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This episode is about BBQ rubs with Russell from The Rusty BBQ Journey. Russ tells us about the science behind creating rubs and his business journey. Its a great listen and they have a great range of rubs and sauces to purch...
This episode is about BBQ rubs with Russell from The Rusty BBQ Journey. Russ tells us about the science behind creating rubs and his business journey. Its a great listen and they have a great range of rubs and sauces to purchase on the website. We also talk a bit more about his #cuetogether initiative which is designed to get people to use live fire cooking and the community together and open up about mental health.
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BBQ Bingo is sponsored by LumberjAxe Food Company, who have a fantastic range of rubs & sauces for all your culinary needs! Check out their range.
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For all of our other episodes you can listen or watch them on our website.
Dan - Host:
Today's episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast is brought to you by iOS outdoor kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists Welcome to another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast today we are joined by Russ from the rusty barbecue company who's talking all about his wonderful, different rubs. But he'll go through all of that with us in a second. So not much further ado, here's Russ. Hi, Ross. Welcome
Owen - Host:
to the podcasts. For anyone that doesn't know you. Please introduce yourself.
Rusty BBQ Co:
Hi, guys. My name is Ross and I am owner of the rusty barbecue company.
Dan - Host:
Cool. And if you don't know what that is, get it in your life. Pause right now get on Instagram, have a look on there, do a Google but you must have seen some of these rubs around. Talk us through like how did this originally start up?
Unknown:
Great question i Do you know what is similar to a lot of people, I think the story and I've always loved cooking and I've always loved barbecuing and outdoor cooking. And you know, but you used to have like the drunken weekends with friends coming round. And we'd you know, throw some stuff on the barbecue, we try a bit of sort of low and slow smoking. And I just got a real buzz four years ago and started playing with kind of different flavors myself on the meats that I was cooking up for friends. And the feedback I got was phenomenal. And people like you know, you should really think about, you know, going into business or selling this and I just I blew it off for years and didn't think much of it until a friend of mine sort of said, you know, I'm really interested in buying some of your stuff, can I buy some off you and it kind of organically grew from there, I sold a couple to a mate that, you know, knock off prices and you know the cost of ingredients. And then his friend contacted me he was like, oh, what I was wondering, you know, Joe's here the weekend? Loved it, would I be able to get some from me? And I thought okay, maybe we need to do something here. And that's how it started. And we kind of went from there really?
Owen - Host:
How long ago did you launch?
Unknown:
So 2016 we formed the business and that's when it went from being a little mess about to actually a fully fledged business. And, yeah, that, you know, it was a bit slow to start, the barbecue scene was only just starting to pick up back in those days, social media wasn't as prominent as it is now. So getting out there and spreading the reach was really hard. But um, since sort of COVID kicked in and people started to stay at home or were forced to stay home, or do just find a natural elevation and our business tripled during COVID The you know, the quantities and volumes. And we've gone on to see that triple in size for a tripling request pretty much ever since. And you know we're like I say that two or three times increase in business every year at the moment. We've just had our busiest you know, what I call offseason, which we all know there isn't an offseason in barbecue in the wintertime that historically gets sort of dies off, but we just haven't seen it this year. People are barbecuing year round and, and supply demand is there. 24/7 365 now, which is great.
Dan - Host:
It's one of those things where it's great that obviously everything tripled for you during COVID But I'm sure that brings its own problems and kind of different solutions that that need to kind of building from that.
Unknown:
Pretty much yeah, you go from being a kind of in your kitchen mess and about to crap, we need to do something here or we need to look at ways of becoming more efficient because as the demand increases, it just becomes harder and more time consuming to produce. So yeah, we invested in the business we you know, we got some machinery involved. So we've got like a blending machine we've got a weighing and packaging machine that really helped streamline our process. And fundamentally we moved from old style packets back in sort of 2018 2019 into the shakers which again speeds the process up a lot because you can you know, you can get a lot of bottles kind of wrapped really quickly with labels with a simple labeling machine. And it just yeah increased our capacity massively.
Owen - Host:
And you still you still making it out at home or have you man, you've gotten into a into a processing unit.
Unknown:
Not yet we haven't I've refrained I've basically taken over the majority of the downstairs of the house and we converted our garage into a blending studio. So I've got you know, a professional setup in there with all your your kind of your your stainless steel worktops. We've got all of our machinery in there. We've got a packing area boxed off down one end so we've had to get some external storage for storing a lot of the rubs post make. But yeah, it was we're still doing it. It's got to the point now where we literally have no capacity left at home. So we're flirting with the idea of commercial promises. But he's taken that next leap. It's, it's a big leap from a financial point of view. And yeah, just just kind of we're just toying and playing with that idea sort of roundabout Easter time, do we jump into commercial premises and go from there really?
Owen - Host:
Because this is not your day job, right. This is this is something that's still an aside for you.
Unknown:
And yeah, I think that's the word. A lot of people that work in the barbecue industry and rubs in particular, they kind of do it on the side and to make enough of a commercial model of it, for it to become your living is extremely difficult. And I must admit, we're in a really fortunate position that myself and my wife, who She's the brains behind the organization, she does all the finances and all the funky stuff. I'm the crazy scientist that you know, throw stuff together and creates the flavors. But we're, you know, we're we're staring down the brink now of this becoming our full time careers and our full time jobs, which is, you know, is absolutely phenomenal. And I didn't envisage that a couple of years ago, so we've got a couple of tough decisions to make over the next 12 months, we've got to look at what we do from a funding point of view as well. And, and whether we self fund and go out and take that risk, or whether we look at bringing in external funding, but it's a really, you know, it's a great problem to have really exciting problems I have.
Dan - Host:
Who needs two kidneys? So what each year, are you laughing? Right?
Unknown:
Right Thing? Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Owen - Host:
Well, there's a kidney, kidney rub or something, you know, if you want to say everyone,
Unknown:
well, there you go, that that will put that into your into fruition later this year. Most definitely.
Owen - Host:
But yeah, as I say, you must be quite excited by that prospect. God said, it's a tough, you've got some tough decisions to make. But you could be in a lot worse positions to actually you know, so it must be quite an exciting challenge to have.
Unknown:
It is. And I think anybody who barbecues and anybody who loves cooking outdoors, it's a real escapism and a passion. And I still love doing it now. And you know, your fantastic podcast on the queue together, mental health, a lot of people and the feedback that we've received is that is their safe space, going outside, lighting a fire, throwing something over coals, whatever it may be. And for me the opportunity of taking this thing that is my happy place, my love my passion, and potentially turning it into a career and insert to the livelihood is, yeah, it's hugely exciting, and a lot of blood sweat and tears along the way. But yeah, it's exciting, with a little bit of fear thrown in there as well.
Owen - Host:
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, we're big fans. I've got quite a you know, quite a few of your rubs. I want to know, where do you get your inspiration from, you know, how would you just sit there and go, right, this is what we're going to make, you know, where does that come from?
Unknown:
I'm a massive foodie. And I love eating various cuisines and any opportunity, I get to go to a different restaurant, I'll I'll jump at the opportunity. And, you know, you take inspiration from some of the dishes you eat when you're out and about. And like most people, I'm addicted to Netflix shows around food as well. And, you know, you've got the likes of attacco Chronicles, which is hugely exciting. And that kind of really got me into a position of wanting to do a Mexican range, or bringing out the Mexican side of our rubs, which, which I went into and did. I started off very traditional, it was very kind of protein specific. So we've got what we call our core four, which are, you know, we got your chalk the chicken, hogwash for the pigs or the the pork, cattle dust for cows and a core powder, which has no purpose. And that's how the business started. And I kind of enjoyed that. But the barbecue scene in the UK and the want to create a UK identity is becoming more and more prevalent is the years go on. So I'm just constantly watching out for trends in the food market. You know, I'm checking in on all the food programs to see what's hot and what's going on. And that's really where I get a lot of the ideas from and yeah, just just having a play really and trying something different. That's kind of it. I love experimenting. You know, I've we've got kilos and kilos of different spices and chilies and salts and all of that. And just, I can't sit still. So if I'm ever sat down, I've got five minutes, which is quite rare these days, I'll be in Toronto throw something together and come up with a new concept or a new idea. So kind of a long way of answering but I kind of draw from everywhere I draw from TV, I try and keep up with the local trends that are going on, you know, keep in touch on social media to have a look at what you know what people are cooking. And yeah, just just try and sort of use all of those elements to bring a fusion of ideas together and hopefully create something that is a little bit different.
Dan - Host:
Which Rob came first.
Unknown:
The chicken or the egg. It was To me, it was the core four. So we put the core four together first. And again that was drawn from my you know, when you start out in barbecue we all look at YouTube, don't we, you know, and you watch the various different influencers and the people that put them barbecue out, the majority of them back in sort of 2015 2016 were American using American style rubs. So that's what kind of gave me the one and then the idea we started off with very kind of what I call traditional type rubs. But I wanted to add a UK element to them. So we use British herbs in all of the rubs that we make and you know, a hot wash for example is is a very traditional smoky slightly spicy, a bit of ancho heat in there, but it's lifted with lovage, which is a you know a bit of a medieval herb that you don't come across very often. And that's kind of where I wanted to go initially with the rubs was that traditional fill with a bit of a chain a bit of a salon a bit of a UK element. So in Yeah, the core for where it started, we ran with those for 12 months and then I got itchy feet and wanted to play a little bit so that that the kind of the Creation creative juices flow from them.
Owen - Host:
I mean, the cherry cola, ribbon winged dust, I mean, that is a very sweet rub, right?
Unknown:
It is it's one of my worst to make, because it's such a fine blend of sugars, that when you're putting it together, you have to literally have full on you know, hazmat suits on and face masks because it is a it feels carcinogenic it's definitely not I can assure you but it gets in gets in every orifice and you know the house always know what I'm making a blender a batch of the cherry cola, because there there'll be coughing and sneezing in sort of the rest of the house for the rest of the week. But it is again Yeah, it's a hugely sweet Robin that came from very traditional route. So you look at a lot of recipes with ribs when they're done in like slow cookers and you know, you're cooking ham joints, you generally cook them in like a cola or they've been known to be cooked in a cola. So I just had a bit of a play with and yes, I came up with something that I wanted to be kind of a bit of an ambidextrous rub some that you could put on your wings as a finishing dust suddenly across ribs to cook with. And yeah, it's something just a little bit sweeter than your usual and Yes, a bit of a lip smacking that one.
Owen - Host:
Oh, you can? Yeah, so I've got it. And you can definitely smell it when you open it. It's a real potent smell. I actually smoked I actually cured some bacon with it. Oh, yes. So I made it made a cure. And then just a very small amount just to you know, give it a flavor. And then I actually cold smoked to over cherry as well. Oh, nice. I was really happy. I mean, again, it's sweet bacon. But you know if you have any like breakfast or pancakes, you know, like an American style pancake with the cherry. Smoked cherry wing dust. Bacon. It's yeah, yeah, it's spot on. So yeah, if no one's ever tried that before with it. It's it was it's an a plus for me.
Unknown:
Yeah, good stuff. Great on the Christmas ham as well. Another, another little one lifts the old Christmas ama a little bit as well. So
Owen - Host:
I'm sorry, Dan, I was just about to say. I'm interested to know with all the rubs that you've got. And what would you say is your I'm sure you get this all the time. But what is your favorite?
Dan - Host:
Rough? It's exactly I was gonna ask.
Unknown:
It's like when somebody says, who's your favorite child? You know, it's really bloody hard to answer that. But you have. Can I narrow it down to a couple, I've got three that I'm really exceptionally proud of. And one of them was the one of the first ever rubs that I made. So one of the core forces and that's the chip chalk, which is the chicken wrap that we do. For some reason. It just the families love it. My family love it. You know, we're quite partial to a bit of a spatchcock chicken on a Sunday with some hasselback potatoes, and the flavor profile, the lemon elements and the rose marine the time really comes through in that Rob and I just I love that as an all day. And I even find if I'm having like soup on a lunchtime and I want to spice it up a little bit. That's my kind of go to to throw a little bit into a, you know, a boring chicken and vegetable soup or whatever to give it a bit of a lift. So that one is always going to have a special place to my heart as being like my first child. You know, he was one of the first ones I created. But it's lasted the time it's lasted since sort of 2014 When I first pulled it together. So the fact that it's still got a relevant taste profile now is you know, I'm exceptionally proud of the other two. So I I love beer. I think most people love beer. But I love like craft ales and for me, I'm a massive IPA fan and I've always wanted to do something in that space and thought, well, how can I create that in a rub form? that could be, you know, we get the flavor profile transfer but works across me because it's it's a unique flavor. And I played with a Rob for two years that went on to become the IPA rather than. And what it is, is all the elements you get from an IPA. So hops are in there, steamed hops, grapefruit through orange peel, lemon zest, a lot of these notes that you'd find within a really great craft beer, we've put into a rod been, you know, really, really proud that we've won multiple awards for that one. And it's, you know, it was our first ever great taste to star winner that we got and it draws the crowd a lot of people is one of our one of our most popular rubs that one and, and people love it because of that connotation to the IPA. It's a great presence to give to people as well, because it's, you're given a beer, but you're not, you know, it's like getting the best of both worlds. So that I'd have to say it's got to be up there as well, because it took a so long to create. But I think I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but managed to capture the elements and the creative zaniness of a proper IPA, and translate that into a Rob So that was my that was my kind of, you know where you've got like the project or the car in the garage that you know the old jaggy type, you want to try and restore and you spend all your years doing it. That for me was my restoration or my kind of go to projects and took a long, long time to get right. And I think from start to finish, it took about two and a half years to really nailed the flavor profile that one before I was in a position to sort of release that.
Dan - Host:
We thought well, this that you've put together, and the fact that consumers are obviously loving it, and you've seen the huge amount of growth that you have done to the point we needed to make this next step. What about more kind of recognition in the cooking space? And things? Yeah, have you gone forward with any awards or anything like that?
Unknown:
Yeah, so great taste has been a fantastic support for us as a business and the guild of fine food every year, that they do their great taste Awards, where you can enter your products and, and it's not just about winning the war, but it's getting feedback on the products that you're putting in as well from, you know, seasoned experts, giving you creative feedback on your products, I feel is invaluable in this world. And, you know, I can create rubs left, right and center. But they'll they may be right for me doesn't necessarily mean they're right in, you know that the hands of the experts. So to kind of put that out in into the ether is great and get that feedback. And, you know, we've kind of presented a number of rubs over the last sort of few years. And we've been really fortunate we've won 12 gold stars in total, with two of our products receiving two gold stars, which is really quite rare. And there's only a select few barbecue rub companies in the UK at the moment that are able to say that they hold that accreditation as well. So some really great organizations. And yeah, we're really proud to have sort of been recognized with a couple of our products.
Owen - Host:
I mean, they're the biggest the biggest consumer food awards in the country. So that's a massive, massive, massive achievement.
Unknown:
Thank you, we're
Owen - Host:
about to sit, you're about to say about a third rubbish, I think that you couldn't quite decipher if that was your favorite or not, what was the third rub you were about to say?
Unknown:
So the third one was a it's been referred to as black crack. And I know that sounds really bizarre, Dan urban streets er II kind of absolutely came up with the name of because he puts it on everything. And that is our Black Angus coffee rub. And that's a marriage of unique flavors. So we use Scottish wild garlic that we have dried down for us and sent down to us. And then we blend that with coffee, with Cornish sea salt, a few herbs and spices in there as well just to give it a bit of a warmth, but activated charcoal as well. And when you were asking earlier on about how to design a rubber come up with a rod that one was an interesting one because what you need to do when you come up with a concept is think of the end result and work your way back. That's how I do it. So you think of the protein that's going to go with and the Black Angus is clearly a beef Robin, you know, I was thinking things like beef ribs, putting it in burgers potentially fantastic on things like your big briskets and your your big hunks of beef. And what I wanted to do there was to create a rub that had all of these amazing flavor profiles, but also had the science behind it as well in the compound build up and the ability for the robber to be absorbed into the meat and support the smoke creation and the bark creation. So that was a real scientific one for me and again, very different from like the flavor driven side of of the IPA robbing a million miles away from the very first row by came from the reference to the truck talk. So yeah, that's probably my third third favorite. And again, it's our best seller now it's it's absolutely flying off the shelves. And yeah that the feedbacks been absolutely phenomenal on that one. So that's got to be up there as well as another favorite form of mine. You
Owen - Host:
mentioning just then a few ingredients, Cornish sea salt, Scottish, wild garlic. And you were saying about, you know, elevating kind of a British take on, you know, traditional American style rubs? Is British ingredients at the forefront of your choosing when it comes to creating these rubs?
Unknown:
Absolutely, I would not put, I try and draw from local UK suppliers wherever possible. So, you know, you can go out and, you know, get sea sea salt sort of shipped in from all around the world at ridiculously cheap costs. That's not what I'm about, I'm about the quality and, and I'm a big believer that the quality and the love you put in, you get out the back end as a result. So yeah, I mean, I'm hugely passionate Britain, you know, follower and promoter of, of UK produce. And it's really important for me to carry that message through my rubs as well. And, yeah, all of our herbs we have made in the UK, or they've grown in the UK, and then freeze dried, specially for us. So yeah, any herb that I put in, or any ingredient I try and source in the UK where possible. But that's not always possible, you know, you look at some of your chilies, for example, you need to put in some of the rubs, you just cannot grow chilies, effectively and cost efficiently in the UK for the quantities that we need for our rubs. So we have to import some of those. But again, my big push is on sort of small producers, and we actually use a small cooperative for our Chili's. And they are a cooperative of ex convicts, Mexicans of all people who have Small Chili farms based throughout Mexico. And yeah, we buy sort of direct from them. So I kind of feel like although it's not a British ingredient, we're doing a little bit to help sustainability we're doing a little bit to kind of help and I'm a big believer that what goes around comes around. So you know, we get great products out the back end. But I also want to get back to the suppliers and, and you small and local people wherever possible. Has this
Dan - Host:
kind of journey also changed how you're barbecuing and how you're grilling at home.
Unknown:
I'm gay kind of has and I went through a period. And I've got to be really careful because I'm constantly working on something new, there's always a concept or there's always a new rub ongoing and I can find myself becoming a bit mechanical with my cooking. And that is I cook to test the rug, which is you know, it was brilliant for the kickoff the business of the business, but it took him some lockdown for me to kind of take a step back and think well, hang on a minute, I'm not cooking for fun at the moment I'm cooking, because I'm doing well because I'm trialing and, you know everything had a photograph taken and, you know, concepts and notes were taken down after every meal. And that kind of took the fun element out of it for me. So during lockdown, like most people had a great opportunity to take a step back and readdress the way that I was living and what I was doing and, you know, made a pact with the family that we do more family style, barbecuing more sort of homestyle cooking, and focusing more on the enjoyment factor rather than the mechanical element of cooking. And yeah, I must admit, I fell out not fell out of love with barbecuing, but it became a necessity, sort of pre COVID. And if there are any glimpses to take out with COVID That's the one thing that I will take away that it kind of reset my cooking focus in an allowed me to take a step back and start enjoy cooking again. And today. I just I love watching social media to see what everybody else is doing. And I try and copy ideas replicate ideas. Yeah, social media is such a massive, massive, massive kind of hub of information for people these days that I kind of feel like I'm back in love with him now and I want to try all these new things. And I know I'm gonna sit down this evening and see what people were cooking over the weekend. And there's gonna be two or three things that I'm gonna going to want to cook. So yeah, I've kind of been on a bit of a journey with the cooking side of things I must have meant
Owen - Host:
what what is your setup at home in terms of your barbecues? What's your kind of go to grills?
Unknown:
Wow. So back in the early days when we started up, we actually added a catering arm to the business. So we did a bit of catering on the side as well. And that was heavily around your low and slow smoking. So at one point we had a Smoky Mountains flat out in the back garden that we had set up to, to you know, cook things like your briskets and pork butts and things like that. We invested heavily a few well, probably about four years ago now in an old hickory CTO that we use for our commercial and that was amazing. A big American pair that was you know, 150 kilos in weight and was wrought iron and you could run it off of gas, if you wanted to do an overnight guaranteed or you can, you know, burn it through word in cold and I loved using that. But when we, when COVID hit, we decided to put a stop in the catering side of the business because it was not a time for any sort of catering business to really kind of prosper. So we we took a step back and we actually made the decision to kind of take a step out of of catering at that point. And that's when I got to play. That's what I said, right? Let's settle this commercial stuff. And let's get sorted with some stuff of our own. And I'm a I'm a commodity Joe fan. I've got a commando Joe. I have I've still got a Smoky Mountain, but I think that's nostalgia IQ more than anything else. I've got a couple of Webmaster touches which I rotate and go to I've actually got one out with a mother in law's because you know you need to have a barbecue where you go and stay sometimes don't you so definitely got one of those. I love family style pizzas. So we've got a pizza oven as well. We've got a rock box which gets a lot of use when the The evenings are a little bit lighter. Wow, I've got a flippin heck off. So remember all now I hope the wife isn't listening. We've got a ranger as well, a Treyger Ranger, a little Ranger that we we cook on and like cooking breakfast song. And yeah, that that's really the main setup at the moment. But I'm finding it really hard to step away from the Komodo or the Master Touch. They're really my go to pieces at the moment. And I'm just hoping in the next 12 months to add a fire cage or live fire element to the cooking Arsenal as well.
Owen - Host:
It's a never ending thing isn't there's always something that you want.
Unknown:
Oh, you know what I was looking at those ninjas the other day and people are raving about those new ninjas on the other line. I don't need one might need one at the same breath. And you're already thinking where can we get the money from you know, to add something else? Or how can I hide this one from the you know, the family without them realizing that it is though it's a never ending stream. There's new technology coming out new grills and yeah, I'm sure I'm like most people out there I get really excited and geeked out by that sort of stuff. So yeah, I'm already looking at the next and then it won't be long and there'll be another piece and another piece I'm sure.
Dan - Host:
See there's new features like I don't know if you've had this Oh, and I've had two or three friends contact me and be like, get this review this put it up because we want to know we want to know we want to know and it feels like it's exploded from nowhere because I know that ninja we do more and more but it feels like almost overnight there was an embargo or something lifted all of these drops. But with the contracts, you've got rust, surely you're gonna get a chance to have a play with one of those sooner rather than later.
Unknown:
Possibly, yeah, possibly, I mean, got some great connections in the business and some great connections in the industry for for sort of trialing and playing with stuff and and I know that I can pick up the phone and pop around to to you know, someone's house or you know, head down to country wood smoke and see Mark whatever it may be, you know, go and get access to it. My problem is I'm restricting myself because I go and play or want to buy and that's the problem. It's like when we were at sizzle fest last year and we had to queue together 10 there and you know that the guys from TMG gave us this massive gray smoke offset smoker to cook with and again I've never considered getting anything like that until I had the option to play with it and then it was like I need this in my life. Luckily I haven't you know sold a kidney yet to be able to afford to go and do that. But it's Yeah, I have to be a bit careful. I could play with more equipment but if I play I'm more likely to buy so self preservation I think more than anything.
Owen - Host:
I'm surprised that dominate you ever go on it. He was he was pretty much glued to it all day.
Unknown:
I say I had to go I kind of looked from a distance and just watch what he was doing. Although I think he broke it towards the end of the day so not heavy handed cloths over their blessing.
Dan - Host:
The handle isn't it that he was trying to basically hide that he pulled it off.
Unknown:
It was the unbreakable pit he broke it yeah
Owen - Host:
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Dan - Host:
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visit aos kitchens.co.uk. So one of the things we really hold dear on the podcast is about barbecue fails. So this could be in your commercial side or just home with a family, but just tell us a story or two of when barbecue hasn't gone so well for you.
Unknown:
Oh, God, there are so many. And you know what social media, we're all great at posting these pictures of our amazing cooks. And, you know, our triumphs. Very rarely do people put up the fuck ups or the things that they really get wrong. I've had so many I mean, there are a few that really springs to mind. We were catering for a food festival a few years ago, a few years before COVID When we were using our Smoky Mountain setup, and I'd went out and I lit all the Smoky Mountains on an evening it was about 556 o'clock and I thought okay, you know, we need to be leaving the following day, I need to have sort of eating pork butts, and 12 briskets ready to go. So I got all the timings right, I got all the heats up to the right temperature and put them in didn't use any of these fans or anything like that any of the kinds of plugins. I'm a big fan of just letting the fire do what it does. There's one of your big mistakes. So overnight cooks, I always find really difficult and I used to stay up and you know, before you know the weekend goes by and you haven't had any sleep. This occasion I chose not to I thought what's the worst that can happen? You know, the Smoky Mountain it, it holds us temperature? Well, I've never had any problems. It generally works absolutely fine. I don't know what the fuck happened during the night. But something must have happened to the wind or the air circulation around them. But they all dropped off massively. So when I went out in the morning, every port bar had failed to come out of the stall. And I was like, crap, we've got a couple of hours left to get this sorted and get into a position where we can you know, present something. Yeah, that was a that was a tough one that was and that was ringing around everybody we knew to borrow their ovens to stick it in the oven to try and you know leapfrog these pork butts and get them to a position. So yeah, I was not proud of that that we had to go to a food festival with slightly. Well, it was smoked pork butts but finished in an oven. Yeah, I must admit I've never left an overnight cook on its own after that. That's
Owen - Host:
No, I don't blame them. One is the
Dan - Host:
big one, isn't it? Because it's meant to be like the golden thing of stick it on or off you go leave it overnight. But I'm I haven't had it been that bad. My problem normally with overnight cooks is the opposite. I feel like I've set in the Komodo, watch it for an hour or two and it's fine. Go to bed and then something flares up somehow. And I get up in the morning. It's gone up by like 2030 degrees. And you're just praying that hasn't destroyed what's inside.
Unknown:
I think we've all been there. Yeah, is I don't know what happens. It must be like the I don't know the barbecue fairies, that you disappear and they just decide to have a passerby with your equipment. It's always the way.
Owen - Host:
You said you still got a Smoky Mountain, you say you've had that for
Unknown:
quite a while? Yes, yeah,
Owen - Host:
I've got I've got a Smoky Mountain as well. And just out of interest on your my thermometer, no longer goes below 75 degrees is freezing cold outside, and it still says it's 75 degrees, even though there's nothing on is your temperature gauge stayed alright. And when you had quite a lot of them, did they always stay alright.
Unknown:
So I upgraded the gauges on them. Because we were using them for commercial smoking. I upgraded to slightly stronger, slightly more consistent thermometers. So yeah, I can't say I've had that problem. But I have heard it a couple of times with people. They say that they struggle with the range, it doesn't always reset itself effectively. So you can pick up aftermarket ones dead cheap to be fair, might be worth an investment.
Owen - Host:
Yeah, just curiosity more than anything else. But yeah. So you mentioned earlier on that you're always tinkering. There's always projects on the go. I appreciate you probably can't, you know, share all your secrets, but at least give us one. What what's kind of what's happening for 2023 that you can tell us about?
Unknown:
Okay. Yeah, I'm quite an honest person. And, you know, I've had my fingers bitten a couple of times when I've been on a couple of lives in the past and spoken about rubs that were coming out and lo and behold, the following week, somebody releases a rub that is very similar to the type of one now that could just be a coincidence, but the skeptic in me says no, but I'm an open book. I'm quite happy to talk about my stuff and we've got A couple of big ones this year, I've had a want to create a curry type rub for a while or something that that could be used in a curry setting. So, I love Sri Lankan foods. So I'm really working hard at the moment on a true Lankan curry, which is going to have roasted spices, so it's going to be a dark Srilankan curry, it's going to be very dark brown slightly tobacco II and flat in sort of compound and smell, but lifted with lots of curry leaves and sweetened with tamarind. So working on that one as we speak, and that's almost at the point of ready to go, which is good. So that should be out hopefully in the next few months. I'm working on something with truffle in it black truffle, which I'm not going to give any more away because this one is another one of those has taken a while to get to anywhere near like a product. So there could be something truffle coming out this year.
Owen - Host:
That sounds really exciting. Yeah,
Unknown:
I'm quite, I'm quite excited about that one is going to be something a little bit different, something a little bit unique. And yeah, the first real sort of what I classed as gold or platinum style rabbits, you know, it's not going to be a cheap one. But it's yeah, it's going to be something a bit special for, for when you want that Special Cup doing. Watch this space on there. Oh, what else we got were last year, we were really fortunate sorry, 21 really fortunate to work with the lions, the rugby, the commercial team over in the lions rugby setup. And we produce the A Bryce spice for the World Cup for South African, Brian, you know, the Rob got rave reviews. So although it was only a temporary rub at the time, we're going to rerelease that year under our branding and away from the line stuff now, which we're quite excited to be out there. Because we get a lot of people asking about it. And there might be some Latin American style things coming your way as well. So I've got about five or six concepts that I'm working on at the moment. And it's all about when we release them and what gets released first will be the fun.
Owen - Host:
Wow, busy 2023, then for sure.
Unknown:
It really is. But what I can, what people don't realize is one is we do a lot of white labeling for other brands and for other companies. So we create rubs that are branded by other companies. And, you know, we've got 12 customers at the moment that we do that for. And, you know, I've got two more inquiries come through in the last week about doing that. So there's a another element of creation there, which flirts with my kind of creative side, I, you know, I said earlier on, I'd like sitting still for five minutes, and that'll keep me busy. But um, yeah, there's not just the commercial rubs that we released, we've obviously got all this work that we do behind the scenes, and mass produce rubs for other other companies as well. So another complexity to throw in the mix. But it goes on to
Owen - Host:
say, yeah, as I say, because I suppose you have exactly what they want. But it could potentially be something similar to what you want to create. So you must have to make sure there's distinct differences between what you actually ended up producing
Unknown:
very much. So I'm a science geek. I love the science of barbecue Robson. A couple of years ago, I started releasing some snippets about the science of barbecue rubs, and what goes into the concepts and the buildup. And one thing I do when I'm working with other companies is I geek out on that side of things and you know, really get to understand what companies are looking for what flavor profiles, and I don't take our robes and kind of alter them to make them fit. I always start afresh with any customer. And create rubs their way, which is great, because sometimes I can get some influence or some of the rubs that I'm creating as well. So, yeah, a nice, nice little arm to the business, that one. With so many rubs
Dan - Host:
off, if someone was doing like a vegetarian or like vegan barbecue for people, what would you recommend looking at your rubs that they do to elevate it and maybe bring in some more of the kind of meaty kind of flavors to really give people something a bit different because it can be hard to nail those type of dishes.
Unknown:
Yeah, it really can. And it's all about the umami. And we've heard this word has been thrown around for a number of years now. And it's that create the fifth sense the creative, or sorry, the first taste the the kind of the concept of like the deep richness you get from a meat being sort of from other sources and, and that's something that I've been playing with over the last few years is getting that right, and what you'll find in some of our later rubs that we released over the last couple of years is that we've tried to build in that concept and create that so that our rubs are 100% Vegan apart from one or two of them are suitable for vegetarians, but lift and elevate you know, not just meats but vegetables, you know, all these other fantastic ingredients that you can use as sort of take them to the next level and it's actually something I want to do a lot more of this year is cooking with vegetables and trying to cut out the meat and trying a few vegan food is everywhere at the moment and you know, I know it gets a lot of negative connotation Asians in spec, vegan food and vegans in particular, but some of the meals that are produced and some of the alternatives are absolutely fantastic. So I think we need to start looking as a UK barbecue scene and incorporating that into what we do. But yeah, to to kind of answer your question, the final umami flavor is particularly tough. It's, you know, getting the right ingredients like we've, we've started using red Mizo. dried red Mizo is one of our ingredients to help elevate that umami flavor. Soy sauce powder is another one that we use, we use yeast powder, which is kind of got your mom I taste a little bit that adds that complexity. Mushroom powder is another great one for adding that element. And yeah, it's about matching the flavors with the thing you're cooking, if that makes sense. And, and knowing what flavors go with one, that's the hardest thing from my point of view is releasing a rug that we can say is just for vegetables, because we don't want it to be just kind of one dimensional. We want it to work across multiple, multiple different sort of ingredients. But yeah, we've been working really hard with that concept over the last 12 months. And you know, a couple of the rubs that we're coming out with this year will be slightly different ingredients set up because we are going for that that bold, sort of whack of flavor. Whereas years gone by you would have gotten that from things like your sugars, your salts, you'll have recurs and you'll chilies, we're now having to look at other ingredients to lift so that people can Yeah, can can translate that flavor profile across into vegetables, toe foods, all that sort of stuff.
Owen - Host:
Talking about ingredients, I think this is probably a good time for us to go into our barbecue bingo. Challenge. Barbecue Bingo is brought to you by lumberjack food company, your tickets are flavortown if I share my screen bras, what we'd like you to do is a very high tech spinning wheel. I know right? It's taken us hours or pounds to put this together so we've got a list of ingredients here whenever we're going to give it a spin wherever it lands on we'd love for you to cook something with with that ingredient absolutely took there's two things here there's my signature dish so if it lands on that we'd like you to cook your signature dish What are you known for? What would be your signature dish
Unknown:
pull pork is kind of a go to and it's it's the thing that when I like when we were catering we were you know we were pulled up on as being exceptional and you know, we we get requests from mates now to cook pork pork for them that they can bring in their freezer or use at dinner party. So I think that's probably an old traditional old traditional pork pork is is probably the signature
Owen - Host:
fantastic and just walk just before we spin this what we've been doing with every guest that's come onto the podcast is we've got them to leave an ingredient for the next guest in the hope that they land on that so Wow. So half of it half of this list has been left by previous guests. So have a little think about what you'd like to include on this one give it a spin.
Unknown:
Okay
Dan - Host:
I think what would be the most interesting thing for you have to do something like chocolate buttons I think would be fun
Unknown:
I can't move on that chocolate buttons.
Owen - Host:
I know I know. It was left by a guest so chocolate buttons is an interesting one.
Unknown:
I'm gonna have to go back through and see who that was now and send them a little yeah high rate message on the DMS
Dan - Host:
look set up now happened
Unknown:
to you know, but that doesn't scare me though. Because chocolate and the foundations of chocolate and cocoa huge and Mexican cooking and I've yeah, I've got a couple of ideas to spring to mind. So yeah, I can have I can have some fun with that.
Dan - Host:
I always put dark chocolate in Chile. I love to make a chili with dark chocolate finish it off the last 15 minutes or so. You put some really heavy come 90% Kurt like chocolate in there is phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal.
Unknown:
It's the talent calls through a different level doesn't matter just elevates the flavor. Totally agreed with you
Dan - Host:
as well. It gives it a different look and a feel and a sheen as well to the actual chili which again you do eat with your eyes as well as your mouse I guess is the word they should follow with that.
Unknown:
Have a different conversation post beer? Yeah.
Owen - Host:
What? What ingredient would you like to leave for another guest?
Unknown:
Oh, I'm just having a look. I don't think it's on here. I have an ingredient that I love that I've not really played with on the barbecue. So I'd be really intrigued to see what somebody would do with this. And that is the artichoke weed Want another one there? Oh, can't spell it.
Dan - Host:
Artie check.
Owen - Host:
So naughty chick. That's my wish list
Unknown:
so what you're asking Santa for this year?
Owen - Host:
Yeah, that's a different it's a different spinning wheel. We are artichoke. Yes. That's a good one. I actually I don't think I've ever cooked with artichoke.
Dan - Host:
I like it on pizza if you checked on pizza before?
Unknown:
No,
Dan - Host:
I had it went to Venice years ago when I was at university, and classic kind of all in Italian, and not really paying attention. And we're like, I'll just go for a random one that ended up with an artichoke pizza. Thankfully, I enjoyed it. Whereas the red law literally was just speaking to this guy was like, I just want pizza and chips. Just want pizza and chips. And the guy's like, Okay, fine. Pizza comes out. And it's just that all they've done is literally put like, sauce on their chips. Cheese whacked it Oh, yeah, that's quite a good thing. I'd recommend people trying.
Unknown:
Yeah.
Owen - Host:
Annecy the flavor artichoke.
Unknown:
Now not quite, you're thinking of fennel. Yeah,
Dan - Host:
like artichokes more, kind of, I guess, mostly are chunks that I have been brined. So that's just kind of like, an acidic key kind of Earth but yet earthy kind of flavor to him.
Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard to describe the flavor of them. Isn't it really there? Yeah, like an earthy, almost across between a root vegetable flavor and maybe like a cabbage or something like that. It's kind of an in between the to, from a flavor point of view. But I'm gonna see if someone gets that it's gonna be better than bloody chocolate buttons, though, right. I appreciate that.
Owen - Host:
All I do is just cut the cut the thing open and just hopefully just get some smoke in it. bag of chocolate smoke chocolate buttons.
Unknown:
Oh, there you go.
Owen - Host:
Smoke. We didn't say can't code smoke. Nope, very true.
Dan - Host:
One thing that we mentioned once or twice, but kind of skirted around is, of course, we did the mental health special with the rest of the guys behind cue together, but you weren't able to make that. So it'd be great to kind of get your perspective on that, that side of the story. And also given the chance again, just to hammer home that message as well, if you're happy to go into all of that,
Unknown:
yeah, yeah, by all means, by all means do together is something that's really close to my heart. And, you know, when I set out on this business journey years ago, and you know, when you go through the years, your business gets to a certain size and and I started to look at brand ambassadors back at the beginning of COVID. And you know, I was really lucky to to get down urban streets hurry, BBQ, Tom, Cornish, carnivore onside and become brand ambassadors with me. And we became really great mates really quickly. And, you know, we open up to each other quite a lot. And I think one of the kind of the strands of, of kind of similarity we all had is that we were all carrying baggage, we all had emotional problems, or, or we had weights that we were carrying on our shoulders. And we weren't very good at talking about it. And I kind of I went through a really dark phase in COVID. And, you know, I was kind of I felt quite isolated, I was lucky because I've got, you know, a loving family, my, you know, my parents and my, my brothers and sisters are brilliant, you know, I'm married to an amazing woman, and I've got three amazing children. So in the grand scheme of things, I've got nothing to kind of feel isolated from. But back in that early day, I felt really isolated, especially during winter time and, and the only thing that used to make me feel better was just lighting a flame. And I didn't necessarily have to cook and, and I just started playing with that idea. I thought, well, if I'm feeling a bit down there, there must be other people out there as well who are feeling a bit isolated. And, and it kind of the idea stemmed from there and, you know, spoke to DOM and Dan and Tom and, and we started throwing ideas around and, you know, we flirted with a couple of events where we had a big, light, a flame for mental health, which was the very first thing that we did is kind of a cue together person. And that's where we got people, you know, from all around the world ended up being kind of lighting a flame in solidarity, letting people know that there is a community, should anybody ever need to talk. And it's kind of grown legs from there. And the more that we've played with this concept, the more that we floated the ideas, the more people have come to us and said, Thank you so much, because I had nobody to talk to. I'm not going to go into specific specifics, but I had a guy contact me he's like, I'm Really sorry, I don't know you, but I saw that you're, you're running mental health and barbecuing on the massive barbecue fan. And I feel like life is getting too much for me at the moment. And I just opened up a conversation and had a three hour long call with this guy who I'd never met from Adam before. And, you know, I'm a Mental Health First Aider. So I've got some understanding of, of, you know, mental health awareness and, and not necessarily to tree. But it's not about that it's not about having the answers, it was about creating a space for people to reach out. And that's just grown, we've had multiple people contacting us and the feedback after your podcast when we did the, the guys and I unfortunately, couldn't make it that the queue together, one, the reach has just elevated again. And, you know, we've been inundated with people contacting us saying, you know, not only I'm struggling, I need some help, but people saying thank you for bringing this to the forefront and, you know, opening a whole world or a whole conversation amongst men in particular, because a we're blokes, right? We don't, you know, we don't talk about this sort of stuff, we just bottle it all up until something explodes. So yeah, it was it was kind of born out of, yeah, born out of kind of our own insecurities, our own baggage, our own issues, and never realized for a minute that the the kind of the Reach would be so huge and, and everybody's got a story about somebody has been impacted. It's not them or, you know, they know somebody that that, you know, has, sadly taken their own life, because they've had no avenues to be able to go out and talk and, and that's what me, Dan Tom, are doing now is creating a place that we hope, at least, you know, even if it's one person has an avenue or someone to go and talk to, they can use a cue together hashtag to see that there is a whole wealth of a community of people out there who are willing to help them and support them, and that they don't need to suffer in silence, whether they know them or not.
Dan - Host:
It makes such a difference to people as well, because it as you said, it can be so hard for people to talk out about these sorts of things, particularly with the British stiff upper lip, and everything. And so giving people an avenue, even just to see other people using that hashtag, I think we can make a big difference to someone, particularly on a bad day.
Unknown:
Yeah. Oh, it really can. And you know that the reach of it has been ridiculous. I think the last count, there was 17 different countries, people from 17 countries, have you used the hashtag Q together, you know, from Canada to Mexico, we've got Argentina, Germany, all around Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and one in Japan as well. But there's a hot it's gone out global, which is phenomenal, but I think it's almost become a bit of a symbol for Yeah, you know, I understand mental health is a big thing. And, you know, it's not necessarily I've got issues myself, but, you know, I'm accepting of the fact that we need to talk more about it as people and and that for me is, you know, is absolutely huge.
Owen - Host:
Well, it was an absolute pleasure to discuss it. And for us, it was important, just as important to kind of have you and everyone else Come on, and talk about it to spread the message. Just as much as you guys wanted to set it up and kind of help people in the first place. I think we can all kind of do our bit to push that message forward. You know, then there's, you know, people don't don't have to suffer in silence.
Unknown:
Yeah, but thank you and your support around it has been absolutely huge. So again, you know, thank you to the meet and greet podcast and both of you guys for for helping us to platform it and take it to that next level as well. We hugely appreciate it. I really do.
Dan - Host:
I'm more than happy to be part of it. You know?
Owen - Host:
Is there anything that perhaps we haven't spoken about yet? That you want to kind of bring up we always give guests an opportunity to, to bring up anything that they want to?
Unknown:
Yeah, well, the rugby is not going very well at the moment is no,
Dan - Host:
no. No, no, no. And
Owen - Host:
we could do a whole nother show on that. Sure. No,
Dan - Host:
no. I'm on strike talking about the Welsh rugby team. I don't care what they're doing. I'm not being involved at all with that.
Unknown:
Did you know what though, to be fair, the only thing that I want to say is that there is a community of rubber producers in the UK now. And you know, we saw that increase a little bit during COVID, which is great. It's given people a platform to be able to do that. And we've got some really great producers in the UK. I'm not going to call them out because I'll probably forget some but you know, Poppy has been doing amazing things over at Norfolk smoke there. You've got the guys at lumberjacks who are just making waves at the moment and what they're doing. There's a whole load of of different companies out there that are really coming together. And again, like I said, I'm not going to go through them all because I will inevitably forget somebody but I just appeal to everybody to you know before you look at importing grubs out from America Try some of the UK stuff because we've got some bloody fantastic producers now and I'm really proud to be part of that community creating a UK barbecue scene and producing rubs that you know, world class and if not in my books better than some of the stuff that you can get out from the States so yeah support your local UK producers that's the other point I want to make really well said buy British. Exactly right. Well, it's
Owen - Host:
been absolutely fantastic having you on the podcast for us and one last time please let everyone know where that where they can find the best barbecue company.
Unknown:
Yeah, definitely. So we're on Instagram at the rusty BBQ code the rusty barbecue quo or head over to our website which is WWE dot the rusty barbecue koat.com sign up to our newsletters we don't spam people but if you want to know what's going on with latest Rob releases and things like that, yeah, Instagram or our website the best places to go and yeah, go and try some of our stuff if you haven't already.
Dan - Host:
You know, I went and I did and we put it on Instagram as well. Two Christmases ago went around Owens and we did a load of chicken wings. And like I love the core powder so much so so much and the chocolate the core powder in particular. Go try it goes
Unknown:
get involved Yeah, get involved,
Dan - Host:
but just just like the Welsh rugby team now we're gonna let you go and bottle it yeah, thanks so much for taking the time to come on. It's been great speaking Ross.
Owen - Host:
That's it for another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. Thanks so much to Russ for coming on and talking to us about his barbecue journey or public your business journey and how he makes rubs in the science behind it. But also kind of rounded that off again talking about mental health and how we should get out and talk to each other and you know how we use barbecue as a tool to kind of help us as ever talking. We want to hear from you. We want to know what you want us to talk about in the podcast so please do get in touch with us through our usual channels. Social at meat & Greet BBQ podcast meat & Greet BBQ podcast.com And until next time, keep on grilling Today's episode is brought to you by aos kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists
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