Spicy BBQ sauce

[Randolph]

I've been working on a BBQ sauce for the last 6 months and it's finally ready for making a gallon or two, testing that, followed by public taste testing. It's spicy from the type of chili pepper and how I cook it to create a unique flavor that is great as a BBQ sauce on ribs, chicken, etc. Haven't tried hot wings yet but this sauce with Korean fried chicken would be very tasty.

Spicy but not a hot sauce, it easily falls into steak sauce category too, just had some with a NY strip for lunch, but that category is dying, and was long before the price of beef went stratospheric.

There's not much on the shelf for spicy BBQ sauce which may be a red flag.

Will people want and buy a hot BBQ sauce in any kind of volume? I'm also concerned only I appreciate this particular flavor profile but that will come out in testing. It's a $2 billion market so probably worth a try.

[masraum]

I'm sure some people will want a spicy BBQ, but I suspect that by going spicy, you'll be greatly limiting your target audience.

Here in Texas a lot of folks eat and are used to spicy foods, but certainly not everyone. And I suspect it is due to the fact that lots of peppers are grown and eaten all along this south edge of the US (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico) in the local food and Mexican/Tex-Mex.

It seems less common up north. I've met folks that wouldn't eat black pepper because it was too spicy and thought that ketchup was "spicy" (I never understood that one).

My guess is that only ⅓ of the population eats spicy food (max, probably less).

I haven't been to Buffalo Wild Wings in forever, but when I did, I always got the "hot barbecue" sauce which is a combination of sweet and spicy. Most of the guys that I worked with also got one of the spicy sauces, but not everyone.

[vash]

I'm not a fan of spicy bbq sauce. the hot notes for the ones I have tried are all single notes. HOT.

(looking at you Buster's BBQ). I will have the people do a 50/50 mix and it is okay. in general I am not a bbq sauce person.

[Scott Douglas]

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce is about as spicy as I get.

How's yours compare to it?

[LWJ]

It sounds AMAZING.

I am a big fan of stuff with a little kick. Example: I grill chicken with a super simple marinade of olive oil, soy sauce, and siracha paste. It puts just a little flavor on the outside. My daughter and wife who eat no spice like it, which is saying something.

[GH85Carrera]

Back in my younger days I loved spicy foods. As a geezer, not so much. Heartburn is just not fun.

Good luck on your BBQ sauce. The competition is fierce.

[greglepore]

I don't care for "hot" but that doesn't rule out pepper. I'm a big fan of Aleppo pepper, just a touch of heat but plenty of peppery fruit.
I like Crystal over Tabasco for use on Cajun stuff. Not that I don't like Tabasco, but it can overpower. So there's my heat worldview.
So I think it depends. Much will depend on how you label it-bbq sauce is kinda a traditional flavor profile, but "sauce" with a catchy name might be better. Its sorta like that sweet soy sauce (Bachhan"s ) that is labeled "Japanese BBQ Sauce". Its got nothing to do with either, but is pretty tasty and crazy profitable.

Wing sauce is its own thing. FWIW I find many of the 'hot" varieties at the chains inedible.

[stevej37]

Put me on the list of 'if it says spicy...I'm not buying'
My favorite BBQ sauce is KC Masterpiece....tried dozens of others, always come back to KC

[unclebilly]

There is a ghost pepper bbq sauce that I love. Spicy bbq sauce is a thing and that thing is fantastic.

[gacook]

There's about a zillion spicy BBQ sauces already on the shelves...what sets yours apart?

[Randolph]

Helpful comments, thank you all. Hopefully in a month I'll be able to send out samples for testing.

Spicy and hot are really subjective these days. I would say the sauce is spicy on the teetering edge of being hot. That means you get a slight tingle on your tongue and back of throat but you get all the flavor of the ingredients. That was my driving force: the taste of the chili in the BBQ sauce but, if you like spicy food, you can eat it and taste it and eat as much as you like. Tongue never burns. You can sauce up a wing or rib and get the flavor of the protein and the sauce, with some heat. Lot of testing amounts of chili and techniques to bring the flavor out balanced with sugar and other ingredients.

To put it another way, I had some leftover NY strip today for lunch with some sauce on the side. With a decent tap/dunk into the sauce, you could taste the meat and taste the sauce, and you wanted to keep dunking. It's really why I wish the steak sauce market was booming instead of dying. It would sell well. But I think if marketed to the right demographic (South and Southwest), it could sell.

Again, my biggest fear is I have created a sauce that only I like. While I haven't had more than 30 or so BBQ sauces, store bought and restaurants, it's completely unique in flavor from those and I suspect from most others given the chili and cooking method I used.

[masraum]

WHat some of the others posted above is an excellent point. The heat level that different folks that like "spicy" food is very different. I like spicy food, but I want to be able to taste the food. I have had buddies that seemed to want to punish themselves. And if you give the same thing to 3 different people, they will likely all say that it's 3 different levels of spice because some folks don't feel spice the same due to genetics. And folks that regularly eat spicy food get used to it. And then folks that rarely eat spicy food are probably more sensitive (unless they have the genetics to not be bothered).

I had a buddy that used to ask for "the hottest thing you have" when he'd get wings (this was 1999) and he'd complain to me that they weren't spicy (and they usually weren't).

I suspect he doesn't do that these days. I know that there are lots of places that have SPICY wings. I saw a guy order the spiciest stuff that Buffalo Wild Wings had once (he wasn't expecting it to be hot), and he only got 3 wings down before he had to stop.

[Randolph]

I’m going to do some proper Korean fried chicken and some mini baby back baby ribs (cut into 2 inch long ribs) some confit and baked with sauce and some confit, fried and sauced and see what friends think of the sauce later this week.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Randolph

I’m going to do some proper Korean fried chicken and some mini baby back baby ribs (cut into 2 inch long ribs) some confit and baked with sauce and some confit, fried and sauced and see what friends think of the sauce later this week.

What time should we all arrive?

[Randolph]

^^^ I'll be posting in a month or two on anyone wanting taste samples depending on how a large batch and 1 week cold storage turns out. Instead of shipping with ice bricks as I've done with shipping food in the past, I'll figure out how to can the sauce which should be easy.

One thing I thought of on a long drive yesterday is I could focus on a variety of chili-based BBQ sauces/marinades. There are some out there but it's an under-represented category. I've done some great Thai and Vietnamese marinades for smoked and grilled beef and chicken, making them a tomato based BBQ sauce might work. Certainly adds richness.

Thai chili smoked chicken. This was phenomenal. Making it with a BBQ sauce for cooking/smoking/grilling and dipping might be a game changer.

[greglepore]

Many bbq sauces are acidic enough not to require refrigeration, at least in a sealed container for short periods. You could likely ship yours without problems. Shelf life is weeks or more.

[matthewb0051]

Having lived and travelled all over, I can offer that BBQ sauce is BBQ dependent and different around the country.

My fav for Memphis BBQ and ribs is Rendezvous from the famous Memphis restaurant of the same name. It is in an alley and just across from the Peabody hotel. Highly recommend both if you find yourself in Memphis or just passing through.



A lot of the famous Lockhart, Texas bbq joints only started offering sauce in the past 15 years or so. Prior to that they just gave you Texas Pete and white bread. Lockhart is the Texas Capitol of BBQ about an hour SW from Austin.

My fav Kruez used to only give you Texas Pete and you had to bring a pocket knife if you wanted to cut something.






And don't forget about Alabama white sauce:

[matthewb0051]

Rendezvous in Memphis:

[Zeke]

It's all about marketing. If you know how to break through the barrier to the 2 billion dollar business you could sell mustard mixed with vinegar. The industry is called the specialty foods business and believe me, there are some big players in that game.

Coupled with the labeling process and documentation of each batch, where it went, along with other stringent requirements, would dissuade me from dealing with anything having to do with food.

Getting consumers to buy a second bottle because they like the product is success. But to get people to buy the first one is a gamble based on how you get the product in front of buyers and if they buy. Face it, hardly any sauce is unique. The packaging, presentation and distribution method can be. Just the name of the sauce is a make or break factor.

If your name is Paul Newman and you say you're going to donate profits gives you a big edge. My great grandfather marketed Ry-Krisp crackers up until the point that Ralston Purina bought the product in 1926. He and some investors bought the rights in 1913. It was successful into the 1990's when equity trading killed the goose.

My grandmother and her 2 sisters got a bit of an inheritance from that venture.

[Randolph]

Just had my first "consumer" tasting, he thought it was really good. Nice eyes wide open sort of good. Pretty excited.