Remove Rows Before Table Init

I'm storing some data on the client (localStorage) that contains a list of ids that should be excluded from the table on initialization. I don't have the ids server-side, so this has to happen on the client. I thought this would be simple by using the rowCallback, but I can't seem to figure out how to remove the row if it's in my list of excludes. Here's my best attempt so far. I don't get any errors, just nothing happens and the rows are still there:

rowCallback: function( row, data, index ) {
  if ( aScanCult.indexOf(data[1]) > -1 ) row.remove();
}

Surely this can be done before the table builds rather than after it's all ready, right?