Meathead's Memphis Dust Rub Recipe

Beware of double salt jeopardy!

Rubs and spice blends are a great way to add flavor to meat. Rubs almost always contain salt because salt amps up flavor and helps form a crust (click here to read about The Zen of Salt). Brines are also a great way to add flavor as well as moisture (click here to read about The Zen of Brines). Meat that is labeled "enhanced" or "flavor enhanced" or "self-basting" or "basted" has been injected with a brine at the packing plant. Kosher meat has also been treated with salt at the plant. You can use a rub on brined or kosher meats, but beware of double salt jeopardy. A salty rub on top of brined or kosher meat can make it unbearably salty. If you use brined or kosher meat and then a rub, you should make your own rub and leave the salt out of the blend. Also, be aware that the drippings from a brined meat or a meat rubbed with a salty spice blend will probably not need salting, so if you make a gravy from drippings, be sure to taste before you add salt. Remember, you can always add salt, but you can't take it away.

Meathead's Whole Hog Dust

If you are doing whole hog on a cinderblock pit over direct heat, you don't want to risk the sugar burning, so use the same recipe for Meathead's Memphis Dust but omit the sugars.

Mustard or oil under the rub?

You can put a rub right on bare meat, or you can help it stick by moistening the meat with a little water, or you can put down a slather of mustard or ketchup, or you can use cooking oil.

My experience that they make little or no difference in the final outcome. Mustard is water, vinegar, and maybe white wine (all mostly water) with mustard powder mixed in. The amount of mustard powder is so small that by the time the water steams off and drips away, the mustard powder remaining is miniscule. If you want a mustard flavor, you will do much better by simply sprinkling it on the meat.

I usually use a cooking oil because it helps keep meat from sticking to the grates and because most of the herbs and spices in typical rubs are oil soluble, not water soluble.

Then again, salt is water soluble and, as we explain in our articles on marinades and brines, salt is pretty much the only thing that penetrates meat more than a fraction of an inch (with seafood being the notable exception). So using mustard might help dissolve the salt and using oil might help dissolve the hebrs and spices.

Far more important is what is in the rub than under the rub. So use whatever you want.

Rubs are spice mixes that you can apply to raw food before cooking and there are scores of commercial blends on the market. But there's no need to buy a rub when you can make your own and customize it to your taste. And they're easy to make!

Here's my recipe for a great all purpose pork rub. Although it is formulated for pork, I've used it with success on smoked salmon, stuffed raw celery, on the rim of Bloody Mary's, and even popcorn. It is carefully formulated to flavor, color, and form the proper crust when cooked at low temps. People tell me I really ought to bottle and sell it. Nah. You can have it for free. It's all here, nothing held back.

Since I originally designed this for ribs, let's talk about how to use it on this succulent bit of pig candy. Many purists in that barbecue mecca named Memphis lay a dry rub on their ribs before and after cooking, and then they eat their slabs crunchy, sans sauce. There are even restaurants that only serve "dry" ribs. No sauce in the joint.

Even if you like your pork "wet" (with sauce) a good rub can add flavor, texture, and color, and you need one if only so, when you are asked "What's your secret?", you can answer as the pros do, by saying "It's my rub, man."

Some pros leave their rub on overnight, sort of a dry marinade, that can work like a brine or a curing process. There is a reaction between the rub and the surface that helps form a nice crust, called bark, if the rub is on for at least two hours in the fridge.

Some put it right on the meat and then massage it in. Others lay down a mustard base first to act like glue, others make a wet rub by mixing it with oil or booze because the spices dissolve in lipids or alcohol, not water. I like to put a thin layer of vegetable oil on the meat and then sprinkle the rub on top.

After you used it on my Last Meal Ribs and my Perfect Pulled Pork, try it on salmon, and even popcorn!

Because of the sugar, make sure to cook at low temps.

As background for this recipe, read these articles, The Zen of Herbs & Spices, The Zen of Chiles, the Zen of Garlic, and The Zen of Salt.

Memphis Dust Recipe

Yield. Makes about 3 cups. I typically use about 1 tablespoon per side of a slab of St. Louis cut ribs, and a bit less for baby backs. Store the extra in a zipper bag or a glass jar with a tight lid.
Preparation time. 10 minutes to find everything and 5 minutes to dump them together.

Ingredients
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup Morton's kosher salt
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons rosemary powder

About the sugar and salt. I encourage readers to experiment with recipes, and "no rules in the bedroom or dining room" is my motto, but I have gotten some emails that require a response. I appreciate that many of you feel the need to reduce sugar and salt in your diets (although recent research has warned that low salt diets can be just as dangerous as high salt diets), but they are in the recipe for more than flavor enhancement, they help form the crust (a.k.a. called "the bark" by the pros), an important part of the texture of the surface of ribs and slow smoke roasted pork. The salt pulls some moisture to the surface to form a "pellicle" and the sugar mixes with the moisture, caramelizes, and also contributes to the crust. Salt also penetrates the meat far deeper than the spices and there it helps bind moisture. I strongly recommend you leave them in.

There are only about 2 tablespoons of rub on a large slab. Of that about 1 tablespoon is sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Some of it falls and drips off during cooking. If you eat half a slab, you're eating about 1 teaspoon of sugar and less than 1/4 teaspoon of salt. And for those of you who object to white sugar for non-dietary reasons, and use brown sugar instead, you need to know brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses added. It is not unrefined sugar. I use brown sugar for the flavor and white sugar because it improves the bark. You can substitute table salt, but beware that if you do, you should use about 2/3 as much. Read my article on salt. This recipe is a very successful rub from a taste and chemistry standpoint. I urge you to make it as specified the first time.

If you want to cut back on carbs, leave off the sweet barbecue sauce. It has a lot more sugar. Switch to a Lexington sauce which is mostly vinegar, or just eat the pork with rub and no sauce. It's mighty good that way...

About the rosemary. One reader hates rosemary and leaves it out. Trust me, it hides in the background and you will never know it is there. But it is. It is subtle and important in this blend. Substitute thyme or oregano if you must, but I think rosemary is the best choice. If you can find ground rosemary, good for you. It's hard to find. So just grind the rosemary leaves in a mortar and pestle or in a coffee grinder. It will take 2 to 3 tablespoons of leaves to make 2 teaspoons of powder. Again, please don't leave it out.

About the paprika. If you read my discussion of paprika by clicking the link you'll learn about the different kinds of paprika. In short, garden variety grocery store paprika has little flavor and is used mostly for color. But fresh Hungarian or Spanish paprika have mild but distinctive flavors. If you can find them, they improve this recipe. If you wish, you can use smoked paprika, especially good if you are cooking indoors, or even mix in some stronger stuff like ancho (slightly spicy), chipotle powder, cayenne, or chili powder (not very hot). Chipotle can be quite hot, so be thoughtful of who will be eating your food. I usually go easy on the heat in deference to the kids and wimps (like me) and add it to the sauce or put chipotle powder on the table for the chile heads.

About the ginger. I think it is a very important ingredient. If you don't have any, get some.

Method
1) Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl. If the sugar is lumpy, crumble the lumps by hand or on the side of the bowl with a fork. If you store the rub in a tight jar, you can keep it for months. If it clumps just chop it up, or if you wish, spread it on a baking sheet and put it in a 250°F oven for 15 minutes to drive off moisture. No hotter or the sugar can burn.

2) For most meats, sprinkle just enough on to color it. Not too thick, about 2 tablespoons per side of a large slab of St. Louis Cut ribs. For Memphis style ribs without a sauce, apply the rub thick enough to make a crunchy crust, about 3 tablespoons per side (remember to Skin 'n' Trim the back side). To prevent contaminating your rub with uncooked meat juices, spoon out the proper amount before you start and seal the bottle for future use. Keep your powder dry. To prevent cross-contamination, one hand sprinkles on the rub and the other hand does the rubbing. Don't put the hand that is rubbing into the powder.

3) Massage the rub into the meat at least an hour before cooking. Two to three hours is better.

This page was revised 5/16/2013

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