Vinegar based bbq sauce

[Tenifer17]

I just got my concrete block/cinder block bbq pit made. I got 3,000 lbs of red oak slabs and I am ready to cook. This is the best thing I have ever made by myself. Anyways , I got to rambling on and on .

I am wanting to see what you guys use to baste on your pork every few hours or so while cooking in a pit. Now I am talking old country style pit cooking and NOT grilling on a BBQ grill. I am trying to make a good thin vinegar based sauce/baste that is real thin that I can put on the pork every few hours and can add it with an old small mop head like my grandfather did back in the day.

What do you guys use in your own reciptes?

I am looking for it to be real vinegary and very thin. Not thick because if it's thick it will burn over time. I'm gonna be cooking for around 12 hrs or so on these pork shoulder. Oh yeah , I dont want it to have any sugar , I hate sugar in BBQ . I

Edited June 19, 2012 by Tenifer17

[MikePapa1]

I use a baste made of apple cider vinegar, Worcester sauce, granulated garlic, onion powder, cardamon, smoked paprika and water. I baste with a small squirt bottle like a restaurant ketchup bottle and a mop.

My barbeque sauce is tomato based and is a sweet hot sauce so you probably wouldn't be interested.

[Tenifer17]

I use a baste made of apple cider vinegar, Worcester sauce, granulated garlic, onion powder, cardamon, smoked paprika and water. I baste with a small squirt bottle like a restaurant ketchup bottle and a mop.

My barbeque sauce is tomato based and is a sweet hot sauce so you probably wouldn't be interested.

If it is a natural sweet comming from tomato or apple cider vinegar then I dont mind it , I just dont like it when people add cups and cups of pure sugar to the sauce.

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

I would like to see a pic of said BBQ station

[JAB]

I got 3,000 lbs of red oak slabs...

This is what I look like when I am jealous. I actually prefer red oak (especially for beef), pecan, maple, cherry and apple to the hickory that many folks seem to hold supreme. All in all, I think cherry is my top choice if I have to choose just one with red oak and maple being tied for second place. Not that hickory is 'bad' - it can produce some tasty results - I just don't think it is the be all/end all of smoking that some people seem to believe it to be. Honestly, my favorite is when I can mix woods to give different 'nuances' to the smoke.

I have an offset smoker, not a true 'pit' but the slow-smoking concept is the same, I figure. As for what I use for a baste, it really depends. If I am using a dry rub and/or a sauce then all I need from the baste is the moisture and a little, vinegar tang. In that case, I will just mix vinegar (sometimes white, sometimes apple cider or - especially if I am smoking beef - sometimes red wine vinegar) with water. That's it. Maaaaybe a little black pepper, red pepper and/or onion powder. Rarely, I might substitute some kind of fruit juice (apple juice works well with pork) for the water or part of the water for the last basting or two. Mostly I like to keep the basting flavors to a minimum so that the flavor of the meat/smoke is the star and the flavors of the dry rub and/or sauce can also shine. Also, if the meat doesn't have as much fat as I would like, I may add a little oil (vegetable oil, olive oil, etc.) to the baste.

One thing I do (got the idea from another 'cue lover) is that I wrap the meat in cheesecloth before it goes on the smoker. I have started doing this with almost all the meats I smoke. With slow/low temps the cheesecloth holds up just fine. It also helps hold the moisture around the meat (I even wet it after wrapping the meat and before putting it on the smoker.) Another 'bonus' is that the cheesecloth allows plenty of smoke to get through while keeping the outside of the meat from turning thoroughly black.

Because I use the cheesecloth, I don't pull the meat off after a couple of hours, wrap in aluminum foil and put it back on to finish cooking like some folks do. To ME, doing so cuts down on the amount of smoke flavor too much. Nothing disappoints me more than 'smoked' meat that tastes like it just as well had been cooked in the oven or, even worse, a crock pot.

I sometimes want meat smoked but not really 'barbecued'. If I am smoking something (such as a whole pork loin, for instance) that I don't really want to have a heavy dry rub and don't really want to serve with a barbecue sauce, I will probably brine it. I got a recipe from the newspaper years ago that was from the chef (at the time) at Blackberry Farms. He did pork loin in a double-strength tea brine. Just brew regular, ol' tea at double the strength you would normally serve for drinking (in other words, use twice as many bags for the amount of water.) Then add salt (can't remember the exact amount - just add it until the mixture tastes, well, briney.) Finally, add just a little sugar (not enough to make it sweet or to cause problems with burning while cooking, just enough to balance the flavors.) Allow the brine to cool, put the pork loin in a container, cover with the brine and allow it to sit (in the refrigerator, of course) for several hours, even over night.

I then wrap the loin in cheesecloth, wet the cheesecloth thoroughly with the brine and put it on the smoker. I guess you could reserve some of the brine and not pour it over the raw pork (so as not to contaminate it) so it could be used to baste while cooking. Honestly, though, boneless pork loin (and I am talking about whole loin here, not the tenderloin) cooks pretty quickly even over slow smoke so that, having been brined overnight and with the cheesecloth being wet before putting it on the smoker, I don't think it really needs any more basting. The Blackberry Farms chef recommended smoking over cherry wood (delicious - as I said, cherry is my favorite) but apple or even maple (or a combination of cherry/apple and maple) have worked well, for me. This is REALLY good if you smoke it then slice it into serving size portions and briefly grill the slices just to get a little char on the surface of each slice. I have even smoked it a day ahead of time then sliced and grilled it when ready to serve.

One other good brine I really enjoyed was one year I smoked a whole turkey breast for Thanksgiving (I honestly think that deep fried turkey is over-rated, especially compared to some good, smoked bird.) For that one, I did a brine using white cranberry juice (cocktail) as the liquid. Also wrapped the turkey breast in cheesecloth and wet the cloth before putting it on the smoker. For that one, I did mix some (untainted) white cranberry juice (cocktail) with just a little vinegar to use as a baste since turkey dries out so easily. I am not the world's biggest fan of turkey but that was delicious!

One other thing I have done with beef ribs (because they can sometimes be tough) is that I have actually put them in a foil baking pan on the smoker and smoked them in a liquid (red wine vinegar, tomato sauce, beef broth and spices.) I wasn't so sure about it but those ribs turned out to be delicious.

If it is a natural sweet comming from tomato or apple cider vinegar then I dont mind it , I just dont like it when people add cups and cups of pure sugar to the sauce.

Sugar? Nah. Molasses or sorghum is where it's at for sweet barbecue sauce - especially if I am going to baste the sauce on the meat at the end as I like a sauce that will caramelize if I am going to be basting it on rather than just using it as a condiment (obviously I remove the cheesecloth then put the meat back on the smoker before basting on a barbecue sauce to caramelize.) Honey is a third choice - with a little brown (not white) sugar being the bottom rung option. But, like MikePapa1, I generally like making a sauce that is both hot and sweet (and, in my case, tangy.) For the sauce, I generally like it to be a combo vinegar/tomato base (with the flavors being pretty evenly balanced, neither greatly overcoming the other) with a good spice (I have home smoked and dried various chile peppers that often get crushed and added to the sauce) and nice sweetness. I often actually like white vinegar better than cider vinegar for the sauce because the white vinegar seems to have a 'cleaner' taste (for lack of a better term) but sometimes I like the cider vinegar better. Just depends on my mood. The spices/amounts may vary depending on my mood, too.

I am such a barbecue/grilling/smoking nerd that I actually have pics of some of the things I have smoked on my Photobucket account.

A beef brisked I did back in April, after 'de-mummifying' it from the cheesecloth:

To show what I mean about the cheesecloth protecting the meat, here is a pork loin (this one just got dry rubbed and basted, not brined) that I did some time back.

Wrapped in the cheesecloth, ready to go on the smoker:

What the outside of the cheesecloth looked like after a few hours on the smoker:

The beautiful, mahogany color that is left on the meat after unwrapping:

Sliced and ready to eat (you can sort of see the 'smoke ring' on the slices in this pic):

Edited June 19, 2012 by JAB

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

../drool

[BigK]

Damn JAB, that last pic of the pork loin almost made me lick my monitor.

[JAB]

Damn JAB, that last pic of the pork loin almost made me lick my monitor.

Actually, at the risk of sounding conceited, once I posted it that picture literally made my mouth water. I've gone and made myself hungry - and annoyed. Today is my b'day - I should have taken off and fired the smoker. Instead I am at work until 8pm. Stupid.

Oh, well, I mixed up a beer batter before I left for work this morning. It is in the fridge 'smoothing up' and I'm going to batter up and fry some chicken tenders when I get off of work. Not quite smoked meat but it does involve beer so it can't be all bad!

Edited June 19, 2012 by JAB

[babelt]

Damn that looks good. I would love to be able to smoke meat like that. I love beef brisket.

[peejman]

Vinegar BBQ.... google low-country bbq. That's classic coastal carolina bbq. Like mustard bbq's, it can be an acquired taste, but its very good when done right. I've had good and bad low country bbq, but I've never tried to do it myself. I prefer rubs or tomato based sauces (sacrilege for a carolina boy, but such is life...).

Cheesecloth! That's genius! I'll definitely try that next time I run the smoker. I did 2 pork loins, 2 whole chickens, and a stuffed bologna last weekend. My set-up is very basic compared to most, but I've been quite happy with the results.

And yes, now I'm hungry too.

[BigK]

Actually, at the risk of sounding conceited, once I posted it that picture literally made my mouth water. I've gone and made myself hungry - and annoyed. Today is my b'day - I should have taken off and fired the smoker. Instead I am at work until 8pm. Stupid.

Oh, well, I mixed up a beer batter before I left for work this morning. It is in the fridge 'smoothing up' and I'm going to batter up and fry some chicken tenders when I get off of work. Not quite smoked meat but it does involve beer so it can't be all bad!

Well, Happy Birthday, dude. Homemade chicken tenders beat the hell out of McNuggets! I bet that batter would make a mean piece of cod!

[Tenifer17]

How do I post a pic here ? I dont want to use the photobucket thing ? Is there a way to post an attachment ?

[Guest bkelm18]

How do I post a pic here ? I dont want to use the photobucket thing ? Is there a way to post an attachment ?

Nope. You have to use the "photobucket thing".

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/18544-faq-how-do-i-post-pictures/

Edited June 20, 2012 by bkelm18

[Tenifer17]

Here is my pit and my pile of Red Oak wood. All ready to go !

[enfield]

This is a recipe my wife uses with pulled pork:

Two 15 oz cans tomato juice

1 cup dill pickle juice

1 cup honey (she substitutes 8 pkgs of Sweet 'n' Low)

1 cup Worcestershire sauce

1 T Texas Pete hot sauce

It's not sweet. Recipe makes about 1 quart.

[peejman]

Cool. How is the inside set up?

[MikePapa1]

My sauce is sweetened with both molasses and honey as each gives a different kind of sweetness and add distinctive flavors. My hot comes. From jalapeño slurry I make from putting whole pepper with stem removed in a blender with apple cider vinegar. It allows gradual introduction of the peppers to taste. My sauce has been named "Big Bad Wolf" for the regular and "Blow Your House Down" for the the really hot. I have a New Braunfels smoker which is fired up on many weekends. The wife is from Texas and likes brisket and sausage, while I like pork loin and ribs.

[Tenifer17]

Cool. How is the inside set up?

At the 3 block level I have 4 pieces of rebar going from side to side. These hold my expanded metal/metal grate which is framed with angle iron. This is removalable so I can take it out and clean the grate off with a wire brush. The meat goes on the grate and then the top , made out of plywood, goes on the 4th block level. I use a piece of square plywood for the door where I shovel the wood inside. I just prop a brick against the wood door to keep it tight and closed.

[JAB]

Nice setup. I want to build an actual 'pit' one of these days. I'd like to do one with cooking area for the meat and a sort of 'chimney' at the back so I could build an 'oven' into the chimney part for wood firing bread and so on. The only things stopping me are laziness and a complete and total lack of any kind of masonry/brick laying skills.

Edited June 20, 2012 by JAB

[peejman]

I'd like to build this... http://www.motherear...And-Smoker.aspx

Edited June 20, 2012 by peejman

[Ebow1]

1 tip if you're using a vinegar based sauce. My dad occassionally (once a month or so) brushes his teeth with pure baking soda. Simply put, if you do this, don't eat bbq with a vinegar based sauce the same day you've used baking soda to brush your teeth. The reaction won't occur in your mouth. It will occur in your stomach. And according to my dad you will be farting uncontrollably all day.

[Tenifer17]

1 tip if you're using a vinegar based sauce. My dad occassionally (once a month or so) brushes his teeth with pure baking soda. Simply put, if you do this, don't eat bbq with a vinegar based sauce the same day you've used baking soda to brush your teeth. The reaction won't occur in your mouth. It will occur in your stomach. And according to my dad you will be farting uncontrollably all day.

Holy Crap that was funny !!!

[Tenifer17]

Cool. How is the inside set up?

Here it is inside

[peejman]

1 tip if you're using a vinegar based sauce. My dad occassionally (once a month or so) brushes his teeth with pure baking soda. Simply put, if you do this, don't eat bbq with a vinegar based sauce the same day you've used baking soda to brush your teeth. The reaction won't occur in your mouth. It will occur in your stomach. And according to my dad you will be farting uncontrollably all day.

Ah yes, the good old vinegar and baking soda volcano. I'll have to remember that next time I'm hanging out with a few particular friends...

Here it is inside

Cool, thanks for the pic. Is there any sort of fire grate in the bottom, or does the wood just sit on the ground? I assume you have to start the fire and let it burn down to coals before you start cooking? Then feed in wood as needed to keep it going. How do you keep it from flaring up when you add wood?