Gremlin Grill: Burn, Baby, Burn

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." – Mark Twain
“Hello, stupid." – Brett McSparin

So I’m trying to find out at what temperature sugar burns. Not for any immediate reason, I just want to know so the next time some chest-thumping barbecue twit hollers about sugar in dry rub, I can calmly correct him/her. “No, (jackass), sugar burns at XXX degrees F, so unless you’re stupid enough to smoke your ribs at XXX degrees F, you won’t burn the sugar. You’re not that stupid, are you?"

I can’t find a straight answer, or at least one I trust. One guy says 265 F, one says around 250 F, another says “low 200s" and yet another says 350 F. Someone mentioned the additional ingredients in a dry rub altering the burn temperature of sugar, and blah blah blah.

I have no reason to believe any of them have any idea what they’re talking about. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Which makes me contemplate, as I have many, many times, just how little I know. I don’t know chemistry at all, and I guess that’s what the whole sugar burn question is - chemistry. Oh, I know our pork rub is about 50% sugar, white and brown, and that we’ve never burned it unless we let the smoker get up to blast furnace temps. This, I know. But not much more.

I don’t know plumbing; I don’t know how to plumb.
I don’t know home electricity. I can do some minor wiring around the house, but I’d be afraid of burning the place down.
I don’t know how to judge cattle.
I don’t know why any number to the power of zero equals one.
I don’t know how to program the cable TV remote.
I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle. A guy with a Harley once told me, “Ever see some of the morons who ride these things? It ain’t hard." Still, I’d kill myself.
I don’t know how to work on the 9.9-horse Johnson on our pontoon boat.
I don’t know Spanish.
I don’t know html.
I don’t know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
I don’t know the way to San Jose.

And, I don’t know at what temperature sugar burns. But I know that for about a decade, the Gremlin Grill has used a dry rub with a base of a cup of white sugar and a packed cup of dark brown sugar, and unless we did something stupid (usually gin-related), it’s never burned.