The 13 brands tested on the taste are grilling sauce-here are our favorites

I grew up with the southern Barbecue, the aunts and the distant cousins ​​at home, the Carolines and the Virginia in the countryside. At family gatherings you are almost always a whole pig or a porkPit smoking and cooked low and slow in an old drum over the hardwood for hours until the meat had practically fell apart. It was finely chopped, sometimes mixed with pieces, and usually served with robbers. The sauce? Lexington-style: sharp and vinegar forward, just enough sweets. Despite the regional loyalty and the strict warnings of my uncle Scotty, who was done in the pit – the crowd, usually more than 200 strong, still insisted on the “usual” barbecue sauce. The red, sweet kind made it famous in Kansas City. Even on the land of Barbecue carrying the sugar, this smoky-sweet tomato sauce led to the table.

In the United States, there are many regional barbecue sauce styles, including Eastern and Western Carolina vinegar-based sauce, South Carolina mustard dipping, Alabama creamy mayonnaise sauce, and Memphis and St. Louis bitter tomato-based sauce. But walk into almost any grocery store and realize that many bottles labeled “barbecue sauce” are Kansas City -style.

With this in mind, we decided to narrow the Barbecue sauce taste test in the Kansas City-style sauces. To find the best Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, our editors found the taste-tested 16 different brands, which are probably found at the local grocery store and with more purchases from Kansas City. We tasted each of them in itself in random order without knowing which brand it was. After we passed all the sauce, we tabulated the results, and crowned a comprehensive winner, and with several worthy riders, which would be happy to serve our own cooking.

The criteria

The classic Kansas City -style barbecue sauce should have enough vinegar to provide a spicy counterpoint to brown sugar or molasses, as well as spices such as chile powder, black pepper or cayennene. The sauce should be tomato -based and make it with ketchup or tomato sauce and contain flavors such as garlic powder, onion powder, mustard, and possibly a clove or all -wap for complexity. Liquid smoke is often used to imitate the taste of conventional pit, but often has a tastefully artificial taste; This should offer a tip of smoke cost without overloading the nuanced flavors of sauce. Kansas City -style sauces should also be thick enough to stick to grilled meats such as ribs or brisketBut still be fluid enough to hit or sift on the side.

Our winners: This is a tie!

Trader Joe Organic Kansas City style BBQ sauce

This winning sauce was the most universally popular with the tasters and the least offensive to anyone. JessieOur editor Visuals thought he was well balanced. GenevietOur senior editor, “sweet, bitter, delicious and not too much”. Except our editorial director, DanielAnyone who thought the tomato dump is too dominant, everyone thought it was balanced: sweet, but nice, pleasant, with a slight acidity.

Bull's eye bbq sauce

This sauce was the most nostalgic induction of the group; Daniel thought “like the absolute classic bottled Barbecue sauce.” AmandaWe are associated with our visual director, praise the “balance of spices” while our associated culinary editor Thetherikie She enjoyed smoking. It was a sauce that many of us take to the next grill.

Second -place

• 365, the Whole Foods Market, the original barbecue sauce
• Cowtown bar-bq sauce
• Good and collect the organic original BBQ sauce

All three scored on the whole deck. Although none of them were as delicious as our winners, our editors continued to enjoy the above sauces. Whole Foods ” The sauce was ahead and was generally considered a balanced taste. Target is good and collects The sauce was a favorite of the classic, shiny and bitter barbecue aroma, and Daniel says it would be a good choice for anyone who wants “Melasz-y sauce”. Cowtown He received a high score for his complexity and what Lila calls his “rich spice water”. Each of them had something for him – whether the brightness, the spice or the balance – that made them worthy of the picnic table.

The racers

• 365, the Whole Foods Market, the original barbecue sauce
• Arthur Bryant's original bbq sauce
• Buffalo Wild Wings Honey BbQ Sugar
• Bull's eye bbq sauce
• Cowtown bar-bq sauce
• Famous Dave's Rich & Sassy BBQ sauce
• Gate original classic bar-bq sauce
• Good and collect the organic original BBQ sauce
• Jack Daniel BBQ sauce
• KC masterpiece Original barbecue sauce
• Kinder original barbecue sauce
• KRAFT Original Slow-Simmered Barbecue BBQ sauce
• Montgomery Inn Barbecue sauce
• Stubb's original BBQ sauce
• Sweet Baby Ray Barbecue sauce
• Trader Joe Organic Kansas City style BBQ sauce

By finishing

Most of the sauces under investigation followed a similar basic formula – the Tomato base, sugar, vinegar and spices – but implementation has changed significantly. Some were too sweet, high fructosis corn syrup was listed as the first ingredient, and there is almost no acidity to balance the sweetness. Others relied heavily on liquid smoke or “taste of natural smoke”, resulting in a major and often artificial flavored smoke. Some were too acidic, while others were like a slightly spicy ketchup.

Our favorite sauces achieved a better balance: rich and sweet, but tang, spice and just enough smoke to replace this familiar pit-cooked taste. Most of our most popular selection lists the tomato puree as the first ingredient – except for Bull's Eye, which lists a second – and each contains molasses as a key sweetener and flavor. The sauces of Trader Joe and Cowtown stand out to complete the thickening. While Trader Joe's took over the most important place, second place, such as Bull's Eye, Whole Foods, Cowtown and Target's Goods, brought a lot of classic, mass -friendly aromas, and we would be happy to do any workouts.

Our testing methodology

All flavors are completely hidden and do without discussion. Tasters taste the samples in random order. For example, tasting may first taste the sample, while the B tasting will first taste the six samples. The purpose of this is to prevent the fatigue of the palate unfairly securing one pattern. The tasters are asked to fill out our tasting pages, which rank the samples to various criteria. All data are tabled and the results are calculated without an input of editors to get the least impartial representation as possible.