Try our two-in-one BBQ sauces!

How to use Sticky Lips BBQ Sauce

A guide from Sticky Lips BBQ owner Howard Nielsen

Two Different Uses

First off, we would like to thank you for purchasing a bottle of our BBQ sauce at your favorite store.

In my many trips around the country studying my favorite topic (yes, you guessed it, barbecue) I came across a great culture in Texas. For many years, Texas pit bosses did not use sauce to avoid covering up the spice and smoke flavors that are infused into the meat.

Due to customers’ demand for a little extra flavor in their smoked meats, the Texas pit bosses came up with a clever way to keep customers happy without covering up the precious flavors of the meat with a thick sauce.

Warm Thin Finishing Sauce

My first time seeing the warm thin sauce was outside Fort Worth, Texas. The sauce was in clear beer bottles with liquor pouring caps in the top. The bottles sit in a warm bath of water to keep the sauces warm. The thin warm sauce, when poured over smoked meats, soaks in — instead of sitting on top like a thick ketchup or pasta sauce. I really enjoyed the flavor produced by a warm BBQ sauce. This technique works best with pulled pork, sliced beef brisket, or pulled chicken.

To replicate this at home, choose your favorite Sticky Lips BBQ sauce, add 30% water to the BBQ sauce, then heat sauce and stir.

Basting Sauce

The second use for our Sticky Lips BBQ sauce is to brush on as a thick glaze over grilled or smoked meats. This is best when applied 5 to 15 minutes towards the end of the grilling or smoking process.

To achieve this feat, you will need to pour the bottle of Sticky Lips BBQ Sauce into a small pot, stir, and boil for about 10 minutes. Then turn your heat down to a low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. This process will thicken the sauce and work great for the last minute basting of your pork ribs, beef ribs, chicken wings, boneless breasts, bone-in chicken, spiral cut ham, hamburgers, or shrimp.