My favorite rib rub? I'm still not sure. (Q-view)

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walterwhite

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Aug 16, 2009
119
10
Chicago area
I need to thank some friends for some help they've given me and it's not the kind of debt I cannot pay with money so I decided to make a batch of ribs and share with them. I chose back loin ribs this time which come 3 racks/package at Sam's Club. With an extra grate in my WSM, I can lay six racks flat so I got two packages. Except ... since it's an 18 1/2" WSM they're just a wee bit too long to fit comfortably. I cut three ribs off the end of each rack to deal with that. The last time I did this I realized that these micro-racks would be ideal for experimenting with rubs. I put that plan into action on this smoke. I picked out 6 alternate recipes including some as simple as no rub (just some peanut oil) up through salt and pepper, salt, pepper, Adobo, brown sugar and including Raichlen's Memphis rub and BRITU. (I did consider Jeff's rub but decided against it for reasons I don't recall at the moment.) I used my usual rub as well on four od the big racks. (The other two big racks got the Memphis and BRITU.)

For smoking wood I chose hickory, maple (box elder to be specific) and apple. I smoked using a pretty conventional technique on my WSM and with water in the bowl. I've been pretty happy with smoking straight through so I haven't messed with foiling or mopping. The cooker settled into a relatively low temperature - about 200° - and I just went with that for most of the smoke. When dinner time came and the ribs were not quite done, I bumped the temp to about 250° for about the last half hour.


You can see in the picture that they're just barely done according to the 'pull back on bone' criteria.

But back to the rubs... That's the point I'm going to. SWMBO and I taste tested all of the combinations and our results were inconclusive. I like the way they all tasted. (I should probably also mention that these were smoked and tasted w/out sauce. I have no objection to sauce and usually sauce my ribs when I eat them. but I wanted to evaluate rubs this time and not the sauce. I did not say anything about sauce to SWMBO and she did not ask for any.) What surprised me the most was how good the simplest rubs tasted, including nothing more than some olive oil or salt and pepper. I could taste differences between different rubs and had a slight preference for Raichlen's rub as it had a bit of tang, probably from the mustard. The rubs add some additional flavor and/or heat, but they did not make or break any of the results.

The conclusion is that I need not obsess about the rubs I use. The experiment was interesting and I will modify my rub recipe to see if I can improve my results even more, but I think that is going to be a somewhat subtle improvement at best. On the other hand, I will continue to be careful of my choice of smoking wood. I've done some tests with various smoking woods and while the differences are still at times subtle, there are differences.

I'm curious if anyone else has done this sort of test and if so, what did you learn?

-walt
 
Wow what a perfect time to try your experiment...you had up to 12 different combinations at hand. I have been trying different rubs commercial and my own trying to sort out different flavor profiles myself. On butts i have found a simple salt pepper onion garlic works as well anything for flavor but for bark a sugar based rub seams to give me a darker firmer finished bark. On ribs the jury is still out but i have been leaning to rubs with less sugar and a little more pepper for a kick. Thanks for sharing your Q-view..the ribs look great!!!
Beer.gif
 
I can't think of a way to thank someone better than with something with love in it. You obviously love what you do and I am sure they all enjoyed them.

I am getting ready to play with my rib rub recipe a bit. I tend to lean torwads the sweeter rubs for my family. That is what they like, but I want to get one with a bit more bite. I was thinking of using my Butt Rub recipe and adding some type of chilies like chiplotle, habenaro or cayanne to it.

4c         Sugar in the Raw

1c         Fine Ground Sea Salt

6 Tbl     Granulated Garlic

6 Tbl     Course Onion Powder

3 Tbl     Celery Salt

2 Tbl     Ground Oregano

6 Tbl     Chili Powder

6 Tbl     Fine Ground Black Pepper

Mix all ingredients well and rub onto the meat generously.. This is enough to make about 5 shoulders, so I will be cutting it down for the tests.
 
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