Thomas Kobelsky's Blog

March 9, 2010

I've recently begun a quest in real life: a search to find the ultimate BBQ sauce.

Now, since I don't have a Barbecue, this is proving difficult. However, I have set some easy standards to follow:

1. Everything must be cooked in my Toaster Oven at 350*C. Length of time is variable. The reason for this is simple; a constant temperature yields more stable results. Cooking a sweeter sauce at a higher temperature will cause it to caramalize which will produce a different flavor than if it wasn't (burnt sugar VS melted sugar). It's also a good way of seeing how the sauce withstands temperatures, and having a constant temp can show which sauces hold together better and which ones will melt/drip/slide off the meat easier.

2. There will be no marinating for xAmount of hours as the bottle says. The meat goes into the cookware, the sauce gets slathered ontop of the meat, the meat is then cooked immediately after. Marinating something will cause more flavor to seep into the meat which will cause the sauce to appear better than a different sauce that doesn't marinade as well.

3. The sauces will be tested on a red meat, a white meat, and a fish base before getting the final vote. The red meat will either be Beef or Lamb (most likely beef, because I prefer to have a steak over a lamb roast). The white meat will either be Chicken or Pork (I may just end up doing both, becuase the two cook vastly different from each other). The fish will either Salmon or Snapper (most likely salmon, because I prefer my snapper with just a bit of salt and pepper on it as opposed to smothered in a sauce. Also, I may have to do some testing on Fresh vs Prev.Frzn salmon, since the meat behaves so much differently once it's been frozen).

4. No sauce will be added during or after the meat has been cooked. This includes dipping sauces. However, meatballs and sausages may be entered into this experiment/quest at some random times, in which case the meatballs my have extra sauce added during the cooking and the sausages may have the sauce as a dipping sauce.

5. No matter how bad the sauce is, everything must be eaten before casting a final judge on it.

The judging shall be as follows:

1. Price. Nobody's going to go after a $50 bottle that's only like 12 Fl.Oz in size. If it's relatively cheap and good, it's probably a keeper.
2. Presentation. You're not going to want to show off a white-label plastic bottle of President's Choice BBQ Sauce. If the bottle looks cool and has a cool label, it's getting points. Also, any kind of cool story that's included on the bottle automatically gives it +1 for awesomeness.
3. Smell. The first thing somebody's probably going to do to judge whether they're going to like a dish that's been prepared for them is smell it. If the sauce smells like ass, the rest of the dish will as well.
4. Color. Sure, 90% of BBQ sauces are brown. But sometimes you'll come across that bright red one that sticks out and catches your attention.
5. Consistency before cooked. Very watery BBQ sauces suck balls for steaks. You splash the sauce onto the steak and flip it over to get the other side, then it all drips off the first side. You want something thick that'll stick.
6. Consistency after cooked. If it starts out thick and ends thin, then you'll probably regret searing the meat so fast. Something that'll stay thick through and through is a good choice.
7. Flavor. The most important part. I'm going to be a little biased towards my judging though, as I am a stickler for Hickory Smoked sauces. There's just something about them that makes a steak taste that much better than an Original flavored sauce.
8. Total. This will be all the values added up.

Everything will be on a 0-10 point scale, with no decimals. 0 being Non-Existant or Un-Noticeable, 10 being so good that it moved me to tears.

REVIEWS:
Sable & Rosenfeld's Hickory-Whiskey Tipsy BBQ Sauce
Jim Beam Original BBQ Sauce
Famous British Columbia Salmon Marinade and BBQ Sauce
Stonewall Kitchen's Roadhouse Steak Sauce
Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce

Side note: I actually wrote this out on February 23rd, but I didn't publish it until just now.

-tk

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