Best Times To Use BBQ Basting Sauce

By Arthur Phillips


Who does not love a great barbecue? Whether you are in Australia going for a Barbie, or in South Africa going for a braii or in the United States for a cookout, the aim is all the same, and that is to get some really great grilled meat to fill our tummies. The way to a great barbecue is to have the best tasting bbq basting sauce around and this article shows when and how to use it when you cook.

Depending on the meats and how you want it cooked, there are actually three general kinds of basting sauces and these are classified as to what they are made out of. Thus knowing exactly what the sauce is made out of, just by looking at the ingredients if you bought it off the shelf, or asking your friend how he or she made it, then you will know exactly how to use it. Sauces are either tomato, mustard or vinegar based.

Most familiar to a lot of people are basting mixes that are tomato based. In general you will see hundreds of these on the supermarket shelves. They have two mixes also, either with vinegar or sugar. The former is thinner and used during the cooking process, while the latter, which is usually thicker will be used as a finishing sauce, for it will burn and blacken if used during cooking.

The thinner vinegar mixed tomato baste will be used for the entire cooking process, and is applied every twenty minutes or so over the course of one to two hours. This is best used on big slabs of pork meat, either a whole hog or shoulder. It can also be mixed with cooked meat at the end to give a tang to the taste. A tomato and sugar mix baste is applied ten minutes before grilling and immediately right after, and this works best for chicken and rib kinds of meat.

A mustard based basting mix is one made famous by those in South Carolina, which made this quite famous. It is a mix of Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, black pepper and vinegar. In general it goes well with any cut of pork or chicken.

Since mustard is a heavy ingredient, it is mostly used for finishing. However, it can also be used for marinating as well, so it is best used for soaking up the meats in it overnight so all the flavors can seep in. It really compliments smoky flavors with its tangy compliment.

Vinegar Based bastes are used to compliment the fat of the traditional barbecue, and is tangy, spicy and thin baste. Since it is vinegar, it is one that is basted throughout the cooking process. Basically it only contains two main ingredients which are white or cider vinegar and also red pepper flakes for spiciness.

A vinegar based one has very strong acidity. As such, it must be used in the entire cooking process and should be basted on the fatty parts of the barbecue, especially when you barbecue pork and pork shoulder. During the entire cooking process it should be applied at least every 20 minutes for the entire 1 to 2 hour long process, or until the meat is fully cooked.




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