The sauce or glaze burnt black

Each cause below lists the signs that point at it rather than at the others. Start with the signs, not with the fix.

1. A sugar-heavy sauce went on at the start of a long cook.

   common

   Signs it is this one

   • The black is on the sauce rather than on the meat under it.
   • It tastes bitter rather than merely charred.
   • The sauce went on before or early in the cook.

   Why it happens: Sugar caramelises and then carbonises, and it does so at temperatures well below where meat finishes. A tomato-based barbecue sauce carries a great deal of it, so a rack of ribs sauced at the beginning of a two-hour cook spends most of that time with its surface past the point where sugar turns bitter. Nothing about the meat has gone wrong — the sauce reached its own endpoint an hour before the food reached its.

   What to do

   • Nothing recovers burnt sugar during the cook. Scraping it off takes the sauce with it. — during cook, cannot be recovered
   • Apply a sugar-heavy sauce in the last few minutes, in thin coats, and let each set before the next. BBQHQ's sauce records carry a burn risk and an application timing for exactly this decision. — next time, reliable
   • Or use a sauce with no sugar in it during the cook and keep the sweet one for the table. A vinegar-and-pepper sauce carries nothing that can caramelise, which is why it can be mopped on throughout. — next time, reliable

   Next time

   • Decide before lighting which sauce is a cooking sauce and which is a finishing one. That is a property of the sauce rather than a matter of technique.

2. It was a mayonnaise- or dairy-based sauce and it split.

   occasional

   Signs it is this one

   • The sauce looked oily or curdled before it darkened.
   • It was mayonnaise-, cream- or yoghurt-based.

   Why it happens: An emulsion is fat suspended in water held together by something that will not survive heat. Put a mayonnaise-based sauce over a fire and it separates into oil and solids, which then catch — so the failure looks like burning and is really the sauce coming apart first. This is why the documented use of Alabama white sauce is dunking the chicken after it comes off the smoke rather than basting with it.

   What to do

   • Not recoverable. A split emulsion does not come back over heat. — during cook, cannot be recovered
   • Use it after the cook rather than during it. BBQHQ marks these as table sauces, and the reason is physical rather than stylistic. — next time, reliable

   Next time

   • Check the sauce's application timing before the fire is lit.

This is BBQHQ’s diagnosis for the sauce or coating burnt, on the foods below.

• pork spareribs
• baby back ribs
• chicken drumsticks
• chicken thigh, bone-in
• chicken wings
• beef burger
• chorizo