High Sugar in rub and injection - black bark- am I the problem?

landarc said:

Here are some that I have done, either on a kettle or UDS, always over a mixture of lump, briquettes and applewood, sometimes pecan or peach too.

All of these have sugar in the rub, usually turbinado and I am pretty sure the heat is always around 270F to 280F as that is where I run my cookers normally. There is a range of colors, and some of it appears burned. There is no carbon taste at all to any of these. I believe it is not the sugar, if you are getting burned flavors, look to the fire and how clean it is burning.

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grilling24x7 said:

So I think its worth posting some results. After reading the above info I realize that a sugary rub, mop, or injection is not the devil. In fact many of you show that you can use this stuff without getting the meat black. Yesterday I focused on not oversmoking, rather than cutting out the sugar. So for 12 hours I only used 3 small wood chucks (seasoned apple in chunks about the size of my fist or a bit larger). No smoke was added during the last few hours. Wood was added only during the first 6 hours, ever other hour.

I used Chris Lillys Injection which was awesome. None of the meat was charred black and I attribute it to less smoke.

Briefly, I aimed for 250 degrees, Kingsford charcoal, minion method, apple wood chunks on the 18.5 inch WSM. After 12 hours none of the meat was black. Everything was perfect.

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