Taste test - BBQ marinades
 Here at BBQ.co.uk we are huge fans of marinades and the flavour they can give to even the blandest food. No surprise then that we made them the subject of a taste test - and to make things interesting we've thrown in a couple of homemade efforts...
On test:
We tested out five bbq marinades, three that we bought bottled from the supermarket and two that we made ourselves. The full list of contenders was as follows:
Ainsley Harriott's BBQ Marinade Spray
Mary Berry's All Seasons Sauce
Newman's Sticky BBQ Marinade
Mackeson & Guinness Marinade (Homemade)
Soy, Worcester and Jam Marinade (Homemade) (Recipes here)
How it worked:
We had to take into consideration that marinades can taste very different dependent on the meat, so we tried every marinade on beef steaks, pork ribs and vegetarian Quorn fillets.
We prepared by setting the marinades to work the night before the test. Each food was individually coated with each marinade in sealable plastic bags, and then left overnight.
The following day, we removed the food from the fridge, fired up the Weber and got to work - cooking the vegetarian fillets separately to avoid contamination. We monitored the overall ease of use from start to finish, in addition to the appeal and taste of the cooked product. Only the chef was qualified to mark the ease of use column.
A mark of 5 was the highest accolade available - remember the marks were given only for the quality of the marinade - not the quality of the food.
The results:
Guinness and Mackeson |
Taste |
Ease of Use |
Appeal |
Overall Result |
Judge 1 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
19/55
|
Judge 2 |
2 |
- |
3 |
Judge 3 |
1 |
- |
1 |
Judge 4 |
1 |
- |
1 |
Judge 5 |
2 |
- |
2 |
COMMENTS: Too strong beery flavour, generally considered to be a nice idea - but a failure! |
Soy, Jam and Worcester |
Taste |
Ease of Use |
Appeal |
Overall Score |
Judge 1 |
5 |
3 |
5 |
50/55 |
Judge 2 |
5 |
- |
4 |
Judge 3 |
5 |
- |
5 |
Judge 4 |
5 |
- |
4 |
Judge 5 |
5 |
- |
4 |
COMMENTS: Absolutely delicious! Especially good on ribs, nice glaze to it - and super flavour. |
Mary Berry's All Seasons Sauce |
Taste |
Ease of Use |
Appeal |
Overall Score |
Judge 1 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
33/55 |
Judge 2 |
3 |
- |
3 |
Judge 3 |
2 |
- |
3 |
Judge 4 |
2 |
- |
2 |
Judge 5 |
3 |
- |
4 |
COMMENTS: Very aromatic but a little overwhelming. |
Newman's Sticky BBQ Sauce |
Taste |
Ease of Use |
Appeal |
Overall Score |
Judge 1 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
46/55 |
Judge 2 |
5 |
- |
5 |
Judge 3 |
4 |
- |
4 |
Judge 4 |
4 |
- |
5 |
Judge 5 |
4 |
- |
3 |
COMMENTS: Finger lickin' good stuff - sticky, tasty and slightly fruity. Worthy runner-up. |
Ainsley's BBQ Marinade Spray |
Taste |
Ease of Use |
Appeal |
Overall Score |
Judge 1 |
2 |
5 |
2 |
30/55 |
Judge 2 |
2 |
- |
2 |
Judge 3 |
3 |
- |
2 |
Judge 4 |
2 |
- |
3 |
Judge 5 |
3 |
- |
4 |
COMMENTS: So easy to use, a great idea let down by a bland taste. |
 The summary:
The two homemade marinades certainly made an impact on our judges - one coming first and the other coming last! In fact the winning Soy based marinade scooped a mighty 50 points, dropping just 5 points across the board.
Running it close with 46 points was Newman's Sticky BBQ Sauce - delicious with the ribs and the pick of the bottled marinades by some way.
Mary Berry's All Seasons Sauce proved too much for many judges, while Ainsley's ingeniously easy spray-on marinade fell wide of the mark when it came to taste. Be careful too, if spraying with meat on the grill, smoke will billow.
Generally the panel of judges felt that the marinades worked best with the pork ribs, but did remark that the winning marinade also worked very well with vegetarian fillets.
Try our classic bbq marinade recipe for yourself and see what you think
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