Pecker wrote:But I agree, I don't like sugar in the rub. It's a bit of a waste if you're adding a sauce, because there's no way the sweetness of the sugar in a rub won't be completely swamped by the sweetness of the sauce.
Adding sugar to a rub isn't about getting sweetness on the meat but using the sugar to create a better bark on the meat. Using the reaction of the sugar and the meat when added raw to get the rest of your spices to be better absorbed by the meat without using too much salt which will dry out your meat or turn it into bacon.
If you're adding sugar to get more sweetness into the meat you need to heavily cover them just in sugar, this is also good as you'll build different dimensions of flavour as the sugar on the meat is cooked differently to the sugars in the sauce and as such will taste different



