Barbecue sauce scales by weight: tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, molasses and spices as percentages of the kettle, so 10 pounds and 150 taste the same. Cook in a steam kettle, which heats evenly without scorching; weigh the batch before and after so you know the cook loss; check the pH, since a bottled barbecue sauce is made to a process authority's process; and hot fill the bottles as the process says. Done this way, a sauce maker that cooked 10 pounds in a stockpot fills about 600 bottles in a day, and the cost of a 16-ounce bottle falls from $6.88 to $2.71. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the loss, what a bottle costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Write the recipe as percentages by weight.
- Cook in a steam kettle; a stockpot scorches at volume.
- Weigh before and after: the cook loss changes the yield.
- Check every batch's pH against the process.
- Hot fill as the process says.
- The bottle, cap and label cost about as much as the sauce.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Congaree Smokehouse Sauce Co., the made-up sauce maker in Columbia, South Carolina, I use in these examples, cooked 10 pounds at a time in a stockpot until grocers ordered 600 bottles a week. Its recipe, weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 10 lb | One batch, 150 lb | The run, 750 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tomato paste | 40% | 4.00 lb | 60.0 lb | 300.0 lb | $0.80 |
| Cider vinegar | 18% | 1.80 lb | 27.0 lb | 135.0 lb | $0.40 |
| Brown sugar | 20% | 2.00 lb | 30.0 lb | 150.0 lb | $0.70 |
| Molasses | 8% | 0.80 lb | 12.0 lb | 60.0 lb | $1.00 |
| Water | 8% | 0.80 lb | 12.0 lb | 60.0 lb | $0.00 |
| Spices and Worcestershire | 6% | 0.60 lb | 9.00 lb | 45.0 lb | $3.00 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 10 lb | 150 lb | 750 lb |
The 750 pounds cost $594.00 in ingredients; tomato paste and brown sugar are most of it. What the bottles earn is in bbq sauce profit margin.
The steps, at 750 pounds
- Weigh the kettle. Every ingredient by weight for 150 pounds.
- Cook. Brought to a simmer in the steam kettle and reduced to the recipe's thickness.
- Weigh again. The batch after cooking, for the cook loss.
- Check pH. A sample on a calibrated meter against the process's maximum.
- Hot fill. 16 ounces a bottle at the process's fill temperature, capped and inverted.
- Cool. On racks, caps checked.
- Code and label. Each bottle with its code and best-by date.
The run takes two people about ten hours, cooking one kettle while the last one fills.
What a bottle costs at each size
| Per bottle | Kitchen batch, 10 lb | Bulk run, 750 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $2.35 (grocery prices) | $0.99 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $1.20 | $1.05 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $3.33 (10 min a bottle) | $0.67 (2 min a bottle) |
| Cost of a bottle | $6.88 | $2.71 |
Tomato paste by the drum and sugar by the 50-pound bag cut the ingredients by more than half, and the labor falls from 10 minutes a bottle to about 2. The bottle, cap and label don't fall as much. The process behind the pH check is in process authority letter, and when a co-packer makes sense in sauce co-packer.
Cook loss at scale
A stockpot loses a little water; a 150-pound kettle simmered for an hour can lose a tenth of its weight, and a longer simmer loses more. Weighing every kettle before and after is how a bulk run knows how many bottles it will fill, and keeps each batch as thick as the last.
Get the calculator
Download the bbq sauce scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the kettles, what comes out after the cook loss, the bottles it fills and the cost of each bottle; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average cook loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Three sauces, five kettles a day, paste from drums opened on different days, and a grocer asking about one bottle. A sheet can say how much paste a run needs, but not which drum went into which bottle, or how many bottles are left.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with tomato paste bought by the drum and used by the pound, and the cost of every bottle comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the tomato paste and sugar on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of tomato paste and vinegar it used, and gets a lot of its own for the bottles, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a cook loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. A batch that read high on pH is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Thursday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which paste drum went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real cook loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Batches held back | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.