My local HEB has a large variety of high-quality whole spices available. I avoided these for years. (I mean, you have to grind them and who has time for that? lol)
I recently got a KitchenAid spice grinder and have been exploring using whole spices more and more. I think I'm a convert. Not only do whole spices stay fresh far, far longer than ground ones, but you can toast and then grind them.
But here perhaps is the biggest reason. Check out the extreme price difference between these two fennel seeds:
Lang 48 inch Deluxe Patio Model (burns hickory splits)
PK 360 (burns premium lump charcoal with wood chunks)
28 inch Blackstone Griddle (propane)
Rubs I love:
Yardbird by Plow Boys
Killer Hogs by Malcom Reed
AP Rub by Malcom Reed
Meat Church (any)
Three Little Pigs Memphis Style for ribs
Would love to try Meathead's commercial rub
Sauces I love:
Gates'
Joe's
Pa & Ma's
Killer Hogs Vinegar Sauce
Disposable Equipment I use:
Disposable cutting boards
Tumbleweed chimney starters
Aluminum foil
Aluminum pans (half and full)
Latex gloves
Diamond Kosher Salt
Vice-President of BBQ Security, Roy
He's a pure-bred North American Brown Dog
He loves rawhide chewies
My wife calls me "Teddy" and I call her "Princess" and that's where "mrteddyprincess" comes from.
+1. Okay, let's see if we can give this thread a little kick.
My most recent favorite rub was for chicken wings we made at work. We had three flavors available, Frank's, and a Wild Wing Honey BBQ, and then we had the "Intense" dry rub that I put together with arbol and guajillo chiles, orange peel, garlic, onion, Simon and Garfunkel, black pepper, white pepper, and powdered honey. (I knew the wings were already dry brined so I added no salt).
Incredibly positive reviews from folks who don't mind a little heat.
The photo below is the spice combo before I ground it all up to make the dry rub.
I like buying whole-spices also. The reasons you listed above are all reasons for me too. I also like determining how coarse or fine I grind them depending on how I’m using them.
My only issue with this is with the number of spices I have in the pantry (large jars) and a large drawer (small jars), pounds of raw spices that need grinding would take up so much space, when my wife is already complaining about stuff falling off shelves every time she opens the pantry....
Fixing to redo things with a bunch of pull out drawer/shelves, and maybe one will be setup especially for spices...
That’s why they invented the coat closet with more space than needed for said coats. ;-)
It’s generally dark, and the temps are stable…perfect for storing more spices than is necessary to have at hand.
If you have a Sprouts in your community, their ground bulk spices are priced somewhere in between the two extremes. One plus is that you can buy just the amount you need. On a couple of occasions my small amount of spice wouldn’t register on the cashier’s scale, so they gave it to me free. I guess you could call that a perk. LOL
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