Basic Barbecue Rubs
Recipe from: http://www.foodfreeway.com

A barbecue rub is used to season the meat prior to grilling. They are simple and you can add ingredients if you want to experiment. You can easily scale the recipe up for larger grilling projects. Many people prefer to cook the meat "dry" adding a table sauce to the menu when serving. This is because tomato or sugar-based sauces can burn or char easily, not good for the flavor of the meat.

Basic Rub For beef (this amount of rub will do about 3 pounds of meat):
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp fine-ground black pepper
1 Tbsp paprika

NOTE: This is kind of 'zingy' - cut back on the pepper a bit if you don't like it so spicey.

For Ribs:
Add 1/2 tsp lemon powder or omit lemon powder and substitute lemon pepper for black pepper.
(optional - add 2 Tbsp Sugar) NOTE: If cooked over hot coals the sugar will burn - monitor the cooking.

For Chicken:
add 1/2 tsp garlic powder
add 1/2 tsp dry mustard
add 1/2 tsp crumbled bay leaf
(optional) add 1/2 tsp powdered sage

Preparation:

Mix dry ingredients together and rub over meat. Cook meat over indirect heat from coals. Add mesquite or hickory chips (soaked in water first) to coals to generate smoke for flavor. Cook ribs and chicken slowly - ribs for about 3 hours, chicken for about 2 hours. We prefer steaks to be cooked directly over coals.