Low and Slow Chuck Roast for pulled beef
 

I'm currently up north as I won't be retired until April. We've owned for 2 years now though and get down when we can. I hope to hook up with some fellow smokers when I finally get settled in and get a smoker down there.

I've been smoking a lot of stuff lately, and I did my first Chuck Roast yesterday for Pulled beef.

It came out Great! Almost 7lb and 11 hours start to finish, 9 and a half hours on the smoker.

The flavor was great, texture was great. In a do-over I'd probably keep it at 180 an hour longer. It was not tough, but this chunk of meat is typically pretty stringy so a little bit more breakdown would have been good. Don't get me wrong, it came apart easily, but a little bit more would have been nice. Flavor was fantastic though.

I did a video, and since it will probably only ever get a handful of views, a year from now, I'll know exactly how I did it.

Low and Slow Chuck Roast for pulled beef on Pellet smoker - YouTube

We don't have a smoker.

I love tender chuck roast and usually buy one large enough for two meals. One for fall apart tender roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes and the leftover part for homemade barbecue by simply adding brown sugar, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of vinegar and yellow mustard.

I brown the beef on both sides and put it in my pan with a tight lid called a Dutch oven and put one package of Lipton Onion Soup mix on the top, add about a half cup of water and put it in my regular oven at 275 for about five or six hours.

It is very, very fall apart tender, dark and succulent and smells so yummy as it's cooking. We had it last week.

I know. You were talking about a smoker.

Good morning.

My mom used to make a bunch of these 45+ years ago pretty much the same way although I don't think she used the onion soup thing. I was never much of a fan since it was at least once a week and leftovers went to school with me for lunch.

I've come to appreciate brisket and chuck roasts now. One of my main goals in life at this point is to live in the moment and appreciate what I have. I get joy in "solving" the puzzle of making a tough hunk of beef flesh into a tender, juicy special meal.

I try to smoke something every weekend, even if it's a hunk of cheese, which I recommend everyone try. You don't need a "smoker" to do it, any ole grill or smoke chamber will do as long as you can keep your smoke tube a decent distance from the cheese and it's reasonably cool outside. July in FL might require a 3am smoke :). I did a video on that one too. How to Smoke Cheese on your grill - YouTube

Thank you very much.

Our smoker gets used couple times a month. Since I won’t use any prepackaged items, smoking can bring out flavors, with out the additives and preservatives, that I wasn’t raised with.

I love smoking our homemade Mozzarella, and other cheeses for our mac & cheese.

Right after I retired, I started my "smoking" hobby. I started out with a brisket, which is considered one of the more difficult pieces of meat to smoke. I started at 2am and smoked it for about 14 hours and then wrapped it in plastic, foil and towels and placed it in a cooler for a couple of hours until company arrived. It turned out FANTASTIC, and I had folks that swore by pork BBQ that told me that they would rather have my brisket. I did a lot of research on line and watched a lot of BBQ videos before I attempted the project, but by taking a bit of each idea and combining them, my brisket was the best. Of course, I made my own rub with a couple of secret ingredients that I got the idea when traveling overseas. I also used apple wood that was given to me from an orchard. I spritzed the meat about every 45 minutes with a mix of apple juice and cooking oil. I think the real secret to great BBQ is the "resting" period, where you wrap it up and let the juice re-incorporate back into the meat. I mean, other than cooking it real slow and with a low temp.
I've done beef roast before, and it comes out pretty good if you prefer pulled beef over pork. I had a young relative that shied away from all meat, that tried my pulled pork butt and later asked me to do one for her birthday. I did and it made her day.
My opinion regarding smoking meat is that the only way you can mess it up is if you don't smoke it long enough. And when I mean smoke it, I do not mean that you have to have more than a couple hours of wood smoke, but rather a long period of slow and low temp cooking. You can actually smoke it for a few hours and then wrap it and place it in a well regulated oven for the remainder of the time without losing any of the flavor. It's a lot easier than watching a charcoal and/or wood fire for many hours.

Thanks for starting this thread. I really enjoy BBQ but don't do it as much now, since I have been here. There are a few decent BBQ eateries in the area, that have made me a bit lazy when it comes to spending hours at the smoker.

My first brisket was a gas grill using smoke chips. I had to ride the temperature knobs all day to keep the temp at 225. There was hardly any smoke and the meat was pretty tough. It was not bad, considering the tools I was working with.

Fast forward to now, I have my brisket formula down pat. It's pretty much the same as this one except I've got it on the cooker at 4am, and wrap in butcher paper at the stall instead of the broth bath. I prefer 2 hours rest but have gone to 4 without much issue.

Recently I did a full 3 bone beef rib and cooked it pretty much exactly the same as this chuck roast. At 165 it went into a foil bed with a can of beef broth.

Low and slow is what makes all the difference. I have mostly used Applewood pellets. A word on pellets; Our NJ house didn't have a furnace until we did an addition in 2012. 6-8 cords of wood every winter. I don't think I'd appreciate babysitting an offset stick burner all day. I did that for 20+ years. Let me set a temp and walk away :)

That BBQ place up on 42 is pretty good. Artman. Ate there once a few months ago, I'll go back next trip.

My real ambition is to get as close to Lockhart smokehouse. I was in Dallas last year about this time and it was DIVINE! I want a repeat.

Here's two recent meats...

Next trip, also give I Barbque Express a try.

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ue-express.jpg

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

Can’t wait to get down there, I have three smokers and and am looking forward to hooking up with guys to smoke with!

I have trouble lighting a chuck roast.

Homemade Mozzarella?!! Wow.

Yeah, witches are usually drier since they're made of wood and float. Plus their robes and pointy hats are often old and threadbare so they go up fast.

Chuck however is all sweaty and angry. He complains the whole time. Like trying to start a fire with wet newspaper, or did you mean something else?

Smoked roast
 

Perfect timing! I’d had planned on smoking a roast today and wasn’t sure of the time and temp thanks!

Excellent. As I stated, I'd probably run an extra hour at the low end just to help break down. It was very tender, but i've had it more tender in the past so a bit more time at the low end probably would do it.

It's a great meal! Good luck.

Ibarbeque is outstanding, if you don't feel like doing it yourself - even then, the cornbread, greens, sweet potato pie! The best.

I like to o smoke chuck roasts to medium rare and slice them for dinner. They are good that way as well

I see your Maine DOT shirt. I am also from Maine and retired from state government in 2012 and moved to The Villages. I cook all the time and have a Yoder YS-640 pellet grill. I have cooked tons of food on that grill and would love to connect with you.
John

John,

Two issues.
1. I'm up north for the most part until we drive down in April. We're flying down end of Jan for a week, then back. We're probably driving back to NJ in May to get the NJ house ready to sell.

2. Unfortunately, I'm not from Maine, originally from a farm in Ohio, moved to NJ when I was 28. We live in the mountainous NW part of the state. My town typically gets the highest snow totals in the state since we're 800 feet above the surrounding valleys.

I've been to Maine though! I love it up there cept black fly season. I've even been there in the winter. As to the t-shirt my company does, among many things, business to business gifts and the shirts were a return. Nice shirts, couldn't just toss 'em :)

All that rambling aside, yeah, I want to connect with others who appreciate a good meat smoke! You've got a great smoker! I want one of those or one with more granularity in the temperature control. Before the Zgrill, I was struggling with temps(was using charcoal on a weber pot) and smoke(wood chips) and had a few extra bucks. A friend suggested I look at the Zgrills. It's been great. I've done half a dozen briskets, a handful of chickens, a bunch of pork ribs, several beef ribs and now a chuck roast. Lots of cheese too. It's an excellent smoker for the price, but I can appreciate the quality ones like a Yoder. I may put this Zgrill at our current villa and do a better one at whatever new place the wife decides on.

My goal is to get as close to central Texas BBQ as I can manage. Aaron Franklin and the Lockhart family both have heavenly brisket. I'm not there yet, but approaching :)

What pellet smoker do you use? I had to sell mine prior to moving here...btw---after you go to Lockhart --try Stiles Switch in Austin.
Their beef ribs can't be beat.

I bought a Zgrill on Amazon. 7002b. I've not had a lick of trouble with it. My understanding is that the company that built the Traeger smokers branched out on their own when the patents expired. I'm not sure if that's a legend or the truth, but they look very similar for way less money and they seem to have everything worked out.

I would really like to get a Yoder or similar better quality smoker because it gives you a bit better temperature control. That said, I've put my temp probe right next to the zgrill's probe and it holds temp within a degree or two. One morning a month ago it was 38 degrees and it did just fine holding temp.

The hopper can hold a 20lb bag of pellets, and I've never used a whole bag for one cook, even on a 14 hour cold overnight brisket cook.

One of my goals when we finally come down for good is to do a long road trip and we'll get through central Texas and I'll get my wife hooked on the best BBQ. Right now she likes it, but it's not like she's begging me to smoke something every week. I do anyway though :)

I'll do a little more research---Traegers quality went down through the years...I had a higher end Camp Chef that I enjoyed, but the new wifi ones with the sear plate on the side are a little rich for me and the new Webers are really having some quality issues as well...I had s pellet smoker, a charcoal Weber. a gas grill, and a La Caja China-pig roaster, that I had to sell prior to moving...my wife is putting her foot down telling me I can only buy one more for here.

In no small part to Frank D'Angelo's raving review we'll be getting the Camp Chef when we move to The Villages.. Already have the wife's approval. She gets the kitchen she wants and I get my smoker.. :coolsmiley:

https://www.amazon.com/Camp-Chef-Woo...s%2C383&sr=8-3

I took a class on cheesemaking last year. My mozzarella wasn't perfect but the ricotta from the whey was great.

Hey....That’s exactly how I make mine! I typically add potatoes and carrots before I put it into the oven as well and everything comes out so tender and delicious!

I grew up in a farm area and there were two local places that made cheese. One of them had a kid around my age that I was friendly with and we nicknamed him Lindy. Loony Tunes always made fun of Lindberger cheese, and the cheese shop always had a funny smell to it so the kid ended up with a nickname. Anyway, I remember as a kid thinking "All that work, you can just buy it at the store". lol. I now wish I had paid attention! Heck, I'd work in a place like that for a month for free just for the education.

This place is great. Best BBQ in the area.

I wonder if this would work in an InstaPot.

I've heard of other people using pressure cookers for Briskets. I'd have to try it though. There really is no substitute for breaking down of the connecting tissues except time and heat. Less time and more heat doesn't do it. I suspect you can make it taste really good, I suspect it will also be tougher than a low and slow. How much? Hard to say, but sometimes there are no shortcuts.

I agree.

I have done it low and slow in the oven for years. When I was young we were fed on cheaper, tougher cuts of beef to feed big families. The Dutch oven with the lid and the 275 temperature for five or six hours make them fall apart tender. Don't forget to brown them first and don't forget about a half cup water. Try not to peek at it a lot to keep the steam in. The Lipton onion soup dry mix on top adds rich flavor.

Y'all trust me on this. People give good comments on my roast as well as my grandchildren. ;)

Made me think of my mother's process for pot roast, right down to the Lipton dry soup ! Every other Sunday usually, then some ended up as home made Bar-B-Q with the brown sugar, and finally the little tidbits left in "hash".

I'll have to try to dry mix thing next go round.