Last month I had the chance to attend the “Fancy Foods Show” in San Francisco where I got to meet Gordon Bruner and the gang from Papaw Tom’s Foods. They made the trip out from Knoxville, Tennessee to display their wares.

Yesterday a package of goodies arrived from them for me to test and review. One of the items in the box was a “Get Your Butt In Shape” seasoning and sauce kit. The box includes everything you need to crank out a first rate smoked pork butt.

This kit was one of the best products I saw at the show. It contains a jar of rub, a bottle of sauce and an injector for injecting your butt before you put it on the smoker. For those who don’t know how to cook a smoked pork butt this kit will give you a great basis for a start into the work pulled pork.

I’ll be testing and reviewing a variety of rubs and sauces from Papaw Tom’s over the next month or so. But in the mean time I thought it might be a great idea to have a little contest. Would you like a chance to win the “Get Your Butt In Shape” kit?

Here’s how it’s going to work. Leave a comment here, leave a comment on Facebook and you’ll get an entry in the drawing. You can also get an entry by becoming a Twitter follower and for each Re-Tweet of one of my Tweets about this blog post. On February 15th I’ll draw a name and they’ll get the kit.

Click here to follow The BBQ Grail on Twitter.

Click here to become a Fan of The BBQ Grail.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I recently attended the “Fancy Food Show” in San Francisco and had an opportunity of meet lots of great BBQ people.  One of my favorites were the guys at Jake’s.  And I came away with a sample of Jake’s Steak, Rib & Tri-Tip Rub.

Tri-Tip is one of my favorite cuts of beef to cook outdoors.  There are a variety of different “tri-tip” rubs on the market today.  Some good, some bad.  Most of these tri-tip rubs are a Santa Maria type seasonings of some form or another.  Now there’s nothing wrong with Santa Maria style seasonings but there are only so many things you can do with salt, pepper, parsley and garlic.  It does get a little boring after awhile.

On their website Jake’s calls their rub a “Santa Maria” style rub, but they’ve added a little twist that allows the rub to work on ribs and steak as well.  My preferred method of cooking tri-tip is to sear and smoke the meat.  Normally, I’ll sear the tri-tip and then move the meat to a “low & slow” method with some wood smoke.  The high heat from the sear part of the process sometimes causes a bitter aftertaste.  You don’t get that with Jake’s.

In addition to the normal salt, pepper, garlic and parsley you’ll find in traditional Santa Maria rubs you can see other herbs and spices in Jake’s.  The tarragon and oregano gives the rub a nice additional flavor level.    The rub has an excellent balance between the salt and pepper in the rub.  What’s nice is that you can’t really taste any one flavor.  They blend together into a unique flavor that compliments the “beef” flavor that tri-tip is well known for.

I really loved the color it gave the tri-tip after the sear and a couple hours of 225 degree heat and smoke.  The marbling color and meat color gave the meat a fantastic appearance.

I decided the best way to try out the overall flavor of the meat was a tri-tip sandwich.  I nice heaping pile of thinly sliced meat on top of toasted bun with a large dollop of bbq sauce.  The flavor was fantastic.  Without a doubt Jake’s has a winner here.  Jake’s recommends this rub for just about anything including vegetables.  I for one can’t wait to try it on ribs.

This rub is also gluten and msg free.

You can order Jake’s online directly from Jake’s .  It’s also available at select retail outlets.  You can find a listing on the website also.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

It’s always a good thing to come home from work and find a package on the front porch.  This time it was a package from Great Lake BBQ Supply with a bag of their new rub.

Let me get the negative out of the way first.  The packaging stinks.  The rub comes in a sealed mylar bag.  The bag is a pain to deal with when trying to rub the ribs and doesn’t fit well on a shelf with all the other rubs.  They need to use good old, regular bottles.  I’ve already put the remainder of mine in a leftover bottle I have.

The rub has a nice combination of sugar and paprika. That along with the garlic gives the rub a really nice aroma when the back is first opened.

I really liked how as the ribs smoked the rub gave the ribs a nice deep red color. This may not seem important, but many times rubs just seem to fade into the meat and having an appealing color to your finished meat is important.

You can really see the color in this picture after about five hours of cooking. As the meat started to pull back from bones the bark just intensified.

I glazed the ribs with a sweeter BBQ sauce thinned with a little apple juice. I didn't want to cover up the rub flavor. The flavor of the ribs was fantastic. The rub flavor is some what mild. For those who enjoy a spicy rib rub this one might provde to be a little to mild, but should please the tastebuds of many. You can order RSS Rib Rub from www.greatlakesbbqsupply.com

© 2009 – 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I love tri-tip!  I grill tri-tips more than any other cut of meat.  My normal method is just to season with a little salt, pepper and garlic so when I was given the chance to try the “Santa Maria Style” seasoning from “The Rub Co.” I jumped at it.

If you are not familiar with “Santa Maria” style tri-tips you are missing a treat.  There are variety of excellent histories on the internet.  One of the best can be found at: http://www.lospadrescounty.net/et/smbbq.html

My first impression upon opening the bottle for the first time was that it was loaded with garlic.  Maybe too much.  I love garlic, as much as the next guy, but the garlic smell was a little overpowering.  I ventured forth and seasoned my tri-tip with a good dose of the seasoning.  In the end my fear of  to much garlic was unfounded.  It was perfect

As you can see there are a variety of other seasoning in addition to the garlic, salt and pepper you would normally expect to see.  Once it was on the meat and had sat there for a while it because to take on a nice little “crust” for lack of a better term.

I used by new 26 inch Weber kettle with a full chimney of hot coals on one end to give the tri-tip a good sear. I think the sear is vital to pulling out the full range of flavors from both the meat and the seasoning.  The “Santa Maria Style” seasoning gave the crisp (burnt) edges a wonderful flavor that screamed grilled perfection.

After searing both sides for about four minutes each I shifted the meat to the far end of the grate and added a couple chunks of almond, if  I had oak I would have used it, but I didn’t, where I cooked it indirect until it reach 140 degrees.

I normally like to baste my tri-tips with a little butter during the indrect cooking time so I took a stick of butter and melted it with a heaping tablespoon of the seasoning.  What a wonderful flavor this gave the meat.

Once the meat was to the desired temp I stuck it over the hot coals for a minute or so on each side to “crisp” up the butter and then let it rest for 15 minutes.

This was a wonderful way to cook a tri-tip.  The new seasoning from The Rub Co., is a welcome addition to an already fully stocked seasoning shelf in the pantry.

If you want to really bring out the flavor your beef products and give it the Santa Maria style treatment then give it a try.

You can purchase all their products direct from www.therubco.com

© 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Gave “Big Brother Smoke’s” Simply Marvelous Poultry Rub a try on some Spatchcock chicken tonight.

Started with a nice sized whole chicken:

Seasoned it up with Steph’s new rub and tossed it on the WSM. The rub has some nice flavors. Not just spices, there’s some herbs in there too:

What also made this a special cook was the wood I got to used. I got a care package from Roy (keale) last week. Loaded with seasoned guava. Let me tell you, this wood is great. Has a nice sweet aroma while smoking and it complimented Steph’s rub very well.

Here’s the bird half way through:

Glazed the bird with a little of BBS’s new BBQ sauce:

It looked so good I gave it another coating just before serving:

Toss it on a plate with some rice pilaf and salad:

Steph’s sauce and Poultry Rub is first rate. Awesome stuff. They both compliment each other very nicely. I’m thinking of smoking a whole turkey and will be giving the rub another good testing.

If you’d like to purchase some of these great new products send an email to: simplymarvelousbbq@yahoo.com

© 2008 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I’ve got a huge problem with Plowboy BBQ’s Yardbird Rub.

It’s too good.

I am a charter member of the BBQ Brethren Forum and, due to some family circumstances, I recently took a two year sabbatical from the website. During the time away I started collecting various spices and rubs to use in satisfying my BBQ cravings. Upon my return to activity on the forum I kept reading about this fantastic new rub produced by Plowboys BBQ. I had to try it and after ordering it I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a huge mistake.

After using Yardbird on a beer can chicken and a batch of smoked chicken thighs my family won’t eat chicken with anything else on it. Now I’ve got a pantry full of rubs that rarely get used. I’ve tried to sneak something else past their taste buds, but for the most part the results have not been met with any success.

If that wasn’t enough i tried Plowboy’s Yardbird Rub on my pork ribs once and now not only do I get to do chicken with this magic powdered dust it’s normally requested on my ribs. I’ve got a fresh salmon filet in the fridge and I’m afraid to use Plowboy on it out of fear it’s that good on fish also.

Plowboy’s Yardbird rub was developed for competition bbq but for those of us that are just backyard bbq geeks it gives us the opportunity to produce award winning bbq without the competition. The savory rub, with a touch of sweetness is followed on the back of the tongue with just a little heat.

I don’t know if there is a perfect bbq rub, but if Plowboy’s Yardbird rub isn’t it, I can’t imagine anything else better.

Plowboy’s Yardbird Rub: The Official Rub of the Gaian Family

Yardbird Rub is available at Hawkeyes BBQ.

© 2008, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.