Let's talk BBQ and BBQ sauce recipes

[torolover]

I have been experimenting with Sous Vide Pork Ribs and looking for the best BBQ sauce recipe.  I know some of you will say Sous Vide Ribs are not "real" BBQ, but I don't have a outdoor grill or smoker.

 

Modernist Cuisine has 8 BBQ sauce Recipes.   I have tried it's Kansas City sauce and it's pretty good.  Has anyone tried the other 7 recipes?

 

Anyone have what they consider the best BBQ sauce recipe?

Edited December 3, 2016 by torolover (log)

[nickrey]

I have a soft spot for Bill and Cheryl Jamison's bourbon-based Bour-B-Q Sauce from "Smoke and Spice."

[rustwood]

FWIW, I am a fan of Diva Q's competition sauce.  I have the book, but I did a google book search for:

 

diva q's "competition sauce"

 

and the recipe came up for me.  It makes 10 cups of sauce so I cut it in half, but even that was a lot sauce for me (owner of more than one smoker, occasional competition BBQer).

 

[scubadoo97]

1 hour ago, nickrey said:

I have a soft spot for Bill and Cheryl Jamison's bourbon-based Bour-B-Q Sauce from "Smoke and Spice."

Care to share?

[Dave W]

So many different kinds to choose from

 

If you like KC style this one is good

 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/44491/big-als-kc-bar-b-q-sauce/

 

if you like a more tangy one then I'm a fan of this

 

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/fat-johnnys-bastardized-piedmont-sauce-52236021

 

There are endless variations and regional styles so it's beyond my ability to nominate the "best." Sauces that work with pork are often good with chicken and vice versa, beef likes some different flavors

 

 

 

[kayb]

Are you talking about sauce to cook the ribs in, or to apply after SV, when you sear? I never sauce my ribs before SV; I always use a dry rub. Sometimes I make my own (salt, brown sugar, different chiles, onion and garlic powder, paprika, allspice, whatever else I think of), and sometimes I use a commercial one.

 

For sauce, I'm partial to Memphis' own "Dancing Pigs" sauce from The BarBQ Shop, one of my top five in the barbecue pantheon.

 

[nickrey]

On 04/12/2016 at 10:06 AM, scubadoo97 said:

Care to share?

Copyright means that I can't share the exact recipe.  However, the authors have contributed the recipe to this site. Enjoy.

Edited December 5, 2016 by nickrey (log)

[Paul Fink]

I'm one of those that would say 'taint BBQ" The smoke makes the Q not the sauce.

I don't use any sauce on my ribs. Just a rub and a glaze.

You had me all fired up to talk BBQ and then you shot me down with  "Sous Vide Pork Ribs"

Oh well can I ask a question? The art of smoking ribs is to balance the times & temps so the fat gets

rendered off and you get a good smoky bark. Does Sous Vide render off the fat? Do you sear them in an oven?

I guess that was two questions I'm not trying to bash your post. The questions are genuine. 

[rustwood]

@Paul Fink, I haven't done sous vide ribs, but I have done brisket.  My family now prefers it to low and slow smoked brisket.  I am still trying to sort it out, but IIRC, I am zeroing in on ~48 hours in the SV and ~2 hours in the smoker.  It yields a more tender texture than a straight low and slow smoke.   The amount of fat and connective tissue that is rendered in SV depends on the temperature you cook at and the duration of the cook.  Chefsteps has an excellent comparison of the different results that you get with short ribs at various times and temperatures.  Some of them are very much not like BBQ, some of them are closer.  It gets more complicated when you add in smoking to finish them.  I have had brisket come out without enough fat rendered and with them too dry.  I doubt it is possible to smoke them long enough after cooking SV to get a good traditional bark.  That isn't the be all and end all for me though.

[Paul Fink]

Rustwood, Thanks for answering my questions.

I guess I'm just a smoke and fire guy.

[Norm Matthews]

I just posted a bunch of BBQ sauces and rubs on my blog site which is listed below.  About 30 years ago the Kansas City Star conducted a tasting of all the commercial BBQ sauces that were widely distributed at the time.  They concluded that the best one was Gates & sons which is one of the oldest BBQ restaurants in Kansas City. Arthur Bryant's sauce came as one of the next highest ratings. About 15 or 20 years ago Ollie Gates provided the recipe for that sauce on a Martha Stewart show.  That recipe is provided on the site I mentioned earlier.  This sauce is not what most people call Kansas City style. The thing about" KC BBQ sauce" is that most people base it on KC Masterpiece which is a tomatoey molasses sauce.  Most Kansas City BBQers are not all that big of fans of that sauce.  Actually many competition BBQers do not sauce their meats.  Texan BBQers say they don't serve sauce on their meat or on the side because they don't have anything to hide.   I have attempted to copy Arthur Bryant's original sauce and people tell me it's close.  His sauce didn't have any tomatoes.  I think it does now that it has passed out of his family's control.

 

But most people think meat isn't really BBQ if it does not come with BBQ sauce and my preference generally tends to kinds that taste a lot like steak sauce rather than sweet and sticky.

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[chileheadmike]

I'm back home in KC about 3 or 4 times a year. When I'm there, I stock up on sauce, Bryant's, Blues Hog, Night of the Living Dead from Oklahoma Joe's, maybe some Gate's. They do it better than I ever could. 

 

When we did competition barbecue, we used Blues Hog as it's pretty sweet, and a little spicy with good vinegar. A lot of teams at the time used doctored up Kraft. Some KC Masterpiece, but I never really like that one. 

 

I've never done sous vide but friends swear by it. The briskets I've done are 12 to 15 lbs with a lot of fat on them, even after trimming. I imagine the SV would have to be big, plus the amount of fat coming off of one of those things could get messy.

[Norm Matthews]

I would speculate that Night of the Living Dead from Joe's Kansas City Barbecue (formerly Oklahoma Joe's) is one of the most popular BBQ restaurants and sauce in Kansas City now days.

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[chileheadmike]

That's right, they changed their name. I may never get used to that. 

[Norm Matthews]

In addition,  Plowboy is a newer brand that has gotten some good reviews.  Oklahoma Joe,the man, not the restaurant had one of my favorite sauces but he sold his interest in the BBQ smoker business and the sauce with it to Char Broil and the sauce is no longer available.  Oklahoma Joe's brother revived the BBQ smoker business in Oklahoma and sells Joe's sauce-or one very close to it.  The smoker line and the BBQ sauce are sold now under the name of Horizon.  

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[torolover]

20 hours ago, Paul Fink said:

I'm one of those that would say 'taint BBQ" The smoke makes the Q not the sauce.

I don't use any sauce on my ribs. Just a rub and a glaze.

You had me all fired up to talk BBQ and then you shot me down with  "Sous Vide Pork Ribs"

Oh well can I ask a question? The art of smoking ribs is to balance the times & temps so the fat gets

rendered off and you get a good smoky bark. Does Sous Vide render off the fat? Do you sear them in an oven?

I guess that was two questions I'm not trying to bash your post. The questions are genuine. 

 

I live a small apt and don't have a smoker or grill.  I'm hoping to come close to replicating a real BBQ.  Modernist Cuisine believe that ribs that are cold smoked and then sous vide are superior then to traditionally smoked ribs at high temperatures.

 

I sous vide my St. Louis Ribs at 160F for 18 hours.  The ribs are super tender, but still not to the point where they disintegrate when you bite them.  I believe they are more juicy then traditionally smoked ribs because the lower temps keep them moist.

 

At 18 hours a lot of fat has rendered and the fat becomes really soft.

 

I've been experimenting with how to form a bark.  After I sous vide them, I tried torching them with my Searzall for a crust.  I've also tried broiling them in the oven.  To give a smokey flavor I render fat from Benton's Bacon, and glaze it to the ribs for the finish.

 

Any tips?

 

 

Edited December 6, 2016 by torolover (log)

[Paul Fink]

Thanks for the reply. I just recently joined the site. I was impressed when I saw folks quoting Gastronomique. But I may have been mistaken. I don't really endorse the  Modernist Cuisine. I go for classical cuisine whether French or BBQ. BBQ isn't about cooking the perfect piece of meat. Its about a man, a fire, & smoke. Its a culture as much as a cuisine. Its taken me as long to learn to BBQ as it did to learn classical French cuisine.

One standard methods of cooking St Louis ribs is term 321. 3 hours on the grate with full smoke. This is the time when the bark is formed. Then 2 hours wrapped in foil to finish cooking the ribs with out drying them out. Then they are unwrapped, glazed and put back on the smoker for an hour. This gives them a a nice finish.The smoker runs at about 225 °

If I understand what your doing, the best method maybe to substitute the time in foil with sous vide cooking. Then glaze and put in oven. 

yes I know that still requires a grill or a smoker but that's bbq

Edited December 6, 2016 by Paul Fink (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

@Paul Fink you may not be aware @nathanm has won an award for barbeque.  Modernist cuisine is not just about sous vide cookery.

 

[gfweb]

55 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

@Paul Fink you may not be aware @nathanm has won an award for barbeque.  Modernist cuisine is not just about sous vide cookery.

 

Yeah, done reasonably, all the techniques merge into an approach to cooking that is optimal

 

[rustwood]

10 hours ago, Paul Fink said:

the best method maybe to substitute the time in foil with sous vide cooking. Then glaze and put in oven.

 

Some people smoke before cooking SV.  Part of their rationale seems to be that the smoke flavor permeates the meat during the SV stage.  Another rationale is that they can form bark.  I haven't done it so I don't know if X hours in a SV bath with the jus is any worse on the bark than 2 hours in foil with jus/brown sugar/honey/Parkay/butter/sauce etc.

[chileheadmike]

15 hours ago, torolover said:

 

I live a small apt and don't have a smoker or grill.  I'm hoping to come close to replicating a real BBQ.  Modernist Cuisine believe that ribs that are cold smoked and then sous vide are superior then to traditionally smoked ribs at high temperatures.

 

I sous vide my St. Louis Ribs at 160F for 18 hours.  The ribs are super tender, but still not to the point where they disintegrate when you bite them.  I believe they are more juicy then traditionally smoked ribs because the lower temps keep them moist.

 

At 18 hours a lot of fat has rendered and the fat becomes really soft.

 

I've been experimenting with how to form a bark.  After I sous vide them, I tried torching them with my Searzall for a crust.  I've also tried broiling them in the oven.  To give a smokey flavor I render fat from Benton's Bacon, and glaze it to the ribs for the finish.

 

Any tips?

 

 

 

You might try adding a layer of brown sugar on top of the ribs before broiling, being careful not to burn it.

[gdenby]

18 hours ago, torolover said:

I've been experimenting with how to form a bark.  After I sous vide them, I tried torching them with my Searzall for a crust.  I've also tried broiling them in the oven.  To give a smokey flavor I render fat from Benton's Bacon, and glaze it to the ribs for the finish.

 

Any tips?

 

 

 

 Using the Benton's Bacon is  good.  For myself, I've never tasted anything cooked w. any brand of liquid smoke that tasted good. Perhaps I always use too much. Or maybe the stuff has a shelf life. Don't know. Sometimes even good Spanish smoked paprika tastes bitter. I've had better luck using powdered smoke, which I think is liquid smoke encapsulated in maltodextrin. It doesn't seem harsh. I've added a tiny bit to the rub when I've SV'd ribs, and thought the flavor was like mildly smoked BBQ from over coals.

 

But in the past few months I have been mixing browned butter w. rendered country bacon fat when making sauce. I think it tastes pretty good.

 

Its a matter of taste, but I am more of a fan of "dry" ribs. Not cooked w. sauce, and only served perhaps w. a little on the side. I don't have a Searzall, but have finished in a very hot oven. The results were OK. Not like from over wood coals, but definitely worth eating.

[Barrytm]

I have done a fair amount of experimenting with St. Louis Style ribs.  One method is smoker, no wrapping, for around 7 hours at 225 -  it comes out with a great smoky flavor, and a great crust or bark, with texture on the outside like crispy bacon  .   However, the ribs are no where near as moist as SV, and there is much less meat on the bone after cooking than SV.   I have tried smoking, then sous vide, then on the grill or broiler to crust.  The texture and moistness is much better, but it seems like a lot of the smoke flavor gets lost in the SV process.  My current process, is dry rub,  then SV -  30 to 36 hours at 142 ,  sometimes I smoke for an hour before SV, sometimes not,  then smoke again for about another hour after SV, then apply glaze and put on the grill or broiler for a few minutes.     We had a blind taste test at work,  SV ribs v. Smoker using the 3-2-1 method, and the testers chose the SV method for taste and texture, though the smoker method definitely had a smokier flavor.  

 

Torolover,  I think you are on the right path.  I haven't tried the powdered smoke mentioned above - you might want to try that.  If I were you, I would take them out of the SV and drain and pat dry,  put them under a broiler for a minute or two a side, then apply a glaze and go back under the broiler .   While you won't get the same bark, the ribs are much more tender and juicy then smoked ribs can ever be.        

 

[Dave W]

Sous vide followed by a couple hours of smoke is quite delicious. I highly recommend trying it that way if you have the means.