Eastern NC-style sauce like Scott's

After finishing up 3 bottles of Scott's, I wondered if I couldn't make something similar myself, so I went on down to the lab.

A couple things I bore in mind as I experimented: One, that Tom Raveret had posted he heard that cider vinegars of a different acidity were used in these Eastern NC-style sauces. So I got out my trusty digital pH meter and checked to see if I could make any assumptions of my own as to that notion. My nose alone told me regular apple cider vinegar from the pantry was a lot more potent than the commercial sauce's. The meter confirmed it-- the Scott's was not nearly as acidic. Second, I wanted to establish a baseline that was palatable, and brought something to the flavor profile, but without quite the heat that some others, who had tried the Scott's, found undesirable.

This was going to be tough to concoct in vitro, because-- if you have seen these sauces in bottles-- the non-liquid ingredients settle out rapidly, and side-by-side comparisons are difficult, especially when the strong vinegar smell takes its toll on your nose. I finally had the opportunity to try some of what I made on some pulled pork (what else? Duh...), and used my familiarity with the commercial sauce as a benchmark, rather than trying to do a direct comparison.

Anyway, this is what I came up with-- it ended up kind of simple, actually.

1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 Tbl. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1-1/2 tsp. red (cayenne) pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1-1/2 tsp. ground red pepper flakes

You'll need your spice grinder for the last ingredient.

As I said, not the persistent heat of the Scott's, but I think the rest has the balance about right.

Hey Doug,
I think there are NC bbq sauces than sand on the beach. I am from Alamance County. We have a bbq place every 5 miles or so . If you go from one to the other, they are in no way alike. If you go to the east coast they get very simple, vinegar, salt , pepper"black and crushed red". Now in Hillsboro they like a vinegar / sweet worcestershire. In Alamance County you start to see some tomato in the mix. The mustard thing must be from South Carolina. It is awsome to see all the ways people have of doing sauce. And they are all good in their own way. One question , did you cook that sauce?

Rick

I like this sauce because it's not sweet. Nothing in my recipe is really in need of dissolving-- other than the salt-- so, no, no cooking was involved. Although a couple weeks in the bottle seemed like an improvement over day one.

You might want to try cooking it . In the sauce I make for hole hog, shoulder & butts, I cook it at med heat till I see the crushed red pepper flakes become suspended. There is a fine line at that point, with my sauce. The cooking will help tame the vinegar, I think. If I continue to cook it the heat over powers the sauce. Good luck.



Rick

I'll have to try that. There is still an element to mine, as regards the vinegar aroma-- which I can only describe as "cidery"-- that differs from the Scott's. Not sure about the pepper flakes, though-- what I'm trying to duplicate has only very fine solids in it, which is why I ground them in a spice grinder.

Ok , I have not had the Scotts, so I didn't know about the fine solids. But I think you will get what you are after. I don't think you will give up. Let me know how it goes.

Rick

I have never tried Scott's sauce, but this has been my favorite vinegar sauce so far. I am gonna try it with some ground habanero to kick up the heat a bit more. Thanks for the recipe. I will be using this one alot.

The heat in the Scott's in nice-- it has a long "finish".

Doug,

Have you tried Dreamland sauce? Not the recipe floating around out there, but the stuff you can get only at Dreamlands.

I bet you would like it if you prefer a sauce that is not sweet.

Give it a try sometime.

Jim in Alabama

Doug, Curious if you continued to perfect the Scott's clone sauce or not, and if you have any updates to the recipe? Thanks, Bryan

Further research and development on the Scott's clone was suspended as a result of friends going to visit their ancestral home in NC-- they brought me back a case. If I have occasion to revisit it again, I'm betting a 20 minute simmer would probably do the trick.