Ropa Vieja, because why not?


 
The big chuck had to get out of my freezer. Decided to try cooking some ropa vieja.

Prepped as much as possible tonight. Filled up the charcoal basket for a 4 hour cook. IMG_20250221_191741.jpg


Cut the 5 pound roast in half to some more manageable pieces, and more seasoning. Inthe fridge for tomorrow morning.
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I am going to start the fire at 7 in the morning. Fingers crossed that my kid does not wake us up before 5. If they do, at least the WSM is ready.
 
My guess would be an 8 hour smoke on those 2 pieces if you could hover between 250 and 270.....
This is me assuming you will be smoking it all the way to pulling temps without using a braise.
I know little about the dish personally but clicked googlie a bit.......looks interesting.....
Good luck, will be looking for results later on.
 
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That's interesting looking charcoal, almost egg shaped. What is it?
An Aldi brand I got here. Its one of the cheapest, and smells less bad than the weber brickets. I wondered why it was cheap, then I read the packaging. "100% Namibia, 0% Rain Forest".

Doth protest too much... Gonna buy something else next.

Kid slept through. But my stupid brain woke up at 5 am :LOL:

I put it on at 8
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I began cooking the braising liquid, when life took another turn, I had to run errands. So it went in the braising liquid after 3 hours on the WSM, and its braising in the oven. IMG_20250222_110118.jpg
 
Shredding 5 pounds of beef, I let my inner wolverine out.

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Beef turned out good. I was missing a picture of the final result. I only got a snap of the leftovers

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My wife liked pulled beef a lot more than my pulled pork. So there's a lesson learned.

Overall, the dish has a lot of potential. The beef cut was a bit too large for the sauce, too few onions and peppers inside, and I needet to reduce the sauce a bit more to draw out more flavor. But its not the last time I'll cook this.

I like the smoke flavor of the beef, but I am wondering if a hotter pit-barrel like cook might draw out different flavors from the chuck...
 

 

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