Dry Rubs For Meat
There are 2 types of rubs:
1) Dry rubs – no liquids just dry spices
2) Wet rubs – another name for marinade; liquids that mask meat taste
I only use dry rubs, some folks like wet rubs which are just marinades and are great if you buy cheap, tough cuts of meat and want to conceal the awful taste of the meat and partially digest the meat with strong chemicals and enzymes to soften the meat. Just buy good meats and use dry rubs; throw the marinades away.
A dry rub does 2 things to the meat:
1) Coats the meat to protect it from soot and forms a tasty crust
2) Infuses flavor into the meat that complements and enhances the natural meat taste
Once done smoking the meat, the rub is black with soot and smoke so color 
means nothing AFTER smoking. Color means a lot BEFORE smoking but only to judges of BBQ contests, they love the reddish color of paprika on a rack of ribs.
There are a million dry rub recipes for every cut and type of meat – you have to pick which ones you and your family and friends like. Generally the more spices in the rub, the more confusing the taste. If you can’t instantly identify ALL the spices in a rub then why on earth add it to your smoked meat?
In fact, when you read the ingredients of a dry rub mix I want you to imagine that you just smoked the meat without ANY rub and you cut and served the meat and now want to sprinkle on each of the ingredients, one at a time, and take a bite. So if your rub has salt in it imagine cutting a piece of meat and sprinkling on salt then eating it.
Imagine you just smoked a brisket and the rub recipe calls for brown sugar – would you sprinkle on brown sugar onto the next piece of beef you cut and then eat? Myself, I’d probably get sick – sugar and honey does not belong on beef, but on pork it tastes fantastic.
99% of the expensive “Professional rubs” are just a mishmash of spices that the creator of the rub never uses on his meats but makes big bucks selling to suckers.
The simplest rub for beef is:
1) 1 part kosher salt – coarse ground salt
2) 1 part coarsely ground black pepper – not the pepper you buy for a pepper shaker – really coarse freshly ground black pepper.
Can you imagine cutting a piece of beef and sprinkling salt and pepper on before eating it? It’s something you’ve done since a child.
Salt amplifies the natural taste of beef, black pepper adds a familiar spicy kick to the meat. The mixture of just salt and pepper does not have an appealing sight to it but after smoking it looks just like any other kind of expensive dry rub.
Beyond salt and pepper add spices that you like and would not mind sprinkling on a piece of brisket before eating. But realize that mixing just one more spice to salt and pepper now requires the expertise of a world class chef. It’s just like trying to match a paint color by adding a little red then a little yellow and then blue and then green and what you get is gray – same with spices.
If you like garlic then you can add garlic powder, if you like onions then you can add onion powder; however mix the two together and you get something that does not exist in nature – the garlic onion – so don’t mix the two together unless you have 20+ years of culinary expertise behind your taste buds.
If you are serving a brisket to a family event, some folks won’t like garlic and some won’t like onion so keep it off your brisket. Now if everyone loves garlic, then go ahead and add garlic powder to your rub.
I myself just buy my beef rub – I buy it in huge containers at Sam’s and CostCo – it’s 
McCormick’s “Montreal Steak Seasoning”. It costs $12 delivered from Amazon for 29 ounces which is 41¢ per oz. You can’t find a cheaper rub anywhere. It’s made up of:
- Coarse Salt
- Coarse Black Pepper
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Granulated Dried Garlic
- Natural Beef Flavor
- Paprika (adds reddish color and a spicy kick)
You can make it from scratch:
- 1 tbsp. kosher salt
- 2 tbsp. coarse ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp. red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp. granulated garlic
- 2 tbsp. paprika
Like I said you can add as many spices to the above as you want, you will just get a confusing taste that folks won’t be raving about. Don’t ruin a $30 brisket with 50¢ worth of confusing rub spices. Keep it simple.
Supporting Information:
Dry Rub Quiz
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Brisket Rub Recipe:
Tags: Dry Rubs, Food, Montreal Steak Seasoning
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