Rub Question

[Darin Hearn]

I read a tip about running my homemade rub through one for those cheap coffee grinders, to make all the ingredients a consistent size. So I went and bought one yesterday. My question is; how long do you run the rub through the grinder? Just a few seconds? Or longer?

 

[Bryan S]

Darin, Run it long enough to get the texture your looking for. I'd say probably in the 5 second range since it's pretty fine to start with. Takes my grinder about 10 seconds to pulverize whole coffee beans to dust.

 

[Kevin O.]

Additional coffee grinder information; I forget where I saw this recently. I think maybe Alton Brown. After you use your coffee grinder to pulvarize spices for a rub or whatever, if you then run it with bread in it, it supposedly gets rid of the spice flavors and you can use it for coffee again or vise-versa.

k

 

[K Kruger]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">then run it with bread in it, </div></BLOCKQUOTE>You can use bread crumbs or uncooked rice.

 

[Jared Moore]

Using a coffee grinder to mix up a rub is a great idea. I wish I'd read this earlier to save my fingers from using a spoon to mash everything into a smaller size.

 

[adam clyde]

One caution about using a grinder for rubs... if you have sugar in it, it can quickly turn to a super-fine powder. I threw some granulated sugar in my grinder a few weeks ago, and it became almost a cloud of sugar dust, it was so fine. If you use it to break up the clumps, I'd do it very, very quickly.

Same principle is also true for salt. I use kosher salt and if I put it in the grinder, it almost immediately turns it into that same cloud of fine powder.

Since I like my salt and sugar to have some substance to it, I no longer use a grinder. But try it out and let us know how it works for you.

 

[Shawn W]

cool coffee grinder cleaning tip ... thanks guys!

 

[Chris Allingham]

Most recommendations I've read are to have two separate grinders, one for coffee and another for all your spice needs. Don't want your coffee tasting like spices.

Here's an article from America's Test Kitchen on spice grinders:

Spice Grinders

Regards,
Chris

 

[Darin Hearn]

Thought I would report back. I used the coffee grinder and ground my rub into a fine powder. I put it on some ribs I was making and I loved it! The powder clung to the meat much better than before. Also sometimes (usually when I make ribs) there would be a grainy texture from the rub on the ribs and I was not very happy with that. It did not happen every time but it happened enough to bother me. But when I ground the rub there was no grit just flavor. This is how I will be doing my rub from now on!

 

[Brian L.]

Coffee grinders are cheap so there's no reason not to have 2, one for coffee and one for spices. I wouldn't want to go through the trouble of cleaning the damn things for double duty.

I'm not a coffee drinker though so I only require one!