Father’s day ribs: rub vs. marinade showdown

[wilburpan]

I’ve wondered whether marinating ribs vs. putting a dry rub onto them had an advantage in how the ribs turned out in terms of moistness, bark, or texture. For Father’s Day I was planning on cooking some ribs, so I thought I’d answer my own question by testing this out for myself. I’m mainly interested to see how the bark and consistency of the ribs might be affected. I assume that the flavor profiles will be different.
 
On the marinade side, I followed this recipe from Saveur magazine. I’ve cooked this once before, using an oven. (Please forgive me. We lived in an apartment at the time and I had no grill.) It turned out quite well, despite the lack of real smoking action. I put together the marinade yesterday afternoon and they sat in the refrigerator overnight. Here are the ribs in the Ziplock bag, marinating.



On the dry rub side, I put together a rub based on Aaron Franklin’s approach, with some modifications. This rub is mainly 2 parts fresh ground black pepper, 1 part kosher salt, with a little bit of each of the following: garlic powder, onion powder, chile powder (see below), paprika, dry mustard, and brown sugar.

Here are the modifications. Instead of the chile powder, I used the spice mixture from the marinade recipe because it was on hand from yesterday, it has a good amount of ancho chile and cayenne in it, and I didn’t want to waste it. The brown sugar is an addition to his rib rub approach. Aaron Franklin says he doesn’t like to use sugar for low and slow cooks because of the chance of burning. He says to add the sugar for cooking chicken because those cooks are faster, and so there’s less chance of the sugar burning. He also cooks on an offset smoker. I think that with a kamado, burning the sugar in the rub isn’t as much of an issue because the temperature control in a kamado is so good.



In any case, everyone should watch his video on making rubs. It’s really terrific.
 
Here’s the dry rub ribs, ready to go.



And here are the two racks, side by side in Smaug.



When I bought the two racks, they were pretty much identical in size and weight. It looks like the overnight marinade caused that rack to swell and change shape a bit.

Smaug decided he wanted to be at 260ºF today, so that’s what I’m cooking at. Updates to come, but I plan on just letting them sit for the next five hours or so until they are done.

Here are the ribs at about the three hour mark.


 
Interestingly, both racks are starting to look the same as far as consistency and texture of the surface (beyond the presence of the spices in the dry rub rib, or course). I have about two hours left.
 
One other thing I’d like to mention. I know that I had said that I was cooking at 250ºF because that’s where Smaug settled himself. After I posted that, I dialed down the vents a bit, and Smaug dropped down to 225ºF, which is where I originally intended to be. Good boy, Smaug.

Here’s the final product. The ribs pretty much sat in Smaug for about five hours. I only disturbed them to take the in progress picture above, and tested their doneness by the bend test. The dry rub rack is on the top, and the marinated rack is on the bottom.
 

 
Here are some close up photos to give you all an idea of what the ribs looked like. Dry rub rack:



And the marinated rack:
 

 
The interesting thing to me is that aside from the fact that the dry rub rack has spices sitting on the surface, the surface of both racks of ribs are pretty much the same. They both developed a bark, and both developed that nice mahogany color. In other words, if I had sprinkled the marinated rack with some spices at some point during the cooking, I doubt I could tell which rack was which based on appearance alone.
 
I should also mention that there was no problem with the sugar in the dry rub burning, despite Aaron Frankin’s concerns about burning sugar in a long cook. I do think that’s because of the excellent temperature control that Smaug provided. Sugar can’t burn if it doesn’t get above its scorch point. Kamado cooking FTW!
 
Here’s a comparison of the cross sections of the two racks. The dry rub ribs are on top, the marinated one is on the bottom.
 

 
Both racks developed a nice smoke ring. It may look like that the dry rub rib has more of a smoke ring than the marinated rib, but that’s really just these two particular ribs. At other points in the rack, the dry rub ribs had less of a smoke ring, and the marinated ribs had more.
 
In terms of texture and bite, it was a wash. The only tip off (outside of flavor) that you were eating the dry rub rack was that you could feel the presence of the spices with your tongue, but the meat was otherwise identical in texture and moisture.

Here’s the glamour shot, with the ribs brushed with a little bit of BBQ sauce (here’s the recipe, and it’s the best recipe for BBQ sauce I have ever encountered). Marinated ribs on top, dry rub on the bottom.
 


In terms of flavor distribution in the meat, both methods were pretty equivalent. Despite what the Amazing Ribs website says, the flavor of the marinade seemed to have no problem penetrating the meat, and even though the rack was marinated overnight, there seemed to be no ill effects of the acid components of the marinade precooking the surface of the meat. Having said that, this wouldn’t be the first time that the Amazing Ribs folks have misapplied science.
 
In terms of overall flavor, we liked the dry rub better, but not by much. Both racks were delicious. It wasn’t really like one rack was “better†than the other. It was more like preferring one BBQ restaurant’s ribs to another. I have to mention that the marinated ribs were handicapped in the flavor comparison, as the original recipe calls for the marinated ribs to be brushed with BBQ sauce and then finished off at a high temperature. I didn’t do this step because I wanted to see if there was a texture difference between dry rub and marinating ribs, and the finishing step would have confused that. I’ve made the marinated ribs before, as I mentioned, and they did turn out better with the last step, and the taste of the marinated ribs with and without the sauce clearly showed that it was meant to be cooked and served with the sauce. Not all ribs are meant to be served without sauce.
 
My conclusion is that outside of the flavor profile, there isn’t much difference between cooking ribs with a dry rub and cooking ribs with a marinade. Overall, a dry rub is a simpler to assemble and apply, so there’s an advantage to using a dry rub from that standpoint. On the other hand, there may be some recipes where a marinade is the only reasonable option. I’m specifically thinking about Asian-style recipes where you’ll want soy sauce as a flavor base, and there isn’t a dry rub version of soy sauce that I know of.
 
So if you’re worried that a recipe for ribs calls for a marinade, and that might not be “real BBQ†because you’re not sprinkling on a rub, don’t be. Good food is good food, regardless of the method you took to get there.
 
I realize that this contradicts a lot of what Amazing Ribs has to say about dry rubs vs. marinades. Like I said, this wouldn’t be the first time that Amazing Ribs got their science wrong.
 
Finally, my wife made a batch of her cowboy beans as a side. All you need to know about this dish is that the first step in her recipe says, “Cook six pieces of bacon.â€

[MacKenzie]

Wilbur, that was an amazing write-up, very interesting and very informative, and everything  looks soooooooooo tasty. Thanks for the great presentation      

[DaveyR]

Great write up.<br />

[ckreef]

Really great write up - TY for taking the time to post all that.

[Cookie]

Nice experiment and nice write up!  While I'm sure both tasted great, I can tell you right now (based on your pics) which one I'd choose...dry rub all the way.  Was the skin from the marinated rack a bit chewy?  Please don't take offense but at the surface level, that rack looks a little leathery in a few spots while the rubbed rack still looks moist.  Inside they look pretty similar so I'm wondering if the rub doesn't also provided a little added protection...like an SPF 15.

 

I agree with you on the sugar....I love me some caramelization (also evident in your rubbed rack).

 

Bravo!

[tony b]

Great write-up and pictures, Wilbur (see, I remembered!)

 

I will admit upfront that I am a fan of Amazing Ribs, in particular for debunking a lot of bad info out there on grilling/BBQing.  In their article, they talk thinner vs thicker cuts and the difference marinading makes between the two. Ribs aren't that thick a piece of meat, so I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a lot of difference between your dry rub and marinaded ribs. But, in the long run, it's what you like, not what is "correct." We're cooking food here, not building rockets to Mars.

[CeramicChef]

Wonderful cook, great write-up! And I love your wife's bean recipe! Cook 6 slices of bacon! How can that be wrong?! Major kudos and congrats to you and your Bride. Very nicely done!

[wilburpan]

Nice experiment and nice write up!  While I'm sure both tasted great, I can tell you right now (based on your pics) which one I'd choose...dry rub all the way.  Was the skin from the marinated rack a bit chewy?  Please don't take offense but at the surface level, that rack looks a little leathery in a few spots while the rubbed rack still looks moist.  Inside they look pretty similar so I'm wondering if the rub doesn't also provided a little added protection...like an SPF 15.

 

Here’s where we run into the limitations of photography insofar as it relates how food tastes like. Despite the visual differences, both racks were moist, and both had a nice bark on them. I went back to look at my original photo, and what looks like increased moisture on the dry rub rack of ribs is really differences in lighting conditions and reflections.

 

The dry rub rack definitely looked more appetizing. But as I mentioned above, the marinated rack of ribs was handicapped in that I didn’t finish it off by brushing some sauce on and finishing on the grill at a higher temperature. If I had done that, the marinated rack would look a lot more delicious.

[wilburpan]

Great write-up and pictures, Wilbur (see, I remembered!)

 

I will admit upfront that I am a fan of Amazing Ribs, in particular for debunking a lot of bad info out there on grilling/BBQing.  In their article, they talk thinner vs thicker cuts and the difference marinading makes between the two. Ribs aren't that thick a piece of meat, so I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a lot of difference between your dry rub and marinaded ribs.

 

 

The Amazing Ribs site says that outside of salt, flavors from a marinade only penetrate 1/8†or so. These ribs were certainly more than 1/4†thick. 

 

In addition, I’ve found that if you question their methodology, they are pretty quick to circle the wagons and call you an idiot. I had a discussion with Meathead one time about their method of “proving†that beer can chicken didn’t do anything to the taste. I wasn’t questioning their conclusions, just the fact that they didn’t do the test that would have been necessary from a scientific standpoint, which is to do a head-to-head comparison like I did with these ribs. Instead of discussing this, Meathead told me I didn’t understand the scientific method at all, and that he must know what he’s talking about because he had won awards. Eventually, he deleted my comments.

 

As far as my ability to understanding the scientific method, for my day job I’m a pediatric oncologist, and I know how to design and evaluate clinical trials. Meathead seemed to think this was not of any importance.

 

There is a lot of useful information on the Amazing Ribs website, but they seem to argue from authority fairly often. In terms of geeking out about food and cooking chemistry, I think that Serious Eats, Cook’s Illustrated, and Alton Brown are better. And Serious Eats covers grilling really well.

[tony b]

Sad, but true. Often "experts" get so caught up in their own hype; they lose perspective. That would be the death toll for any scientist or engineer. You gotta be able to keep an open mind and take criticism. 

 

I'm too, a big fan of both Alton and Cook's, for precisely those reasons, they do complete work. I will check out Serious Eats. 

 

Update: Liking the Serious Eats website. Thanks for the tip, Wilbur!

Edited June 22, 2015 by tony b

[dstr8]

Great post up wilburpan!  Et all too!  

[wilburpan]

Sad, but true. Often "experts" get so caught up in their own hype; they lose perspective. That would be the death toll for any scientist or engineer. You gotta be able to keep an open mind and take criticism. 

 

I'm too, a big fan of both Alton and Cook's, for precisely those reasons, they do complete work. I will check out Serious Eats. 

 

Update: Liking the Serious Eats website. Thanks for the tip, Wilbur!

 

Here’s one thing you should know about Serious Eats: J. Kenji López-Alt, one of the main writers for Serious Eats, was an editor at Cook’s Illustrated and one of the main publicizers of the reverse sear method back when it wasn’t well known. Her may not have invented it (and he’ll be one of the first to say that), but he certainly was one of the main reasons people started talking about it.

 

So there’s your grilling props for Serious Eats.

[tinyfish]

Thanks Wiburpan some good info there.

[wilburpan]

A quick followup: last night we had the leftover ribs for dinner. This time I took the marinated ribs, heated them up in the oven, brushed them with the sauce, and broiled them for a bit to finish them off. The marinated ribs were much better finished this way than what I did the day before. In terms of flavor, it would have been much closer had I done this with the marinated ribs yesterday.

[tony b]

Great follow-up, Wilbur.

 

As much as we like to experiment, sometimes the author of the recipe has worked through all the options and presents us with their best result. But, it's still fun to f**k with the recipes sometimes!!