You have questions, we have answers.
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I have left the sugar out (doing low carb diet anyway) but am curious whether any members have experienced extreme blackening on the bark and all...
It's all depending on degrees. Degrees of the oven and degree of the sugar in the rub. At the temps we smoke at, I haven't found a problem with rubs containing a cup or more of white sugar. I know competition teams that use a LOT of sugar for their briskets and pulled pork, so we're talking smokes less than 24 hours. However, sugar will carmelize and burn over direct heat, so it's bad on a grill, but doesn't have as much a problem in rubs in smokers. It's that direct flame that burns more than carmelizes. Unless you're using Double Lazy's method of Torched Chicken or you run your smoker at very high temps (higher than we have in some CS's. If you stick with a small amount, I've not had a problem. Also, for a variation, go with turbinado sugar (some call it coffee sugar) and because of it's larger granules, it handes the temps better and longer. You can find it in bulk in Health Food stores. (while I was looking for a recipe, Tom snuck in ahead of me -- Hey Tom)
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I have seen Smokie's pictures of his ribs and they have a nice red color to them.
Smokie, did you ever submit your rub recipe?
You want my Rub? how could you? Actually yes I've posted the basic rub here before...let me go look for it...well I can't find it, but I'll look for it and post the link. It's a basic Memphis Style Rub and then you can add/modify as you desire.