Rib and Chicken Rub

[boar_d_laze]

Yesterday, I made the following dry rub and had very good results.

8 tbs light brown sugar
3 tbs (mild) paprika
3 tbs Morton kosher salt
2 tbs fresh cracked black pepper
1 tbs ground ginger
2 tsp granulated garlic
2 tsp granulated onion
2 tsp five spice powder.

The ribs were slathered with a mixture of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, and Maggi, before rub was applied generously. The chicken was brined in heavily salted limeade to which Worcestershire and dark soy sauce were generously added, along with a bit of Maggi (since the bottle was out), plus a bit of the rub. After the chicken had brined, it was dried to a tacky texture (i.e., a pellicle was formed), the rub was sprinkled -- not too heavily. The rub was not rubbed into either meat. Nor was it allowed to sit for any appreciable length of time.

Both meats were smoked over a mix of maple and hickory. The ribs cooked at around 235, and the chicken at around 285. After the ribs were (largely) cooked, they were removed to rest -- still without sauce. Then the chicken was cooked. The ribs finished with a beautiful mahogany-red color. The chicken came out dark golden brown -- darkness largely being a function of the soy sauce. Otherwise color was a product of smoke reaction as much as of the rub ingredients. Finally, both ribs and chicken were glazed with my basic barbecue sauce. (Any sweet/ sour/slightly hot/ ketchup based sauce, purchased or homemade would have done about as well.) Both were finished at about 285. The ribs and chicken were both excellent. Certainly, better than restaurant quality.

If you break down the five-spice, this rub has more ingredients than rubs I've been making these days and is not "balanced" according to the standard formulations. (8:3:1:1:1, for instance.) However, it did have a balanced, well rounded taste -- both on the finger (taste-testing for adjustment), and on the meat. Considering the strong amounts of ginger and five-spice, surprisingly, there was nothing particularly Asian about it.

 

[007bond-jb]

That sound good, Ya take any Photos???

 

[Captain Morgan]

now I'm not a brining expert, but I thought the ratio of salt to water
needed to be exact...by adding soy and woos, seems like it would
be too salty....any guess why not?

 

[boar_d_laze]

Bond James Bond,
No pics. We had company most of the day, and I couldn't have explained.

Cap,
Salinity levels don't need to be exact, they need to be controlled. There is some level below which meats won't brine, and some level above which they will brine more quickly than other desired processes require. But in between it's a matter of type of meat, size of piece, and time in the brine. Although there's flexibility -- especially at lower saline levels, it's a good idea to start from a known baseline. In my case, I measure by tasting. A more accurate test would be to continue adding salt until an egg floats. Egg float is approximately 1 cup of table salt to 1 gallon of water. In this case, the saline level with all ingredients tasted at about 2/3 - 3/4 of egg-float. The meat was bone-in skin-on chicken thighs. Time in the brine was approximately 3 hours, refrigerated. After wiping with paper towels, air dry time was approximately 1-1/2 hours in the refrigerator. Outside humidity was very low.

 

[Captain Morgan]

I recently added a soy based sauce (Remington) to the brine,
and even though I washed and dried, it was too salty for me.
I prefer brined to injected chicken (uniformity), but I also
realize I'm a little salt sensitive compared to the general public.
My brine also included chicken consomme base, which is salty as
well....my question is, can you over salt the brine?

 

[007bond-jb]

Cappy well hell yes you can over salt a brine (think of the dead sea) . & Rich that aint no ecsuse Boy. Over here I'll take photos of the guests plates, & tellem cope boy cope... They do ask WTF & I'll direct to this site. most are not postin cause they don't want to be shown up... I guess. :roll:

 

[Rag1]

Thanks for the rub info. I was getting up some nerve to ask you for one, after the good results I had with your brisket method/procedure.
Most rubs I try seem to have more salt than I like, probably because I put too much on. This one looks like a ratio that would suit me.

 

[bigwheel]

Dang lot of good info Boar. Thanks for sharing.

bigwheel

 

[Bill The Grill Guy]

Bond James Bond,
No pics. We had company most of the day, and I couldn't have explained.

So your saying that those of us who take pics of thier food infront of thier company are,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,? Hell, its a rare occasion that I dont take pics of food that I am cooking.

 

[boar_d_laze]

Bill -- You probably get a better, more understanding class of company.

Rag -- Glad you like the looks of this one. I'll be interested in hearing how it works for you.

Speaking of brisket, my usual beef rubs are probably too salty for you, but it's easy enough to work around. The usual problem with beef rubs is over sweetening which masks beef's natural flavor as much as it brings out the flavor of pork and (most) poultry. A good spice for you to work with might be fenugreek (Indian markets) which enhances other flavors in much the same way salt does, but doesn't add much on its own. You may, however notice a curry smell on your breath or in your urine after eating.

Another way of controlling saltiness is to switch from dry rubs to wet rubs. These kind of pastes are common in Indian cooking, so they kind of go along with fenugreek. At any rate, you mix your spices, along with some onion, fresh garlic, gninger and a little bit of olive (or other) oil in a blender to make a stiff paste. There are several benefits to working this way. First, the freshness of the onion, garlic and any other fresh aromatics you use; second, tasting a wet rub gives a more accurate idea of the finished product than does tasting a dry rub; and third ... well, before I get to third let me digress:

The taste buds on your tongue are divided into four groups: Hot, like pepper; salty; sour; and sweet. Other tastes are directed to your brain by the nerve cells resident in your nose and your palate -- which are also olfactory. A blast of any of the four basic tastes heightens the sensitivity of your tongue and your palate to other flavors. That's how hot sauce and sugar works their magic, and why salt is said to "bring out the taste." Well so does sour.

So... third, a semi-liquid rub lets you add a little vinegar or yogurt for sourness.

 

[Cliff H.]

That is a very interesting read. Thanks for the info. I am up for a good beef rub.

 

[Rag1]

Boar_d_laze, the rub was very good. My wife and I took our new RV to a site the the banks of the Delaware River and grilled two rubbed steaks after an afternoon of fishing.
The steaks were only fair. They were gifts that we had in our freezer. They were Omaha Steaks. Probably some cut of sirloin since they were dead rectangle as if cut from a larger piece. They were tender, but little fat and flavor. The rub carried them. Thanks for the recipe.
Ron

 

[boar_d_laze]

Rag,

Really glad you liked it. [smilie=a_happyme.gif]

 

[Finney]

The rub sounds great, as does the ingrediants in your brine.

I'd only add to cappy that higher saline levels basically mean a shorter time in the brine to not over salt. This isn't the most advantages approach sometimes though. But if you are short for time.........

 

[boar_d_laze]

Brining is one of those "art and/or science" things. Finney makes a good point. It's important to recognize that there are upper and lower limits to saline concentration for an effective brine.

If your brine has too little salt it will end up drying out the meat you're trying to keep moist, by diffusing and diluting the natural juices with water. Salt (and phosphates if you use them) fix the moisture in the meat. Not enough salt, and fixing doesn't happen. To make matters worse, the "tenderizing" aspect (really protein denaturing) facilitated by salts and acids won't take place in the same way either.

If your brine is overly salted, it will (surprise) over salt the product before it can perform its other major function which is to facilitate diffusion (and maybe osmosis maybe not -- jury's still out) so as to pump other flavors such as sugars and aromatics into the product.

Consequently, you need to work within established paramaters. Fortunately, the paramaters are loose. Assuming a "standard" concentration to be 1 cup of table salt to 1 gallon of liquid, I find slightly weaker saline concentrations (down to 1/2 cup table salt per gallon liquid) to be very forgiving in terms of time variation. Very important if, like me, you sometimes end up cooking brined product the next day because dinner plans were altered by SWMBO at the last minute.

A note on salts. Salinity is determined by weight of the salt to the volume of liquid, not by volume of salt. All salts are not created volumetrically equal. 1 (scant) cup pickling salt = 1 cup table salt = 1-1/2 cup Morton Kosher salt = 2 cups Diamond Kosher salt. I recommend pickling or table salt over kosher or sea or colored salts because they're less expensive -- and once salt's dissolved in solution, salt is salt. Whatever concentration you decide to use, it's probably a good idea to learn to recognize it by taste, so you can reproduce it with an unfamiliar salt.