Food: Bill’s Sweet Heat BBQ Sauce

Adapted from Aaron Franklin’s excellent YouTube Video on Brisket. Before he created his Master Class on Brisket that you have to pay for, he did a set of three videos on prepping, smoking, and carving brisket which were really good.

The goal of this sauce is to get the upfront sweet taste first and have the heat kick in later to get the sweet heat taste.  I do not cook with this sauce, it is on the table to be added to whatever BBQ you are having as people like. I think the Blackstrap Molasses is the ingredient that differentiates this from most tomato based BBQ sauces.

The ingredient list below has one column for 1/2 cup of sauce for 4-6 people and a second column for a full cup of sauce for a larger group. Obviously this sauce does not have any preservatives but it will keep for several days covered in the refrigerator if you want to make a larger quantity to cover left overs. I like to make the sauce a day ahead of time because sitting overnight lets the different chili powders settle in and lets you taste what the heat will really be. Easy to add Tabasco or some additional chili powders the next day if you want kick it up a notch.

Ingredients:

Heat – you can use any relatively mild chili powder or combinations.  Add different chili powders to get the level of kick that you want but you can’t really go backwards to make it less spicy so add in small increments. Guajillo is my base. Ancho adds some smoky flavor.  Chipotle adds some depth.  Habanero adds a lot of heat so be very careful with it if you want to add that to the mix.  You need to let the sauce simmer for at least 15 minutes after adding any chili powders to get any idea of the impact it will only be the next day where you will get the final taste. It generally has a little less kick and shows up a little later in the taste the next day.  I don’t have measurements if you want to use different chili peppers instead of powder so I can only say add to taste and again, that taste will evolve considerably over time. 

Making the Sauce:

In a stainless-steel pot melt the butter and cook the onions in the melted butter.  Aluminum pans may react a little with some of the ingredients so stainless steel is recommended.  When the onions are translucent add the other ingredients and, using a large wisk, combine them together.  Let simmer for at least 20 minutes and taste.  Correct to your taste buds, heat, sweetness, and acidity, and let simmer a little longer and then remove from the heat. 

Three choices to finish:

1. Save as is with the onion making it a little lumpy. The finer the chopped onion, the less they will be noticeable. Some people do not like any lumps in their BBQ sauce.
2. Put in the blender to liquify the onion.  If you use any chili peppers instead of powder blending is recommended.
3. Run through a strainer to remove the onion chunks. This is what I usually do.