Chuck timing questions


 
B

Benji Whitehead

TVWBB Member
We're having a family gathering on Saturday at 5 PM. I'd like to try to smoke a chuck roast to take. I have a church function from 10 AM-1 PM. Never doing a chuck before I'm not sure about the timing. I guess I could smoke it overnight on Friday night and reheat Saturday, but I don't want to be up all night checking it. I am thinking if I can get the smoker going around 8 am and get the meat on by 9:00 and just let it go while I'm away from home it may be ready for foil by 1 pm. If needed I can throw it in the crock pot for a few hours to finish. I'm fine with either slicing or pulling or even chopping it. What would y'all do?

I could also just say forget it and do a pork butt overnight, but I'm already committed to pulled pork for a different side of the family on Christmas Eve so looking to do something different.
 
Ugh!
This is a painful subject for me.
The last chuck I did weighed 3 1/2 lbs and.............................................................................................................................................................wait for it................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................took 12 hours!!!! Avg smoker temp was 240. Sometimes, a piece of meat is just stubborn, but this was nuts. Might experiment with "hot and fast" next time.
I've smoked 12lb packer briskets faster.
It turned out good though.
I always err on the side of caution when timing these things.
To answer your question? I'd put that bad-boy on at 6:00am. If it's done early, wrap it, and stick it in a cooler with some towels.
chuckie done.jpg
 
Mark Silver said:
My experience is the same as Rick’s. Every chuck roast I ever smoked (250 degrees and not wrapped) took about as long as a brisket.
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agreed and chuckies are less juicy than a brisket, IMO. i'd rather make birria tacos with a chuckie and enjoy some good eats than smoking it for just a slice of beef. purely my opinion only. yet my fam agrees too.

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Chuck n Butt

Bday dinner for my now 26 year old. I don’t know how time moved so fast. He requested a whole smoked restaurant menu which we dialed down to a Chuck, butt and some chicken. Chicken will go on last for a hot smoke cook. Here’s my day which I got the meats on by 915A. JDXL with apple...
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I've tried the smoked chucks twice (once on the WSM 18 and once on the WSK) but they just didn't turn out as well as I was hoping. Cooked them both to the 205 range but were nothing close to brisket tenderness. It doesn't seem like it should be a hard cook but I managed to screw it up twice.
 
Brett-EDH said:
agreed and chuckies are less juicy than a brisket, IMO. i'd rather make birria tacos with a chuckie and enjoy some good eats than smoking it for just a slice of beef. purely my opinion only. yet my fam agrees too.

tvwbb.com

Chuck n Butt

Bday dinner for my now 26 year old. I don’t know how time moved so fast. He requested a whole smoked restaurant menu which we dialed down to a Chuck, butt and some chicken. Chicken will go on last for a hot smoke cook. Here’s my day which I got the meats on by 915A. JDXL with apple...
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Click to expand...
Yeah.....I kinda/sorta feel the same. This last one took so long that we ordered a pizza. :rolleyes: and we ate some of it the next day.

I saw a video, where a guy smoked a chuckie and served it up on roll, with pepperoncini's, and BBQ sauce.

It looked so good, I had to try it. I thinly sliced it,(cold), against the grain and piled it on roll, with a few pepperoncini's, BBQ sauce and Arby's horsey sauce.

The wifey used the same thinly sliced beef, made up some au Jus, and dipped it.

It was really good, cold.
 
PSB (pepper stout beef) would be my choice. A couple years back, we served it along with rolls and aioli during a CBBQA (California BBQ Association) meeting where each attendee brought a dish. Sadly, there were no left overs ;)
Just follow the directions...
 
Rick P said:
Yeah.....I kinda/sorta feel the same. This last one took so long that we ordered a pizza. :rolleyes: and we ate some of it the next day.

I saw a video, where a guy smoked a chuckie and served it up on roll, with pepperoncini's, and BBQ sauce.

It looked so good, I had to try it. I thinly sliced it,(cold), against the grain and piled it on roll, with a few pepperoncini's, BBQ sauce and Arby's horsey sauce.

The wifey used the same thinly sliced beef, made up some au Jus, and dipped it.

It was really good, cold.
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after smoking it, drop it in a sauce pan and add some beef stock and assorted MX chilis and make that birria sauce and shred the chuckie. then make birria tacos, dipped in that thin jus and flattopped, with melted cheese and then folded to a taco and flattop fried.

i could def seeing making italian style sammies with provolone, pepperoncini and grilled onions. that's some good eats right there.
 
Put it in the smoker for however much time you have 3-4 hours, catch the drippings, throw it in the pressure cooker for 45 minutes. pow you will be surprised how good it can be lol
 
MikeCantell said:
Put it in the smoker for however much time you have 3-4 hours, catch the drippings, throw it in the pressure cooker for 45 minutes. pow you will be surprised how good it can be lol
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I don’t have a pressure cooker but do have a crock pot. I may smoke for 3-4 or until 160, then either wrap and put back on smoker until pullable or put into crock pot with the drippings until time to leave.
 
It came out amazing! I started it at 9, had to leave at 9:30. We had 25 mph wind gusts ☹️. I had it stable at 250 with all grates 1/4 open. When I got home at 1:00 the grate temp was 310 and meat was 170. Pulled it off, closed the grates to about 1/8, wrapped in foil and put back on. At 2:00 it was 200ish internal so I pulled it to rest. Sliced it up and it came out fantastic.

I’ll be doing it again and preferably when I’ll be at home to keep temps at 250 and pull at 160.

82853E1C-E21A-4610-A204-892F09ACFEF3.jpeg
 
The best tasting chuck I ever cooked wasn't on a smoker. I did two of them one day on my gas grill, wrapped in foil, about 350 degrees for 3 hours. Then I unwrapped them and seared the daylights out of them on high heat to get some decent crust. Tender, tasty and juicy - the family couldn't stop talking about how good it was. And it was. Use whatever seasoning you would normally use on a chuck roast in the oven or on a smoker. I used a homemade concoction of a few beef seasonings from my seasoning rack.

I did another one during the recent hurricane power outage the same way: superb flavor and crust. And relatively quick to cook.
 
Garry Milner said:
The best tasting chuck I ever cooked wasn't on a smoker. I did two of them one day on my gas grill, wrapped in foil, about 350 degrees for 3 hours. Then I unwrapped them and seared the daylights out of them on high heat to get some decent crust. Tender, tasty and juicy - the family couldn't stop talking about how good it was. And it was. Use whatever seasoning you would normally use on a chuck roast in the oven or on a smoker. I used a homemade concoction of a few beef seasonings from my seasoning rack.

I did another one during the recent hurricane power outage the same way: superb flavor and crust. And relatively quick to cook.
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Nice!!
 
Mark Silver said:
My experience is the same as Rick’s. Every chuck roast I ever smoked (250 degrees and not wrapped) took about as long as a brisket.
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That's interesting. I did a 3.5 lb chuck yesterday. 250 - 260 degrees. 2 hrs in, hard stall and reverse at 158° -- the meat temp was dropping even though pit temp was the same. It was sweating something fierce. I wrapped it in butcher paper and it hit 205° in two more hours for a total of four hours. I'll probably wrap in foil next time so that I can keep all the liquid.
One section of it was kinda dry. The other section was much better. There was one area kinda between the sections where the fat didn't render. I may try to keep the next chuck at 225.
So, my take-away from yesterday's cook was: wrap in foil and reduce temp to 225 for longer cook time and hopefully, better fat render.
 
Garry Milner said:
The best tasting chuck I ever cooked wasn't on a smoker. I did two of them one day on my gas grill, wrapped in foil, about 350 degrees for 3 hours. Then I unwrapped them and seared the daylights out of them on high heat to get some decent crust. Tender, tasty and juicy - the family couldn't stop talking about how good it was.
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What was your pull temp (IT)?
 
OliverLeveritt said:
That's interesting. I did a 3.5 lb chuck yesterday. 250 - 260 degrees. 2 hrs in, hard stall and reverse at 158° -- the meat temp was dropping even though pit temp was the same. It was sweating something fierce. I wrapped it in butcher paper and it hit 205° in two more hours for a total of four hours. I'll probably wrap in foil next time so that I can keep all the liquid.
One section of it was kinda dry. The other section was much better. There was one area kinda between the sections where the fat didn't render. I may try to keep the next chuck at 225.
So, my take-away from yesterday's cook was: wrap in foil and reduce temp to 225 for longer cook time and hopefully, better fat render.
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IMO, you won't get a better "render" at lower/longer temps. There's just not enough connective tissue in a chuckie, unlike a brisket.

I did a chuckie a ways back and it too was too dry for my liking to do another one.

I would, however, smoke one to 155-160 and then place it in a dutch oven, add liquid(s) and make birria tacos or pulled beef. I found that a chuckie just needs extra liquid with it to be moist, but they're never as good as a brisket.

I'd soon enough smoke a brisket point cut than do a chuckie.

Just my thoughts from my experiences. YMMV.

Not seeking to offend here.
 
Brett-EDH said:
<snip>
I found that a chuckie just needs extra liquid with it to be moist, but they're never as good as a brisket.
<ship>

Not seeking to offend here.
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Hey, absolutely no offense taken. I just put it in a post somewhere (can't remember if it was here or on one of the Fb groups) that I had pretty much figured that a chuck required more liquid than it has to be good. When I make "barbacoa" with chuck, I add cups of beef broth and all my seasonings to the slow cooker. After it's done, I remove the meat, strain the liquid, skim the fat, shred the meat, and add the liquid back to it. I put it in the refrigerator and it absorbs all the liquid (from the meat and all additional) into the shredded meat. NOW, ya got something to enjoy.
I may try smoking for a couple of hours and then into the crockpot for barbacoa. That should be good.
 
OliverLeveritt said:
Hey, absolutely no offense taken. I just put it in a post somewhere (can't remember if it was here or on one of the Fb groups) that I had pretty much figured that a chuck required more liquid than it has to be good. When I make "barbacoa" with chuck, I add cups of beef broth and all my seasonings to the slow cooker. After it's done, I remove the meat, strain the liquid, skim the fat, shred the meat, and add the liquid back to it. I put it in the refrigerator and it absorbs all the liquid (from the meat and all additional) into the shredded meat. NOW, ya got something to enjoy.
I may try smoking for a couple of hours and then into the crockpot for barbacoa. That should be good.
Click to expand...
lmk what time dinner is. i'll bring salsa, chips and tequila.
 
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