by Texas Homesteader ~ 

It’s grilling season, y’all! And that means you’ll need a good BBQ rub and mop sauce. Boy do I have a treat for you!

RancherMan was planning to smoke a whole grill-surface full of wild-hog pork roasts using pecan wood. But he needed a flavorful BBQ Rub & Mop Sauce. And he certainly found a good one!

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Family Gathering 

You see, every year RancherMan & I host a fun family gathering we’ve always called ‘RanchFest‘. It’s actually celebrated on the anniversary of the date we purchased this little piece of paradise. 

Back when the kids were young (but before we actually lived here) we’d bring our kids and my siblings would bring theirs. We’d have a big celebration & bonfire. Oh how much fun it was to get together, and the kids loved hanging out with their cousins.

But they’re all grown and most have children of their own now. So every year at RanchFest we get together again to relive those fun times. We consider it a mini-family reunion.

This year we’ll be serving pulled-pork sandwiches using meat from the wild hogs RancherMan’s harvested. He was looking online for a rub/mop sauce that appealed to him and this one sounded pretty good. It’s got beer and coffee – perfect! He decided to gave it a try.

Mixing Up The Dry Rub

First he whipped up the dry rub using salt, chili powder, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, cumin & cayenne. (breathes deeply) Ummmmm… that smells pretty good.

Since he knows he’ll need this rub for more than today’s grillin’, RancherMan typically makes a double batch. That way he’ll have some for now and still have some for an impromptu grilling session.

He wants this dry rub to be easily available whether he’s trying to sprinkle directly upon the meat or use a measuring cup to spoon it up. So he stored this double-batch of dry rup in a 1/2-pint canning jar with a handy Repurposed Parmesan cheese lid.

How excited I was to find out those  handy lids fit any size regular-mouth canning jar. He knew this would be the perfect solution for ease in his using his dry rub. And he was right.

One side of this repurposed lid opens up and the sprinkle holes are nice and large to allow liberal sprinkling of the rub onto the meat. The other side flips up for easy measuring-spoon action. 

Now that his rub is made, let’s get to Smoking That Pork Roast! He started out by rubbing  a generous amount of the mixture onto all surfaces of the meat. Then he placed the meat in the refrigerator while he prepared his grill.

Mop Sauce

When all was ready he mixed up the mop sauce using a bit of dry rub, beer, coffee & vinegar. What a simple mop sauce, yet bursting with flavor. Now let’s do this!

He brought out the roasts and laid them on the prepared grill. Any time you’re smoking meat you want to cook it low & slow. As the meat was smoking he rotated the roasts every hour, coating the meat each time with his homemade mop sauce. This helps keep the meat moist and also offers quite the delicious flavor infusion too.

He smoked 4 wild hog roasts for a total of 11-15 hours using this rub & mop sauce. But if you’re going to smoke more than 2 roasts you might go ahead & make a double batch of the mop sauce to make sure you have plenty.

Right before the internal temps of the roasts reached 145 degrees he also added some of my homemade BBQ sauce to the last coating on the meat. We both think this was a nice touch.

Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwiches

After the meat was smoked I shredded it all in preparation of serving our pulled-pork BBQ sandwiches. (I found an easier way to shred all this meat, y’all!)

I typically like to make Jalapeno/Beer Buns for the sandwiches. Just seems like the perfect way to top of this home-smoked meat, #dontchathink??

On the day of our gathering we’ll pile on the pulled pork and add some rings of fresh onion & a spoonful of my Homemade BBQ sauce. It doesn’t get any better than that, y’all!!

All fresh, all homemade and certainly delicious!

RancherMan initially found his now-favorite rub & mop on the Barbeque Bible Newsletter, and I’m happy to share it below.

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