Sock’s Love Rub, just the name alone makes you want to try it but this rub is a lot more than just a name. The good folks and Sock’s Love Rub sent me a bottle to try for my self and here are my thoughts.
Upon opening the mailer, I noticed the color of this rub. It has a very appealing redness to it and just looks really fresh. We have all used old spices before either sadly purchased recently or left over from last season. Rubs tend to lose some color and flavor after time. This is not the case with Sock’s Love Rub it has a freshness to it almost as if you had made it yourself. It is a pretty coarse rub with big granules which I like. The turbinado sugar was apparent as well as cracked pepper.
The next test was how it tasted. It shook a small amount into my hand, tasted it and I was hooked. It was sweet (I am from KC so that is a good thing) but it had a real depth to it. Not heavy on salt and it finished with a little hint of that black pepper. My first thought is that this would be perfect for pork shoulder.
My wife picked up 2 pork shoulders (Boston Butts) for Easter Dinner and I began to get them ready for the smoker. I always start out by injecting with Chris Lilly’s World Championship Pork injection (recipe found here) then I began to rub the shoulders with Sock’s Love Rub. They were a thing of beauty. They had a wonderful red color that I hoped would remain after cooking and the rub created a wonderful coating on the meat. I loaded them into my Yoder YS 640 for a nice smoke. I used Barbecuer’s Delight Pellets Apple Flavor and smoked the shoulders at 225 degrees for 5 hours. This is how they looked before I wrapped them up for the rest of the cook.
As you can see, a nice bark had formed and I still had that beautiful red color that I wanted. After I wrapped the shoulders, I increased the temp of my cooker to 275 degrees for the next 5 hours until my thermometer read 200 degrees. I let the shoulders rest for about 2 hours before I pulled them.
As I pulled the pork shoulder, my wife and I sampled and were impressed with the flavor that this pork had. The Sock’s Love Rub really enhances the flavor of the meat. The bark had a really good flavor. You could taste the pepper and the sweetness but niether were overpowering the other. It was a perfect blend of sweet and heat.
The good folks at Sock’s Love Rub say this rub goes well on anything, beef, pork, chicken even eggs and I can believe it. My guests on Easter were very impressed with the flavor and I think BBQ judges would be too. Try this out for your next smoke. I highly recommend it. Go to Sock’s website socksloverub.com to order and follow them on twitter @socksloverub to keep up to date on their adventures.
Ernie Rupp
Join Ernie every other Monday, while he explores the amazing world of BBQ and Grilling from his outdoor cooking adventures, product reviews, to reviewing great BBQ restaurant hot spots from one of the BBQ Capitals of America: Kansas City.
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