Smoked Barbecue Sauce

[Peter]

This may be a dumb question, but instead of using liquid smoke in your barbecue sauce recipe for that smokey flavor, has anyone actually smoked the sauce in the smoker? If so, please let me know your recipes and details as to how you have done it. Thanks, Peter from Idaho.

 

[SconnieQ]

I don't add liquid smoke to homemade BBQ sauce. And if I am buying pre-made sauce, I prefer it without smoke flavor added (although this is difficult to find). If I am smoking my own meat, I want the smoke flavor to come from the wood I have chosen. I don't want any smoke flavor that I have not controlled or chosen to come from the sauce. It is not necessary. Now... on the other hand... if you are making your own BBQ sauce to use on "baked" meat, or maybe "grilled" meat that doesn't have smoke flavor, then I can understand wanting smoke flavor in your sauce. If you want to do this, consider smoking the "ingredients" in the sauce rather than the sauce itself. Smoke tomato halves, onion slices, peppers, etc. Then create your sauce from that. You can smoke these ingredients while you are smoking your meat. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with liquid smoke. It is a natural flavor distilled from real smoke.