Well, here's my recipe: Alton Brown, Good Eats, A Rib For All Seasons.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_ea/episode/0,1976,FOOD_9956_15899,00.html

Step one: a dry rub, let sit overnight.

Step two: make a white wine based "braising sauce" and cook the ribs for a few hours, in tin foil with a bit of flavorful liquid. Anyone who says "boil the ribs before you grill them" should replace that with this step. The collagen in the connective tissue becomes lip smacking gelatin.

Step three: Put the tinfoil packs o' ribs onto cookie sheets over a skillet (teflon is good.) Stab them a few times, and let the lovely juices drain. You will cook these juices down into the most magnificent BBQ sauce you have ever had. Well, the very best storebought comes close, but Open Pit this ain't.

Step four: Paint the ribs with some of the sauce/glaze, cook them on the grill (or under the broiler) to brown up the glaze, and serve.

There may be better ribs, but I don't know the recipe. These are damned good.

This is a simple, but very good sauce that you can alter for your taste. If you like it spicy, double the cayenne. If you like a sweeter sauce, add a couple of tablespoons of honey.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, very finely chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup beer
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Heat vegetable oil in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, paprika and cayenne and stir 1 minute. Add ketchup, beer, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer uncovered until flavors blend and sauce is slightly reduced, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. (Can be prepared 1 week ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Makes 1 1/2 Cups.

I don't have a sauce recipe per se, though one of these days I mean to try one. But... it depends for what.

For instance, my spicy baked chicken dish with a hot red sauce could be said to include a barbecue sauce of sorts. It is based on ketchup, but still. Heavy on the dry mustard and red pepper.

My sister makes a no-recipe sauce for country style spare ribs to swim in, and I could probably replicate that and then after another time or two might be able to come up with measurements, but it'd always be modifiable.

I recently made a dry rub for pork chops that with no hint of tomato in it wound up tasting like spicy barbecue sauce had been applied to the pork and made to stick nicely and imbue some serious flavor. Can't recall what was in it, besides brown suger, cumin, red pepper, chili powder, and a few other things.

In short... I'm no help! I'd make it up as I went along.

I have a zip file of well over 700 bbq sause recipes collected thru the years. Many of these cannot be found anywhere else. I'd be happy to send a copy to anyone who wants it.

Just email me at blaquefamily-2 at yahoo dot com with the subject ""bbq sauce". Here's a good sample...

Apples and Cinnamon Barbeque Sauce

1 cup applesauce
1/2 cup ketchup
6 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Combine all the ingredients together in a heavy saucepan.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook and stir for about 4 more minutes (making sure sugar is completely dissolved).
4. Continue to cook on the lowest possible heat, uncovered (without stirring) for 15 more minutes.
5. This sauce can be refrigerated or stored in the freezer.

ummm, you are entered into a barbecue sauce competition or a barbecue competition? judging from the comments I think everyone is confused.

Personally, I think cooking contests are like gymnastics or ice skating, a realm better left to women. Having served as a judge in a chili cookoff recently (among friends) I am doubly sure of this conviction.

Therefore, my advice to you is to defer to a competent female. If that is not an option, you should abscond to Mexico for a couple of decades. Trust me.

Thanks Jeff. I owe ya.

Jeff

Mix to taste- ketchup, vinegar, onion juice.
add Diced onions, garlic. Optional, jalapenos,
peperocinis diced. Salt and pepper. You can add
"liquid smoke" to give a little smoked flavor.
Adding oil helps, but you have to keep mixing
it back in.

Don't be afraid to try some extras to subtly change the taste to suit:

maple syrup
dry mustard
cinnamon
cumin
molasass
flavored vinegars
powdered cocoa
pinapple, lime, or apple juices

you get the idea

You're right, it looks like a BBQ sauce competition, not a BBQ competition.

In which case I stand by my entry (oops, forgot to mention, I put about a tablespoon of ketchup in the braising sauce...it rounds out the flavor and brings a lot of depth to the food.)

Anyway, you cook the ribs for 2-3 hours at 250 in the sauce, and all the connective tissue becomes a tasty thickening agent. When you cook down the juices into sauce, you get a serioulsy yummy sauce that sticks to what you put it on. You get all the depth of flavor from the spices, the wine, the ketchup, and most of all the meat.

Be careful though, it is easy to cook it a bit too far; the flavor concentration goes up really fast at the end.

It's definately a favorite when it's my night to cook for the softball team.

Oops, I'm not awake yet, sorry. That last bit wasn't quite clear.

I mean, after you cook the ribs in the braising liquid, then you drain the juices out of the tinfoil wrap o' ribs, you cook the juices down into a sauce.

Towards the end of that cooking down process, when you've driven off most of the water, that's when you have to taste it frequently because the flavor concentration starts to rise, quickly.