To Sauce or not to sauce, that is the question!

Are you looking to compete?

Not sure how to answer, if it's for contests or it's for home use?

As far as "purest" it's really up to you, some like wet ribs, some like dry, no right or wrong way (even people that use foil, if it works for them go with it)

I plan to compete if I can ever get a team together. I live in Edmond, and hope to do some of the local stuff. So I guess my question is for competition purposes. At home I just lightly rub and smoke it though. Thanks for the response.

I like to take whatever sauce I am going to use on my ribs and heat it up. This thins the sauce out some. I then put a thin glaze on the ribs, both sides, and put them back in the FEC for 10-15 minutes to just set the glaze.

Keep in mind, you have one maybe two bites of product with a judge to get your flavor across. And it better be something they like. Not what you like but what the judges like. Because that is who you are trying to please at comps.

That is what works for me.

If you want to compete, make sure you take a judging class and do a few contests. That's one way to see a bunch of entries and see how people do it.

Stop by a few of the contests and talk to the teams, look for the FE smokers (this forum)

It's really quite a subject as each category takes on a whole range of questions.

If you have anything specific you want to know, stop by the FE Contest forum, that's where the teams hang out.

Back to the original question.

for contest I sauce, but it's more a glaze than a thick sauce. I've done well in chicken, ribs, pork butt and brisket (go figure) is my lowest of the 4 categories.

Saucing is for looks/appearance as well as add a layer of flavor. Thick saucing doesn't do well.

Smokin'

To tag onto parts of the discussion,you mentioned "mopping on when cooking".

Out in ya'lls area you have a number of teams that use offset type stickburners and they can flow a lot of air.

Thus, they may feel the need to use a "mop" while cooking.

Like the cooks above say,the FEC doesn't require it.

When you get south of there ,with the TX bunch,you can be disqualified if they catch you saucing,after cooking.

Now,down South,many of our contests can look like sauce contests for the chicken and rib categories.

Doesn't mean it is a great idea-but.

Seems like many of us like to use just rub,to make a fine backyard slab of ribs-when we are home.