Eastern Carolina Pulled Pork Finishing Sauce

This is always going to be my go-to source for great flavors in pulled pork barbecue. It's adapted from a recipe shared by John Rivera and it's just about as good as it gets, with exactly the right combinations of sweet, sour and spicy flavors that compliment pork so well. Yhis stuff will make a puppy pull a freight train!

 

Eastern Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue Finishing Sauce:

3 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Bottle (12 oz) your favourite beer (see note below)

1 TBSP Salt
1 TBSP Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1 TSP Ground Black Pepper
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar

Mix all sauce ingredients in saucepan, bring to boil. Reduce heat to lowest setting and simmer 30 minutes, uncovered.

Once pork is pulled and chopped, mix in large bowl with sauce. Serve on buns with coleslaw.

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A couple of notes on this:

 

If you don't have any beer in the house - or want to use something besides beer - you could probably use water, or I would guess just about anything that would cut the acidity of the vinegar a bit. One note of caution, though: I tried apple juice once instead of beer and it did not work well. Perhaps the best substitute might be the pan and foil juices from the pork shoulder (after defatting). Now that I think about it, even if you use the beer, add these juices (after defatting) to the pork as they greatly enhance the flavor!

Depending on everyone's tolerance for spicy foods, you may want to cut the red pepper flakes in half, or add some. It was originally written for 2 tablespoons of crushed red pepper flakes, but 1 tablespoon works just about perfectly for me, especially once mixed with the other ingredients and the pork - it all balances very well and nothing is too hot, spicy, tart, sweet etc.

 

While this is simmering, it will probably be a bit frightening as the vinegar is of course pretty strong; The aroma will drill a hole through your sinuses and the taste of the sauce on its own will bring up images of rocket fuel, but please, trust the recipe! Stick with it and try it in combination with the sauce, as it is a perfect compliment for pulled pork barbecue!

 

I went with your original recipe, cut the crushed red pepper to 1 Tbsp, and since I wanted a little color, I added about 2/3 cup of chili sauce. It colored the sauce nicely and thickened it just a bit. Also, I used Samuel Adams summer ale instead of Killian's...it was what I had on hand.

 

Everybody loved the sauce...I think you gave us a great basic recuipe that can go in a lot of different directions if we want it to. Thanks for a great recipe!