Ha, so, no actually. I’ve been reading through this book that goes pretty deep into the science of meat and heat and how to get incredible cooking/grilling/smoking results. I’m not much of an expert with this stuff, so I decided to take its suggestions.

Said meat doesn’t need to be wrapped in the fridge before, and rubs don’t need to go on more than 15ish minutes before cooking. Those are supposedly common misconceptions… But! It did say salt is what actually sinks into the meat over time and cause it to retain juices during cooking, so I think that’s what I was noticing when I used to use saltier rubs. It said to apply a dry brine (salt only) 12-24 hours before cooking, and avoid using salt in the rub, that way you have more control over both of those factors.

I feel like that worked really well. I used a cherry bbq rub. Wanted to experiment with something more sugary to see how it would affect the bark.

This was also the first time I didn’t wrap during smoking to speed up the stall. I definitely used too much salt in the brine, but other than that, it turns out really great.

The book is “Meathead” by Meathead Goldwyn, and I can’t think of a better title or author name for something like that.