South Carolina BBQ Rub

South Carolina BBQ Rub – In the 1730’s the British colony of South Carolina recruited German immigrants who brought with them their heritage of mustards from their cuisine.  Along with North Carolina, the Spanish brought pigs to this area and pork is the meat of choice in South Carolina as well.  South Carolina style barbecue is not surprisingly regionally similar to North Carolina barbecue.  The western part of South Carolina, similar to its northern neighbor, uses a peppery tomato sauce and the eastern part uses, as you guessed it, a spicy vinegar-based barbecue sauce.  The real difference is that the central part of South Carolina uses a uniquely mustard based barbecue sauce with vinegar, brown sugar and other spices.  To capture that essence the Grate Grinds South Carolina BBQ Rub has ingredients like:  mustard seeds, two types of chiles, smoked sea salt, black pepper. So, our South Carolina BBQ Rub is more broad based to cover all the barbecue variations in the state.  Grind this spice blend on your pork and then smoke or oven roast it for a taste of South Carolina!

Spice Ingredients: Demerara sugar, hickory smoked sea salt, onion, mustard seeds, garlic, New Mexican chile peppers, allspice, black pepper, and celery.

Please click on the RECIPE tab for detailed cooking instructions.

South Carolina BBQ Rub is available in a 4 oz. spice grinder bottle.

 South Carolina BBQ Rub Cooking Instructions

NOTE: To review and/or select the cut of pork you wish to use, please refer to the "Recommendation Guide to selecting your beef, pork, chicken, turkey or seafood" PDF, located in the Recipe link in the heading at the top of the Home page.  The pork butt is traditionally used here.

1.   To use the Grate Grind South Carolina BBQ Rub, evenly spray or rub, a little oil on all sides of your pork butt.  Then grind the rub evenly on all sides of your pork, gently pressing it onto the surface.  The amount of rub you grind on is up to your flavor preference. The more you grind on the more of a flavor impact the rub will have.  Figure 1, below is an example of how much rub to grind onto your pork butt, as a general rule.  You can use either a boneless or bone-in pork butt.  The bone-in will take a little longer to cook, but with this long slow cooking method, it really doesn't matter. 

NOTE: One word of caution, these rubs are self-contained, meaning that they already have salt in them in the proper ratio to the spices and herbs, so don’t overdo it with grinding the rubs or add any additional salt. 

                               Fig. 1.  Pork butt with BBQ rub on it.                                                                           

2.  After you have rubbed your meat, refrigerate it and allow your rub to rest on the meat for at least 20 minutes or up to twenty-four hours.  

NOTE:  Always buy your meats from a quality reputable stores.  Keep all meat under refrigeration as much as possible during preparation.  Don’t leave any meats out at room temperature for more than 30 minutes, except when you are ready to cook it.  Then let it just reach room temperature prior to cooking, but don’t let time exceed an hour.  Food safe guidelines recommend that any proteins (meats in this case) are not exposed to the “Temperature Danger Zone” (40 F. to 140 F) for more than 4 hours for its entire journey to you cooking it.  We are informing you of these food safety guidelines, because we want you to have a wonderful flavorful safe food experience, every time.

Barbecuing your pork butt is a low heat, slow roasting method and it can be done in a smoker, barbecue grill or even an oven, technically. 

SMOKER:

Preheat your smoker to 250-275° F.  Place your seasoned pork butt away from the direct heat source or smoke box. Rotate your pork every two hours to keep the smoking and temperature evenly around the pork butt.  Remember to resupply your smoking medium so the temperature remains constant throughout the cooking time.  The cooking times can very from 6 to 12 hours.  It really depends on the temperature and type of smoker you have and the amount of pork butt you are smoking. (Final cooking instructions are below)

BARBECUE/GRILL OR OVEN:

1)  We like to turn on all the gas or get all the coals hot  to 400°F. to 425ºF. so the meat will sear rapidly sealing in the juices caused by this initial high heat process. Once up to the preheat temperature, turn off the gas or move the charcoal away from one side of the grill.  Place the pork butt on that side with no coals or gas.   This is called indirect cooking.   Searing the pork should take around 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the size of your pork butt and the type and temperature of your grill. 

2)  After your pork has a nice light brown crust, turn the burners down or adjust the coals to maintain the heat at 250-275°F .  Now your job is to NOT touch the meat or open the lid or door too often.  Have a beer or iced tea, mow the lawn, rake leaves, watch some football! 

ALL COOKING METHODS:

1)  The time it takes to barbecue a boneless pork butt depends completely on the temperature of oven, grill or smoker and the size of the pork butt.  To barbecue your pork butt properly, allow at least 10 to 14 hours.  The key to the correct doneness of your slow cooked meat is to get the internal temperature (with an instant read thermometer) of the meat up to 190ºF., but not more.  You can get there in four hours if you push the temperature up, but the pork will dry out if you cook it too quickly.  Use a remote instant read thermometer to keep track of the internal temperature of the pork.

Remember, the key to barbecuing is:” LOW & SLOW”!  If the heat is too high, the meat will dry out and be tough.  You want your prized center of the table BBQ South Carolina pork butt to be moist and tender.

Fig. 2. Pork butt barbecuing on the grill.

2)  Once your pork butt has reached 190ºF, remove it from the grill or oven and let it "rest" under a foil tent.  There is an activity that takes place now called “carryover cooking”.  Once your food is removed from the heat source, it will continue to cook for 5 to 10 minutes for smaller cuts, 15 to 20 minutes for larger cuts of meat.  The retained heat in the meat continues the cooking process for a few more minutes, as the meat cools down. Part of the resting period is to allow the internal liquids in the meat, which are forced to the center by the intense cooking heat, and it will take a few minutes for the liquids to redistribute themselves throughout the meat, before you slice it.

 Fig. 3.  Barbecued sliced Pork Butt with South Carolina BBQ Rub.

 If you are looking for more cooking details please read the "Specific Instructions on Barbecuing, Grilled and Oven Roasting" PDF located in the Recipe heading at the top of the Home page..