Behind the Don Marco’s Barbecue brand stands BBQ King Company GmbH from Gelsenkirchen, and Pork Powder is one of its dry BBQ rubs: a ready-made spice blend that is rubbed onto the meat before grilling. In our Rubs & Sauces category it currently has the highest overall rating.
What we know about it comes from the online shop we-are-bbq.de, to which the old brand address don-marcos-barbecue.de redirects, from the legal notice and company history on the same domain, and from the Amazon catalogue. Nobody on our team has tried the rub. Where taste is concerned, we therefore quote the manufacturer. The effect of salt and sugar, on the other hand, we explain ourselves, because that is food chemistry and applies to every spice blend.
Which pack is behind our Amazon link
Don Marco’s sells Pork Powder in two sizes: 200 g in a jar and 630 g in a bag. The jar in the old design is still in the shop, but is marked there as unavailable.
Under the ASIN B00C8WGZB6, Amazon lists the bag. The catalogue title reads “Don Marcos Pork Powder BBQ Rub 630g Beutel”, and the part number in the record, 101-002-630-1, is the same article number under which the manufacturer’s shop lists the “630g im Beutel” variant. The manufacturer in the Amazon record is BBQ King Company GmbH, the same company as in the shop’s legal notice. The match rests solely on this number comparison. The product photo shows a black bag, and its label also states 630 g.
On Amazon it cost approx. €28, as of 24 September 2026. What it costs today is shown when you click the link.
Seven ingredients, one nutrition table
The ingredient list on the product page is short: sea salt, garlic, pepper, paprika, unrefined cane sugar, chilli, onion. The shop also advertises across the whole site that it manages without anti-caking agents and fillers.
The point about anti-caking agents has a practical consequence. Release agents such as silicon dioxide (E 551) are used in spice blends so that they do not clump even with a little moisture. Without them, free flow depends mainly on how dry the rub is kept, and for storage the manufacturer too warns first of humidity.
Per 100 g, Don Marco’s states an energy value of 994 kJ (238 kcal), 3.3 g fat, of which 0.6 g saturated fatty acids, 42.3 g carbohydrates, of which 25.3 g sugar, 8.9 g protein and 28.7 g salt. Salt and sugar together make up 54 g, more than half of the blend. That sea salt comes first in the ingredient list fits this: ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, so the first is the one with the largest share. The nutrition table counts everything in the sugar figure, including the sugar that onion and paprika bring naturally.
The salt value is also a calculated quantity. The EU Food Information Regulation allows it to be determined from the sodium content, sodium times 2.5, no matter which ingredient the sodium comes from. For the amount of salt on the meat, it makes no difference that sea salt is used here: like rock salt, it consists overwhelmingly of sodium chloride.
According to the manufacturer, Pork Powder contains no allergenic ingredients, and indeed none of the seven is on the EU list of major allergens that must be labelled. The word gluten-free, however, does not appear on the product page, nor does a trace statement. For people with coeliac disease that is not enough, because gluten can also get into a product through shared filling lines. Without an explicit statement, they are left to ask BBQ King Company.
In detail: what salt and sugar do on the meat
Don Marco’s works with approx. 30 g of rub per kilo of meat and adds straight away that this is a matter of taste. Taking the figure at its word, each kilo gets around 8.6 g of salt and 7.6 g of sugar, both calculated from the dosage and the nutrition table. The salt corresponds to 0.86 percent of the meat weight.
Of all the components, salt works the deepest. It first draws liquid out of the surface and dissolves in it, and the resulting brine migrates back into the meat over time. The manufacturer gives a resting time of at least 30 minutes, for poultry with skin preferably several hours to overnight. After half an hour, part of the brine usually still sits on the surface; for the way back into the meat, the longer times are the better ones. With chicken, dry salting also draws water out of the skin, and dry skin turns crisp on the grill more readily than wet skin. If the meat was already in brine or was cured, the rub brings a second portion of salt. In that case, much less of it belongs on the meat than the manufacturer’s dosage.
What happens on the surface is determined by sugar and paprika. Household sugar is chemically sucrose, and that essentially applies to the unrefined cane sugar in this blend too. Sucrose begins to caramelise from about 160 to 170 °C; if it gets much hotter, it burns and turns bitter. Paprika powder also darkens quickly in strong heat. In the smoker at a chamber temperature of 110 to 130 °C, the meat surface stays below this threshold, and the dark crust forms slowly there, from drying, smoke and browning reactions between sugar and protein building blocks.
Over direct embers, the surface quickly goes above it. With a self-mixed rub you can adapt the sugar share to the grilling method; the basic formula for that is in our guide making your own BBQ rub. In a ready-made blend the ratio is fixed, and all that is left to you is to use less of it.
What Don Marco’s intends the rub for
“Pork Powder is our choice for all cuts of pork,” writes the manufacturer, and it also names poultry with skin, vegetables and pan dishes. As suitable dishes, the product page lists: pulled pork, pork crackling roast, ribs, neck steaks, pork tenderloin, Grillfackeln, pork belly, chicken with skin, grilled vegetables and hearty fried potatoes.
Don Marco’s describes the taste as a hearty paprika base with garlic and pepper, made for everyone who loves hearty BBQ with a mild heat and a clearly noticeable garlic aroma. On the same page, Pork Powder is called the first choice for competition style pork, in the original “Competition Style”.
On the cooking method, the manufacturer does not commit. A pork neck that goes into the smoker for hours is just as possible as quick neck steaks over medium high heat. For the long variant, you will find the stall phase and core temperature in our pulled pork guide.
According to the manufacturer, a liquid version works too: for that you mix a little oil with a fruit juice, apple cider vinegar and Pork Powder. How much acid a marinade can take and how long meat should lie in it is explained in our guide marinating grill meat.
Jörg Krafzik and the competition scene
According to the legal notice, Jörg Krafzik runs the business of BBQ King Company GmbH, and on the home page the company presents him as CEO and product developer. The shop tells his story like this: diner concepts since 1989, in 2010 contact with the competition scene in Germany through a sponsorship request, in 2011 the first participation in smaller championships. According to the home page, he took part in the Tony Stone BBQ and the Ruhrpott Barbecue, among others. Today, according to the company, Krafzik is, together with his wife, a certified judge for championships of the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) and the Steak Cookoff Association (SCA). According to the product page, Pork Powder was the second rub he developed.
There is no mention of a world championship title on the manufacturer’s pages. A European championship title is named: at the European championship in plancha grilling in Cologne, Krafzik took over the course “beef with side dish” in Team BBQ aus Massen, and according to the home page the result was first place and the title WBQA European Champion 2026. In our view, this title says little about Pork Powder, as it was won with beef on the plancha.
Is the 630 g bag worth it, or is the jar enough?
Per kilo the bag is cheaper: in the manufacturer’s shop its contents cost €39.60 per kilo, those of the jar €49.75 (as of 25 September 2026). Whether you benefit depends on how much meat you season before the best before date is reached.
At 30 g per kilo, the bag lasts for around 21 kg of meat by calculation, the jar for around 6.7 kg. A 2 kg pork neck needs about 60 g, so the bag covers ten such pieces and a remainder. For a party with 5 kg of pork shoulder as pulled pork, that is 150 g, and one jar is enough. Converted to a kilo of meat, the seasoning costs €1.19 with the bag from the manufacturer’s shop and €1.49 with the jar; at the Amazon price above it is €1.33.
According to Don Marco’s, the rubs keep “at least 24 months after production”. The count starts from manufacture, and how much of that is left at purchase is shown by the best before date, which must appear on prepacked food. On storage, the product page gives these four sentences, quoted here verbatim in translation:
- “It is important that you protect Pork Powder from humidity after opening and always screw the lid on well.”
- “The lid contains a seal that can protect the aromas for a long time.”
- “You should also avoid direct sunlight and excessively high temperatures so that the sugar it contains does not melt.”
- “With dry storage protected from light, the rub stays aromatic at least until the stated best before date and is often edible even beyond it, provided it stays airtight.”
In the German original, “aufdrehst” (unscrew) evidently means screwing the lid shut. The first two sentences talk about the lid and therefore apply to the jar. After opening, we would transfer the bag into a tightly closing screw top jar and store it dark and dry, so not in the sun next to the grill either.
Three alternatives from our catalogue
| Product | Type and quantity | Price | Our rating | Choose this if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don Marco’s Pork Powder (this one) | Dry rub with a paprika base, 630 g in a bag | approx. €28 | 9.4 | you want to season pulled pork, ribs and neck steaks with the same blend |
| Ankerkraut Magic Dust | All purpose rub in a shaker, 230 g | approx. €8 | 9.0 | you want to season beef with a single shaker too |
| Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce | Barbecue sauce, 510 g | approx. €7 | 8.7 | you want a ready-made sauce instead of a dry seasoning |
| Ankerkraut Pulled Pork Marinade | behind the Amazon link, according to the catalogue, Ankerkraut Pull that Piggy, a BBQ rub, 250 g in a bag, developed for pulled pork according to Amazon’s details | approx. €9 | 8.3 | you make almost only pulled pork and want a blend for exactly that dish |
The prices are guide values from our data sheets, for Pork Powder the Amazon price from 24 September 2026, and they change without warning. The rating is our editorial assessment based on manufacturer details and price; it rests neither on a measurement nor on a tasting. In the pulled pork row, our individual page has a different name from the article behind its Amazon link; which rub reaches you is shown by the Amazon page before purchase.
What the manufacturer does not state
In the sources named above, on 25 September 2026 we found nothing on these points:
- a heat level as a number or on a scale
- grind or grain size of the blend
- where the individual raw materials come from; the shop only says in general that it buys as close to the producer as possible
- how the blend behaves in strong, direct heat
- quantities for the liquid marinade
- a period in weeks or months for an opened jar or a started bag; the manufacturer only says “at least until the stated best before date”, provided it is airtight
- material and closure of the bag, and so also whether it can be resealed
- size and material of the jar and whether it has a shaker insert
- an organic seal or a certification of the business, such as IFS Food; the manufacturer states neither
- the year in which Pork Powder came onto the market
The point on the bag closure weighs heaviest for us. The bag is the pack behind our link, and on the product photo you cannot tell whether a zipper is built in at the top.
Who Pork Powder suits, and when another rub is better
If you mostly grill beef, choose a blend whose manufacturer expressly lists beef. In our catalogue that is, for example, the Ankerkraut Magic Dust: in the Amazon details, Ankerkraut names it for pork, beef, poultry and veal, and also for vegetables and grilling cheese such as halloumi.
A sauce does not replace the rub; it comes later. Sweet barbecue sauces are usually brushed on only in the last minutes or put on the table for dipping, so that they do not burn over the embers. If you want to combine Pork Powder with a sauce, the catalogue has, for example, Sweet Baby Ray’s, which Amazon lists in its title as sweet and spicy.
For steaks and chops that you would otherwise put directly over embers at well over 200 °C on the grate, we advise the two zone method: cook first in the indirect zone, then over the embers only for the last minutes. Why is explained above under salt and sugar.
The wrong choice is Pork Powder for anyone who has to cut salt on medical advice. If you season a portion of 250 g raw meat according to the manufacturer’s dosage, a good 2 g of salt end up on it by calculation, before bread rolls and sauce are added. The German Nutrition Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung) gives a guideline value of at most 6 g of salt a day for adults, so the portion already covers a good third of that. Reducing the dose helps only to a limited extent, because paprika and garlic decrease along with the salt. A salt free seasoning to which you add the salt yourself, measured out, then suits better.
