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.