I use to work with a older gentleman that would say the right bbq sauce could make tree bark taste good. What is a good store bought bbq sauce? Sweet Baby Ray's is good enough but not great. Mark's Good Stuff Sweet and Spicy (blue label) is pretty good.
Don’t forget you can buy directly at the BBQ restaurants, too. Franklin’s sells at Walmart, and both they and Snow’s have online stores, too. But beware, that doesn’t mean Franklin and Snows actually makes it, sorta like all those pickled items you see in Buccees, Woody’s, etc, it could be someone paying for the right to slap a Franklin/Snows label on a jar. Back in the day, I’d buy Good Company’s for ribs, and doctor a little, to control sweetness. That was sold in pint containers, so you knew it was freshly made, and actually really good for sauce, imo. Not sure if they use same recipe anymore.
Depends on what you like and why you like it. There are people that like Sweet Baby Ray's on brisket, which I can't stand, but I used to like it on ribs. Since then the celery (?) aftertaste in it started bugging me. After a while, I switched to stuff from Rufus Teague when I wanted something sweet instead of Sweet Baby Ray. I've liked various stuff from Stubb's, Sticky Fingers, Rufus Teague, Lillie's Q, etc. But most names have different varieties of sauces that you may like or not like, so.... try them out.
I'm not a BBQ Sause guy, unless I'm doing air fried wings. For that I use 3 parts Franks Extra Hot Wing sauce, 1 part Stubbs Spicy BBQ sauce and a touch of Butter. When I'm slow cooking on my pit, I just use an old school Mop Sauce recipe my grandpa and dad used to use.
I was gonna say something along these lines, but didn't want to confuse the city people. What's your granddad's basic mop? Mine's: vinegar oil (bacon grease works too) beer veggie (halved onion, lemon, jalapeno(s) garlic) spices (chili powder, cumin, black pepper, bay leaves, Coleman's dry mustard, salt, etc) brown sugar Heat to boil on the stove and then let it sit on the pit, baste meat (pork/chicken for sure, not so much on beef) every ? minutes or so (basically every time you open the lid) no recipe, it's all to taste
Just randomly got the 411 from a buddy who knows bbq: Terry Black's Original is the one to buy if you need a jar of store-bought sauce. Better than Franklin's, better than Rudy's, better than Mark's. I've never tried it (I don't think) but I'm sure as hell going to.
I'm at work right now but I think this is very important, so I had my wife take a pic of the recipe. It is as follows. No measurements were given EVER: Apple Cider vinegar Beef Broth Worcestershire sauce Seeded mustard Brown Sugar Salt Pepper Minced Garlic Diced onion Texas Pete's Hot sauce. There was no Franks red hot in Texas back in his day. It's important to dice and mince the onion and garlic they will break down into the meat giving an additional layer of flavor. they truly did use a sawed-off mop and handle to apply the sauce. Usually from a 5-gallon bucket. No beer in the Sauce but Grandpa used to keep a case of Pearl beer to drink and a carton of camel unfiltered to smoke and rolls of nickels to play poker with his buddies under the oak tree where the magic happened. My grandpa was the town welder in Kemah for any boat Trailor repairs. Lots of folks would stop by daily have a beer and play poker or dominos.
Legit. Respect. My granddad was the local "propane and propane accessories" guy. Loved riding with him in the bigass truck going around the ~county on tank-filling operations. Before I was born, somebody wanted a bbq at their house but didn't have a way to cook it, so the day before he got a bunch of square/round tubing and sheetmetal from around his workshop and welded a bbq pit. We still use it (box pit, CenTex style). Easter 2007, bbq in the snow, the people are not me: Luke preferred Lone Star longnecks over Pearl, sorry. First beer I ever tasted was a sip off of his when I was 5 or so.
With grandpa he would ask for a Pearl, or the union beer, which meant Budweiser. Grandpa was a union Welder at Union Carbide in Texas city. Man gave me my first Camel. Was spitting tobacco grounds for hours. He used to always say: I was young dumb and full of what rhymes with that and starts with a C Life was just simpler back in the days. In many ways I very much miss it. Anyone and everyone would stop buy. Black, white, and even Vietnamese, which was awesome to see since there was so much bad mojo going on from the local KKK folks back then. Grandpa didn't give a shite, as long as you had a story to tell he was there for it.
I ate at the Terry Black's in DFW after it opened, and they had some really good bbq. Also remember their sauce being good, too, but I don't remember which of their sauces I had. Not sure if the "jarred" variety is as good. They're supposedly opening one in Houston.
