Dateline: May 17, 2020 Pit Beef and When Will It Be Ready?

Alabama cleaned up.  

Yesterday I pulled my smoking/barbecuing cookbooks down and scrolled through them.  I had a large piece of chuck, between 6 and 7 lbs, that needed cooking and I wanted to smoke it.  The issue was with what flavor profile.  Most of what I saw was meh.  So I decided to check around on the web and found a Serious Eats treatise on smoked chuck roast.

I generously seasoned the roast with salt and pepper and it sits in the smoker at this moment, 9 am, Sunday morning.  I am having the same smoke issues as previously noted, and am trying to solve the problem.  These are dry pellets.

Barely 45 minutes in

smoking tube 

It's now time for yoga so playing with this will have to wait until after that.  

At 11:30

At noon

This is an exciting documentation for me.  I am watching the smoke cover the meat and soon the bark will start to develop.  I put a probe into the meat and it was registering around 140° at 1 pm.  That is 4.5 hours in.  Not a bad place to be.

At 1:00

Little puffer doing ok

I am happy with the smoke production, not sure if it is the smoking tube or the pellets.  In the scope of things, it doesn't really matter!

I will need to prep the potatoes that I am going to smoke and make some cole slaw or some other salad-y accompaniment.  Possibly smoking it too!

Sun dappled and taters.  At 2:40

The meat has been hanging out at 155° for the last 2 hours.  A little too cool for the stall to hit.  I want a nice bark on it and it is starting to develop slowly.

I have been very productive today.  Not only did the meat go into the smoker at 8:15 am, but I planted all the bulbs I had remaining, found a leak in the irrigation system, repackaged the kim chee into mason jars and put into the fridge, and made a margarita base which is chilling in the fridge as well primed for a 5 pm zoom call!  I'm ready for that 'rita now!

I was going to put soil and mulch down today, but with the break in the line, I wanted to be able to find the break easily.  So mulching and soil will have to wait until after the line gets repaired.

At 3:20

At 3:30

At 4:50

At 9:40

Somewhere around 4:50, I wrapped the roast in butcher's paper, and took the potatoes off.  It was clear it was not going to be ready for dinner!  We ordered Indian from a local place, happy to support them in these crazy times.

About 7, I took the roast off the grill, shut the grill down and brought the roast into the apartment.  The oven had been preheating at 220°F and into the oven it went.  At 9:40, I stuck a fork into the meat, it offered no resistance so I removed the paper wrap but the beef on a new sheet pan and put it back into the oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the bark up.  

Looking at the latest 9:40 photo, you can clearly see the grain running up and down.  J. Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests bisecting the roast parallel to the grain and then flip each piece cut side down and slice against the grain for the tenderest meat.  It will certainly be easier doing that than slicing the whole roast against the grain.

There was plenty of juice and fatty drippings all over the removed paper.  That means that the roast is moist and not over cooked.  The last smoking I did, pork shoulder, I went by internal temp and not by tenderness.  Consequently, the meat was a bit dry.  I don't think that will happen here.  The internal temp when unwrapped was 187°F.  

I will rewrap the roast and let it come down to about 140°F before putting it to bed in the fridge.  Tomorrow will be a delicious day.

The meat cooked for 14 hours!  And it smells great!

It's tomorrow!  Yeah, we're going to have smoked meat, we're going to have smoked meat, yeah us, yeah, us!

I can't wait for dinner time.  In fact, I was so excited about dinner, I forgot to eat brekkies! And, it was close to 2 when I realized I hadn't eaten anything yet.  Left over Indian baigan bharta and jeera rice.  Delicious!

I have the components for the smoked potato salad ready.  Chopped green and red things, cucumbers, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion, parsley, and rosemary, in one bag, and in another bag are the smoked taters that have been salted and doused with vinegar.  I will combine into a single entity with some mayo that has been spiced with chipotle and smoked paprika.  My mouth is watering already, and dinner is hours away!

Here is the mixed veggies and salted smoked potato salad

The dressing consists of a couple of tablespoons of mayo, a tablespoon of dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons of the adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers, 2 big pinches of kosher salt, lots of ground pepper, a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and half a lemon worth of juice.  Stir together, should be thin in consistency, and pour over salad and mix well to coat everything.

The beef is in the oven I am hoping to warm and crisp it up some.

All warmed up to 140°

Yum

Check out that smoke ring!

This was really good.  The outside barky pieces were chewy, but not too tough.  The inner slices were nice and tender and had enough chew to make it interesting.  Coupled with the potato veggie salad, a meal that is memorable.

Two opposable thumbs up!