Why is barbque sauce always some version of spicy?

Sweet Baby Rays is my go to. Honey bbq. Yum.

Strange, I have observed the opposite.
That shit is always sweet, which it should not be.

What should it be @ragingloli?

Spicy.

Ew no.

Because otherwise it’s just tomato paste.

Well, by that reasoning it’s just spicy tomato paste. yuck.
Rick makes his with ketchup, brown sugar, smoke sauce and some garlic powder. It is really good.

Needs chilli.

@Dutchess Sounds like mine. I dont use a lot of heat, just Franks and Japanese chili drops.

I was getting into the Lazy Susan for some refried beans and we have Sweet Baby Rays in there!

@Dutchess Yay, thats a good one to have if Ricks out.

Maybe I’ll drag it to the next BBQ joint we go to. I’ve only used ketchup at those places.

@Dutchess If you get over this way again, Whole Hog Cafe, has great selection of about 10 sauces per table. Sooo good.

The places around here have “sweet,” which is only the least spicy, then mild, then hot.

@Dutchess Yuck, thats famous cattle country, so you’d think they’d know good bbq. You must have a blast in KC, thats good bbq.

We also have Crosstown bbq, a-ma-zing.

We’re a few hours away from KC. Next time we go there we’ll check it out. I love that area. I love the Power and Light District!

I find KCMasterpiece and Sweet Baby Rays to be pretty sweet. When I make it at home I like quite a bit of lemon and vinegar in it rather than just sweet sweet sweet. I like to put maple syrup in it.

Good BBQ sauce will have layers of flavor. It’ll hit you first with a faint hint of sweet, then a little tang and finally a little heat on the back end, none of which overpower the smoke flavor. Too much sweet takes away from the flavor of the meat. I was given a good recipe for that type and it’s my go to now.

In the Carolinas you see a lot of vinegar based sauce, some of it can get pretty spicy but there is no sweet at all. You see a bunch of mustard based too but again there is no sweet, just heat. It’s all good too.

I think “sweet” bbq sauce comes from the unoffensive commercialized version of bbq which is often not even smoked, just roasted and slathered in crappy sauce to the point that sauce is all you taste. May as well be a Mcrib at that point.

@Sagacious and @AreYou I use it more as dipping sauce, prefer a dry rub myself, more like a Pappys red rub. I make a mean tri-tip with a little burnt end thats amazing, no need for sauce.

Here we use more vinegar based on deer, helps tenderize.

There are sweet marinades, which are not spicy at all, but just sweet. An example would be Sau-Sea- Susan which is like an orange-y sauce (kind of like sweet and sour sauce). That’s not barbecue sauce, though, it’s a marinade.

I think “spicy” is really a guy thing. And barbque is a “guy thing” too.

No, it really isn’t.