Signiture bbq rub basics

Instead of giving you my recipe for my rubs, oh wait i already did that. How bout i also give you the basics of how to build a basic rub and then add to it for your own signature championship style rub.. huh… sound good.


The hardest thing about rubs is balancing out the seasonings so that one seasoning does not over power another. Hopefully i will be able to explain how to accomplish this.
First thing to do is beg, borrow, buy or steal rubs that list the ingredients that you can get your hands on. Then you list the ingredient from each rub from first to last in there space on a piece of paper. The first ingredient of the rub is the ingredient that there is the most of.

I have found that the most common ingredients are salt and sugar. So i will start off there. You want to balance your salts and sugars together. Basic rule of thumb is to start of with 1 cup of sugars such as brown sugar, white cane sugar and turbinado sugar. You can divide this in half if you want to just in case you screw up. Along with one cup of sugar, you have your one cup of salts. Salts include a variety of types including; garlic salt, celery salt, onion salt, kosher salt, and seasoning salt. Seasoning salt is a great salt to use because it enhances the flavors of other spices so well. Seasoning salt can be made or bought at the store. One caution that Paul Kirk has told me is that celery can be overpowering so if you have celery salt, dont add celery seeds to the rub or it can make it taste funky.

To balance the salts and sugars you could have measurements like this:

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar(dry it out first)
• 1/2 cup white cane sugar
• 1/2 cup seasoned salt
• 1/4 cup garlic salt
• 1/8 cup celery salt
• 1/8 cup onion salt

Notice the salts and sugars are now even and balanced properly.

The next most common ingredient is paprika. Paprika is mainly used for color rather than flavor.Though it does give the meat or food a slight woodsy flavor in my opinion. I Paul Kirk suggests bout 1/3 – 1/2 cup of paprika to balance it all out. By balance i mean it will give good color to the rub and meat.

Next comes the peppers. The two most common types of pepper used in rubs is the infamous chili powder/seasoning and black pepper. You want to add equal amounts of each to the rub. Basic amounts are 2-4 tablespoons of each. So if you add 1 TBS of chili powder, then add 1 TBS of black pepper.

Now you have a basic rub believe it or not:

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar(dry it out first)
• 1/2 cup white cane sugar
• 1/2 cup seasoned salt
• 1/4 cup garlic salt
• 1/8 cup celery salt
• 1/8 cup onion salt
• 1/2 cup paprika
• 2 TBS chili powder/seasoning
• 2 TBS black pepper

Now that we have our basic rub. Look on the ingredients list of a store bought rub. Notice how it says OTHER SPICES. Well now i will list off those OTHER SPICES you can pick from. Choose 2-4 from the list and add only 1 tsp – 2 tsp or less or you will over power the rub.
Signature spices:

allspice, anise, basil, bay leaf(whole or powdered), caraway seeds, cayenne, celery seeds(whole or ground, chervile, chives, cilantro, cinnamon, citric acid, cloves, coriander, crushed red pepper, cumin, curry powder, dill, fennel, garlic(granulated or powder), ginger, horseradish powder, jalapino powder, lemon pepper, lemon powder, lemon zest, mace, marjoram, mint, good ole MSG(AKA accent), dry mustard, nutmeg, onion powder, orange zest, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage(ground or rubbed), savory, taragon, thyme, turmeric, and white pepper.

Congrats, you now have an all purpose rub. Taste it and see if you like it. The true test is to use it once on some meat and see how it does. Paul kirks success to BBQ was using a mustard or mustard sauce with a rub.

here is an example of my rub. These are guidelines to follow. sometimes they can be broken but dont go off the beaten path to much or you could get lost.
My rub:

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar(dry it out first)
• 1/2 cup white cane sugar
• 1/2 cup seasoned salt
• 1/4 cup garlic salt
• 1/8 cup celery salt
• 1/8 cup onion salt
• 1/2 cup paprika
• 2 TBS chili powder/seasoning
• 2 TBS black pepper
• 2 tsp rubbed sage
• 1 tsp crushed chives
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp cayenne or chipolte powder