Shirley J is a Utah based food company that develops and sells quality “no fail, just add water” food products.  I’m not sure about any of the other food products but the BBQ sauce rocks.  I love this stuff and no one is more surprised than I am.  The first time around I followed the directions and mixed the powder 50/50 with water.  I can’t wait to do some experiments by mixing with other liquids.  Fruit juices, tomato based products and the possibilities with Asian flavors is endless.

“Shirley J BBQ Sauce is as simple as it is savory. Just add water, and use with meat or vegetables, as a rub or marinade and on burgers and fries. Sugar and spice and flavor to your liking, or serve the BBQ sauce as-is; Shirley J always promises a no-fuss process.

Shirley J BBQ Sauce can be mixed as an ingredient or dressed as a condiment. Try our flavor varieties below!”

The sauce comes in powdered form mixed 50/50 with water.  Not really sure what is in the powder but the combination of spices and flavorings is excellent and should match up with just about any seasoning, spices or rubs you might use on your BBQ.

When I first mixed the powder in thee water I was a little concerned with how thin it was, but as it heated on the stove it thickened right up into a perfect consistency.

It would be easy to thin this up add some honey or marmalade to give you a nice glaze for just about anything.  The sauce mix comes in 12 oz and 48 oz sizes and I think at least the small one is worth the investment for a try.

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The “Hog Heaven”is labeled as competition rub.  Don’t let that designation scare you off.  If you get a chance to try them I think you’ll be happy…even if you’re just cooking in your backyard.  Just an added note to all rub makers:  Drop the “competition” label off your packaging if you want to sell to the wider backyarder market.  It’s just a guess, but I think you’re losing market share with the competition designation.  Lot’s of people win with “non competition” rubs.

The first thing you’ll notice, about “Hog Heaven”, is that for a rub it’s loaded with much more herbs than I normally expect to see in this type of rub.  I love the herbal flavors mixed with the more tradition rub ingredients.  One thing to remember when using this rub!  It comes packaged in a mylar bag type of package (which I prefer) but you’ve got to mix the rub up.  The herbs have a tendency to settle at the top of the package and if you don’t mix them up you’ll get a load of herbs without the other ingredients.  This shouldn’t be much a problem because you should always shake and/or mix your rubs before applying anyway.

I try to test most of the rubs I receive on pork ribs, this gives me a good basis for comparison between the various rubs.  So first up was “Hog Heaven” and since it’s called a rib rub I figured there wasn’t much sense in changing my normal pattern.  I gave a couple racks of pork ribs, trimmed to St. Louis cut a good dose of the rub.

You’ll notice in the picture the nice layer of herbs mixed with the other rub ingredients.  In the end this will give you a nice flavor to your ribs.  Although I did lightly sauce the ribs I think they would be perfectly good with no sauce at all.  I’d give them a try naked to see how you like them before saucing.  And I think a sauce less on the sweet side would match this rub very well.

I also tried “Hog Heaven” on some grilled chicken.  And I let me tell you!  This is an outstanding rub for chicken.  I didn’t smoke the chicken, which would be the more traditional way with a rub.  I grilled it instead.  No sauce…just rub and some heat.  It was fantastic.  I think I actually prefer this on chicken.  And I can already tell, even though I didn’t try it, that it would compliment fish too.

If you are using this rub on any meat and planning to use a direct heat cooking method make sure you monitor your heat.  Different ingredients in different rubs and seasonings burn at different temperatures.  The herbs in this rub will burn quicker than most rub ingredients (because they’re herbs) so just watch you food and keep the temperature in a moderate range and you’ll be just fine.

The “Raging Bull” beef rub is closer to a traditional rub than the “Hog Heaven,” but it has some different flavor profiles than most beef rubs out there.  One main ingredient, which I’m not going to share, is used in some great steak recipes in some of the best steak houses, so you aren’t going to go wrong.  But be warned it isn’t want you might expect.  If you look at the rub to the right you might be able to pick out some of the ingredients that are a little different.

I don’t know for sure what Steve had in mind for this rub, probably brisket, but I used a chuck roast for my test run.  And it worked fantastic.  Nice bark and more importantly a very nice flavor that just made the beef flavor in the roast jump.  I really like this rub.  It will go on my list of rubs I purchase.

Above you can see the rub when it was first applied to the chuck roast (Left) and then after a couple hours in the smoke(right).  The bark started to form almost immediately.  What was fantastic about this was the flavor of the bark really added to the overall flavor of the meat after I pulled it.

We used the pulled beef in some very nice tacos. (which I forgot to take pictures of).

You can purchase both these rubs from Great Lakes BBQ Supply and I suggest you do.

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After a exchanging a few tweets the offer was made to send me some product to try out.  And a few days later a bottle of Willie’s Hog Dust appeared in my mailbox.

One of the traits that perplexes me about rub makers is the tendency to sometimes use animals in the title of their product.  Let’s use Willie’s Hog Dust as an example.  If I saw this on the shelf I’d think it was only good for pork.  And that would be a shame because it’s great on beef.

I checked out Willie’s website and it mentioned using it on steaks.  So I thought let’s give it a good test and I smoked up a rack of center cut, beef back ribs.  And let me tell you, those were some fine beef ribs.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the “hog dust” was how fine the rub had been ground.  It may be the finest grind I’ve ever seen in a BBQ rub.  I wasn’t quite sure what this would mean when it actually came to using the rub, but I soon learned.

It’s hard to tell from the picture, because there is no frame of reference, but Willie’s Hog Dust makes rubbin down your meat easier.  I never thought I would consider that to be an andvantage when buying a rub, but I think it is.

The reason it’s called “rub” is because the expectation is you’re going to rub the seasoning into the meat.  With a lot of rubs it takes some effort and maybe extra rub to get all the meat covered and the seasonings worked into the meat.  With Willie’s Hog Dust it really did require less effort to get good coverage on the meat.  When you’re only doing one or two racks of ribs or pork butts this might not seem like a big deal, but if you’re prepping large amounts of meat this is a huge benefit.

The flavor of this rub is fantastic.  It has a slight “peppery” overall flavor that compliments the meat without covering the “meat” taste.  I really like this rub and can see how it would be great on a variety of meats, not just pork and beef.

Willie’s Hog Dust is all natural.  While it’s not sodium free it does contain less salt than most rubs.  It’s also MSG and Gluten free, both of which  are rare in the BBQ rub industry.

The beef ribs tasted amazing and I ate them without any sauce at all. Finding a rub that allows you to eat your ribs without sauce is a good thing.

Visit their website for more information and where to purchase it.

St. Louis style ribs are prepared by removing the cartilage from the “top” of each rib rack.  If you go to a BBQ restaurant and order “rib tips” this is where they’ve come from.  Some meat processors sell these “rib tips” by the case.  It can be an economical way to serve ribs to large groups.

When you trim lots of racks of ribs you end up with quite a few freezer bags full of trimmings.  One of the most common questions asked on BBQ forums is “what do you do with your rib trimmings?  There’s a lot of different techniques/recipes for rib trimmings.  Here’s one of the ways we utilize rib trimmings at are house. (Click each picture to enlarge.)

Place all your rib trimmings in the crockpot.

Add a can of green enchilada sauce and cook until tender

Shred the pork. Make sure you discard all fat and cartilage

After straining the liquid and removing the fat reduce on the stove.

Reduce the liquid from the crockpot down to a thick "syrup" consistency.

Add the reduced liquid back to the shredded pork and mix well.

Take your uncooked tortillas and poke holes all over them.

Place your tortilla over a small bowl and bake at 400 degrees until brown

Now you've got a bowl. Fill it with the pork and all the fixings.

**I use Tortilla Land uncooked tortillas.  These tortillas can be purchased at Costco and provide a great fresh tortilla that compliments your food.

***The rib tips were in the crock pot on low for about 8 hours.  Make sure you get all the fat drained out of the meat.  One great way of removing the fat is to cook the meat the day before and put the liquid in the refrigerator, after it cools.  The fat will congeal on top and you can easily remove it.

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Chuck Averwater explains the revolutionary design of his Stacker Rib Smoker to a couple of BBQ enthusiasts during Memphis In May.

One of the truly amazing opportunities I got while attending Memphis In May was a chance to spend some time with Chuck Averwater owner of  Smackers Gourmet BBQ Seasoning and Smokers.  I’ve been a fan of Smackers Memphis Style Dry rub for a while now.  It’s a great dry rub that’s perfect for ribs and pork butts.  If I didn’t do anything else while in Memphis what I saw and learned from Chuck in one short session would have made the trip worthwhile.

Chuck’s new smoker may be one of the most revolutionary BBQ pits to come out in years.  It is without a doubt a product that if you see it, you will want it.  After going through it’s design and features you’ll shake your head and wonder why it took someone this long to come up with it.

What Chuck came up with is the Stacker a smoker made up of drawers.  With his revolutionary design Chuck has fixed the biggest problem pitmasters face when trying to check their meat, loss of heat.  On a traditional BBQ pit whenever you open the door to check the meat, sauce, rearrange or any other reason the heat drop can do nothing but give you fits.

From this view you can see some of the thought Chuck put into his design.  When each drawer is opened the back of the drawer seals off the heat chamber of the smoker.  According to Chuck when the drawer is opened for any length of time the overall temperature of the pit drops less than five degrees.

The stainless steel cooking grates are all removable.  The flexible high heat drawer gaskets allow for some adjustment of the seal to insure you always have a proper fit.  The pits are made in Memphis by hand.  Each piece of steel is laser cut to insure a proper fit.

It’s quite obvious from the design of his Stacker Smoker that Chuck is a thinker.  And not only has he thought up a great smoker, but he’s thought up an interesting and somewhat revolutionary way of smoking ribs.  Chuck was kind enough to send me an article he is planning to publish on his website that explains how to turn out some great ribs.

How many times have you seen ribs that had a dark, or even black appearance and had good taste and tenderness, but lacked some smoke flavor?

Most of that is caused by the sugars in the rub and not always because they were overcooked and appeared burned.  I experimented a few years ago and made a really interesting discovery.  I loaded a case of baby-backs into one of our Stacker drawer smokers without “any” rub on them.  Yes, even I thought it was crazy.  My theory was that if our pores open up when we sweat, then, why wouldn’t it be the same with the ribs?  I discovered that by applying a healthy amount of rub to the meat prior to cooking that it would cause the sugar to caramelize, as it’s expected to do.  Then, with more cooking time, the sugars turned the meat an unappetizing dark to black color.  Yes, I know over-saturation of smoke can cause this, too.

I’ve seen many cooks panic while thinking the ribs were burned and pulled them off and swear they would “never buy ribs from that place again” because they were so tough.  After all, it stands to reason that we are planning to “smoke” the ribs and that the smoke might possibly be blocked by the caramelized sugar, much like using a sunscreen, which in turn would not allow adequate smoke penetration and the desired smoke ring.  My thoughts were the same for applying mustard, also.

So, I smoked them without any rub applied before cooking to try to get maximum smoke penetration and flavor.  The result was indeed a much better smoke penetration and improved smoke flavor and tenderness.  I’ve judged many contests and eaten a lot of meat that was cooked properly with great tenderness, but, had very little or no smoke flavor whatsoever.  Then, the outside was beautifully covered with a sauce or glaze and just seemed to be lacking the smoke flavor.

I knew there had to be some balance somewhere in between so I later began applying a small amount of rub to the meat prior to cooking and rubbed it in, then, covered it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature until the smoker heated up.  Then, put the ribs on around 225 degrees.  As the meat temperature began to rise and the fat rendered nicely into the water pan, the pores opened up and allowed much deeper smoke penetration, all the way to the bone.

Since the Stacker smoker can cook baby backs in 3 1/2 to 4 hours without wrapping in foil, I opened a drawer around the 3 hour mark and pulled out the entire grate with 3 to 5 slabs on it, set it on the table and performed the cosmetic work to the ribs by using what I call the “Spray, Sprinkle, Spray” method.  The spray is 3/4 apple juice (or apple cider) and 1/4 grenadine.  Yes, it does taste very sweet, but, it’s only used to help the rub stick that I’m about to apply.  The grenadine adds additional fruit flavor and gives the meat a really nice mahogany color.  Next, I spray one slab at a time.  Then, sprinkle a healthy portion of our Smackers BBQ Seasoning, and respray again to help draw it into the open pores of the meat.  It’s usually best to turn all the ribs over and do the bottoms and sides first (between the bones since some judges will pull them apart first to look for smoke and tenderness).  Then, flip them back over and Spray, Sprinkle, Spray the tops.  (Checkout some of the photos below).

Next, I put all the ribs back into the smoker and let them carmelize and watch the color develop as it all melts into the meat for another 30 minutes to an hour.  I check the tenderness using the “little fingernail” technique.  When the meat has pulled back from the ends of the bones about the length of your little fingernail, they are ready.  Then, I remove them again and paint on the finish glaze for even more flavor and appearance.  It’s best to let them rest some before eating or turn-in time.

I’ve demonstrated the effectiveness of this technique with Red Todd and several other very experienced champion BBQ teams that were all surprised how well it worked.  I even did it on chicken thighs that I cooked for the KCBS judges class held at the 2010 NBBQA trade show in Memphis.  Making great BBQ is a process of many steps and techniques.  I know BBQ cooking techniques  are very subjective and that some people might be skeptical, but, once you try this, you might be surprised, too.

Unseasoned ribs ready to go on the Stacker drawer smoker.

Unseasoned ribs after smoking for 3 hours. Granted, not very appealing at this stage, but, developing a great smoked flavor first.

Patrick Rooney of Sweet Swine O' Mine 2009 MIM World Champion trying this technique of spraying (step 1) with a mixture of apple juice and grenadine after smoking 3 hours.

Sprinkled with Smackers BBQ Seasoning on bottom and top (step 2)

Sprayed again (step 3)

Put back in the smoker until tender

Glazed

This is the appearance you get using this technique. No sauce required.

You can read more about Stackers and Smackers on www.smackersbbq.com.