reading PA.

I'm with Mosca on the fake smoke taste.  In fact, I prefer the meat to have the smoky taste rather than the sauce.

Yes, he's annoying.  Yes, he's an egomaniac.  Yes, he makes me want to kick over my TV sometimes, but Guy Fieri's Bourbon Brown Sugar (or something like that) is fantastic for a bottled sauce.  I got a free sample and went back to buy 3 more bottles.  I generally make my own sauce, but in a pinch, this stuff is really good.  Also, the ingredient list is SHORT and mostly natural (no HFCS, but there is corn starch and xanthan).  Give it a try, it's really quite good.
 
 

Sweet Baby Rays is what we usually get. I've tried Stubb's several times and just dont like it.

Gregys posted a link for Blaine Hill bbq sauce; the storefront's ordering system is disabled. But I did find a link for it here:
 
http://www.stellofoods.co...category.aspx?catid=37
 
I ordered some mild, hot, and batman. I remember batman as being ridiculously hot. But I'm mostly interested in seeing if I remember the taste as well as I think I do.

I love the Roadhouse BBQ brands when I can find them.
 
I use sweet baby rays and then doctor it up a bit.

Well, I got my order of Blaine Hill BBQ sauce, and because I'm a normal person, I opened a bottle and stuck my finger in it to see what it tasted like.
 
It's OK, pretty decent. I like it. I wouldn't say it isn't sweet at all, but it's not a sweet sauce. Total sugar per 1.1 oz serving, 1 gram. The fifth ingredient is dextrose, the seventh is maltodextrin. What it tastes like is good home made spaghetti sauce but without the basil.
 
tomato puree
vinegar
mustard flour
salt
dextrose
msg
maltodextrin
onion powder
garlic powder
spices
 
I tried the hot, which isn't hot at all, maybe a little spicy. Just a second, I'll open the Batman... OK, it's about as hot as tabasco, maybe not quite. It's not the dangerous stuff I remember from my youth, that's for sure; maybe 3 or 4 on a scale of 1-10. I can eat it from a spoon. It's not as hot as Dinosaur's Habanero BBQ sauce.
 
I can taste some of the other stuff in there, but most of the flavor is on the list. Anything else is nuance, the last flavor I can identify is the garlic. The nuance is something like cinnamon, but not cinnamon. Sure, it might be allspice. There's less celery seed than I remember. That sauce might have been Jerome's rather than Blaine Hill.
 
I'd eat this stuff, all in all. I might not pay the shipping, but I'd buy it in the store in Pittsburgh and bring it back.
 
 
 

I just changed favorites...
 
My previous favorite is a local sauce called OT's...it's from Contra Costa County (SF Bay Area) on the delta side of Mt Diablo (Antioch but started in Pittsburg)...I think it was started by 2 players from the Oakland Raiders. It's owned by Hazel Foods and their webby site is www.otsbbqsauce.com  and it's a VERY simple sweet red sauce that I've been using for close to 20 years, and the only place I can find it is at the Safeway in a nearby town...it's a deep mahogany color and the 1st ingredient on the label is Ketchup, so it DOES have humble beginnings, and I sometimes use this as a side dip for a tri-Tip bbq...
 
But the king is dead, long live the (new) king...also from CCC (Contra Costa County) and it's Kinder's...a friend says she remembers a Kinders Restaurant as a kid, "someplace" in CCC...maybe Danville ?  and it comes from western CCC (Walnut Creek)...this is also a sweet red sauce but of a lighter, more orange color, and I think the taste is what I've been looking for...it went on my Super Burger tonight, and I often slother it on my favorite cajun hot links (Evergood, a company in San Francisco)...I like the MILD version. They DO make a roasted garlic version but I think the garlic is burnt & bitter. The first ingredient is tomato puree, so it also comes from humble beginnings...their webby site is www.kindersbbq.com  I bet I'll use this stuff on everything but pancakes...
 
I have a friend in AL that keeps promising to send me some red bbq sauce from his area, but I have yet to see it show up after 5 years, so I'll search the internet and see what I can come up with...
 
I did send some to a friend a couple of years ago and 1 bottle broke in the variety pack I sent...so I think IF  I mail any in the future I'll seal it up first in a sturdy food "heat sealing pouch" to contain any potential mess is a bottle breaks again...

Wait until you visit Clark's Outpost in Tioga, Texas.
 
That is if you like a smoky, sweet sauce.

Sounds like something I'd like to try...