I have been looking on the forum for a topic regarding using a commercial rub vs creating your own. Looking at the cost factor? Is it cheaper to buy the spices and contents and make your own (once you find a recipe) or buy a tried and true recipe ?
It's always cheaper to make you own, unless you don't use very much. Meathead has lots of DIY rub recipes for free, they also make a great base if you want to experiment and add to them.
Having said that I buy more than I make, just because I don't burn through enough rub to make buying fresh spices worth it unless I'm doing a special meal.
I buy premade, retail rubs right now. I think there's a couple of reasons to make your own, though. First, you can tailor it to what you like. Second, if you keep bulk spices around, it can be cheaper. And third, of course, some people just like to tinker.
BUT... if you want a cup or two of rub, you need to have bulk quantities of the inputs and that means you need to go though those fast enough that they don't go stale (or vacuum seal some to preserve them). By bulk, i just mean large amounts, e.g. this 1.6lb version of granulated garlic or similar quantities of paprika, etc.
If someone smokes meat a lot and therefore goes through rub fast? This is likely a good thing to do. Me, I don't go through rubs fast enough for the cost difference to matter at all, so it's down to whether I want to play with custom mixes and so far the answer is no.
Last edited by rickgregory; March 4, 2022, 07:08 PM.
If things hadn't slowed down some in the last 2 years I was going to see about sending my rub ratio to a spice company to mix me up a good sized batch. I was tired of making so much.
Jerod Broussard I know you made it for beef, but I LOVE it on chicken. My beef rub is pretty perfect for me, and between MMD and my pork rub, I am super satisfied, but yours is best for chicken. Only thing close is St.Elmos steak rub. Is it a secret recipe?
I might look at rubs a different way. How much of the rub do you taste when done? Does a quarter of a teaspoon of cloves make a difference? I tend to think that simpler rubs are the way to go. Then, better off making your own. But, convenience often wins out.
I look at rubs, from a taste perspective, I only look at what balances out the richness of the cook. I still believe (currently), that you should want to taste the protein, just trying to balance some of richness.
I agree, there is something to be said for plain old salt and pepper.
I Traeger--ized a chicken with kosher salt and coarse black pepper.
Turned out stupid good: cleaned, trimmed, seasoned, super smoked at 225, finished at 325.
I have a custom chicken rub that I make on a semi-regular basis, but it is tuned to exactly what I want on one particular type of chicken I make. Beyond that, I stick with commercial rubs.
Sometimes I start from scratch (esp. for a big cook) ; usually I buy the store...always seem to be adding something like Cumin, Paprika, White pepper......
All my rubs and seasonings I make. I have two spice cabinets one full of bulk one full of the rub mixes. I make my own cajun seasoning, taco seasoning, garam Masala, curry, zaatar, everything. But as stated above with a family of 6 and we only eat things cooked from scratch, plus the catering I do for events and charities and employees, and everyone in the neighborhood comes by to get a jar of whatever rub they are out of, it all gets cycled through pretty fast. Any chili powders, I grind myself from the farm so I don't buy those in bulk, I make them in bulk
This is pretty exactly what we do. My wife or I make pretty much all the blended spices we use - all the stuff you mention above. We've got a very well stocked spice cabinet, and we got through enough of them that I feel like we get the value out of having them.
I also like to mix my own but don’t do it in bulk. It’s easier to buy premix but my biggest problem with those is the salt content. Can’t make rubs commercially viable without salt filler. Since I dry brine most of my proteins it’s a concern. For me mixing my own is really better for that reason alone.
Thus far, have not used a retail rub -- but I've been doing this only since last July.
For pork, I have made up Meathead 's Memphis Dust, and a recipe for Memphis's Central BBQ's rib rub that I came across on the Food Network. I tried out a so called "KC style" rib rub that we found a little too hot. There's one more I'd like to try, another Memphis-style, so labeled, from Serious Eats.
For poultry, I have mixed up some Simon & Garfunkel, and have also experimented and come up with one of my own that I call Fowl Play (because I'm a nrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd).
For beef, I've gone through several iterations, stealing ideas from multiple recipes, but it's not quite there yet. I reckon next beef cook will probably get there, I've got one more adjustment on my list. Also mixed up a small amount of Mrs O'Leary's, which I've tried but once thus far, and probably want to tweak that a little bit too.
I find it fun to do this, but then, it's my experimental lab background coming up again. In that kind of work, first thing one does is decide on what is the starting material for the experiments, and mixing it up out of bulk chemicals (at least when working on extraterrestrial compositions, when one doesn't want to grind up the actual rock, because it's too precious).
rickgregory we're on it!! Artemis missions to the Moon will return more samples, and the Perseverance rover is collecting samples on Mars for (hopefullly) later retrieval... but there are always chondritic meteorites. We've got tens of thousands of those, earning them the label "ordinary chondrites".
I've been making my own dry rub for years buying spices in bulk as mixing in 3-4 cup batches as I need it.
I can control the sugar and salt content, an option that I like plus the recipe is not written in stone so I can make little tweaks whenever I want.
Forgot all about this -- especially salt, since that's best controlled separately. Good thing that there are at least some salt-free rubs available commercially.
I tend to stick to SPG for pork butts, brisket and chuck roasts. I like the flexibility of using the meat in many different ways after it’s smoked.
I have a few commercial seasoning blends that I use for grilling. Montreal Steak, Montreal Chicken, McCormick Perfect Pinch Caribbean Jerk and La Preferida Adobo and La Preferida Sazon.
I have come up with a couple rubs I really like. A Sweet Heat Rub that’s great on chicken and ribs and my Sweet Mustard Rub that I’m quite fond of for incredible ribs.
I always have a modified Meatheads Memphis Dust and the Simon & Garfunkel on hand.
I am lucky to live 20 minutes from a very large bulk food store that has hundreds of cheap bulk spices.
So I made a big batch, but realized I needed to scale it down. The scaled down version in (parentheses) I think is 1/8 of the original, or close to it. :)
This is a system; 1. Dry
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