Malcolm Reed Killer Hogs AP Rub Copycat Recipe

Malcolm’s AP rub is a basically a 4:2:1 ratio of Kosher salt, granulated garlic, and coarse black pepper; He also adds MSG and dehydrated parsley.

You can make this rub ~2x cheaper at home.

Ingredients and Quantities for Malcolm’s AP Rub

This creates 4 oz of Malcolm’s AP rub.

• 1/2 cup Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
• 1/4 Cup Granulated Garlic
• 2 tbsp 30 mesh black pepper
• 1/2 tsp granulated dried parsley
• 1/8 tsp MSG

A breakdown of the ingredients is below and why certain ones are used.

Use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, Not Table Salt OR Morton’s Kosher Salt

Diamond crystal mixes best with the rest of the ingredients and since it’s less dense it’s not as salty tasting and evenly seasons food.

Table salt is too fine of a granule and is too salty.

Morton’s is too big of a granule and doesn’t mix the same – it’s also twice as dense (more salty) than DC kosher salt.

Use Granulated Garlic, Not Garlic Powder

Granulated garlic mixes better with the rub.

The powder can settle to the bottle requiring you to shake the shaker more often and it doesn’t come out of the shaker as well.

Use 16-30 Mesh Black Pepper

16 Mesh (butcher block) black pepper works best here but finer mesh sizes (30 mesh-ish) are OK too.

Table ground black pepper is too fine of a granule.

Dehydrated Parsley

I make this fresh by dehydrating it for 3-6 hours.

Just remove the stems and crush the leaves with your fingers.

You can also buy it online.

DON’T make it into a powder – for the same reason as the granulated garlic.

MSG or Monosodium Glutamate

This is a flavor enhancer and very little is used in most dry rubs (to the tune of like 1-2g at most for 12-14 oz).

You can buy this at your grocery store under brands like “Accent” or just buy MSG online.

Again, a little goes a LONG way.

What About the Rest of the Ingredients on the Bottle?

The rest are just used to prevent clumping and help shelf stability.

Even when Malcolm’s isn’t used, air will inevitably get to it and it will clump up if you don’t use fast enough.

That’s why this recipe is ~4 oz and not 14 oz.

Dylan, How Close Does this Taste to the Real Thing and Is it Actually Cheaper?

Quite close.

It’s also cheaper but not upfront since you have to buy ingredients in bulk.

Breaking down the cost by multiplying our weight by the Cost / oz.

*1/2 tsp of dried granulated parsley wouldn’t register on my scale that’s accurate to 0.1g.

Let’s assume we used 0.01 oz for the sake of estimating cost.

So the above weighs 4.32 oz and costs $1.81.

14 oz would cost $5.86.

So we are $6.13 dollars richer every time we make our own AP Rub.

Print Pin Recipe

Malcolm Reed’s AP Rub Copycat

A 4:2:1 Ratio of Salt, Garlic, and Pepper + Parsley & MSG

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Total Time5 minutes mins

Course: Rubs

Ingredients

• ▢ 1/2 cup Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
• ▢ 1/4 Cup Granulated Garlic
• ▢ 2 tbsp 16-30 mesh black pepper
• ▢ 1/2 tsp granulated dried parsley
• ▢ 1/8 tsp MSG

Instructions

• Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl – this makes 4 oz of AP Rub.
• I'd only work with this amount vs making bulk since there's nothing to prevent clumping since it's exposed to air.