John K BBQ
TVWBB All-Star
The weather in St. Louis was perfect fire pit and smoking meat. We invited some friends over for happy hour & dinner...Here's what I did;
Bought a pair of chuck roasts. I didn't have enough time to get them pull-apart tender by just smoking & wrapping, so the plan was to trim, season, cut into chunks, then pressure cook, shred, and serve with tortillas and slider buns "tex-mex" style. We made some homemade guac and pinto beans to go with.
Here's my 22" WSM charcoal ring ready to light. Mostly KF Original briqs in there, and a few pieces of lump I wanted to use up. I've got two tumble weeds tucked into the top and lit those up before going inside to work on the chuck roasts. This is another way of doing a doughnut-minion that doesn't require a chimney.
Here's the meat - raw in the package - about 4 lbs before trimming
Chuck roast is pretty easy to "trim up". The big, hard white fat peices between the meaty peices will not render down, so I like to seperate the sections and remove those bits and the silver skin in there, then tie it back up.. Since I'm only using "Salt & Pepper" I'm calling it "Tied Up Texas Chuck"... I actually used some Blues Hog Bold and Beefy" seasoning on these chucks. It has salt, peper, and some beef base in it. I've had this around a while so wanted to give it a shot.
After about 15 minutes, I had a good little fire going in the charcoal ring. I'm a fan of pecan chunks. I had about 3 of them buried in the charcoal, and I put one more kinda on top of the lit section, and sprinkled even more pecan chips on top just before I put the WSM together. I put a pan of thinly sliced onions, whole garlic cloves and about 1 inch of water and put it under cooking grate to catch drippings and provide some moisture during the cook.
.
Here we are about 4 hours into the cook. I put them on about 9 AM, and this shot was from about 1 pm. The WSM ran great yesterday and held around 250F with minimal adjustments here and there. Bottom vents were about half open, top vent about half to 1/3 open most of that time.
After I put the chuck roast on, I seasoned up two packages of wings with Cattleman's Mexicano seasoning. I put these guys in the fridge for a while, and put them on the smoker about 2:30 so we could render out some of the fat/dry out the skin, before crisping it up over high heat.
Here's the chuck after I untied it, before slicing. Nice and barky, but not tender.
Here's the smoke ring and bark shot. Next, into the instant pot. I took the onions and garlic pan and added a little more water to it (it was mostly dry after 6 hours). I tasted the water/onion broth and it needed some salt and more beef flavor so about a teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of "better than bouillon" was added, then I put that into the instant pot with the meat.
Here are the wings on the WSM.
Here we are crisping up the chicken wings over some really high heat on the WSK... probably just about 45 to 60 seconds a side for each one.
After crisping/charring a bit, I put them all in the aluminum pan and onto the genesis to keep warm.
I didn't get any pics of the chuck roast after pressure cooking, however, it did turn out pretty nice. I removed the meat chunks shredded and put into an aluminum pan, then used a stick blender to puree the garlic, onions, in the cooking liquid, then poured that into the pan with the meat just to cover and keep it really moist. I used a set of tongs to serve so you could control how much au jus went onto the slider or taco. I got several compliments from my guests on the beef, but the wings were my favorite... I fed 8 adults and then about 10 or so teenagers showed up and wiped out all that was left... Some of the teens thought it was brisket, so I just grinned a little and let 'em think it was brisket.
I think a little butter in that pan with the onions, and maybe some red wine or beef broth in there from the start would have been a great idea... maybe even some jalepeno or pablano. I'll probably do another cook like this again soon.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and thanks for lookin'
Bought a pair of chuck roasts. I didn't have enough time to get them pull-apart tender by just smoking & wrapping, so the plan was to trim, season, cut into chunks, then pressure cook, shred, and serve with tortillas and slider buns "tex-mex" style. We made some homemade guac and pinto beans to go with.
Here's my 22" WSM charcoal ring ready to light. Mostly KF Original briqs in there, and a few pieces of lump I wanted to use up. I've got two tumble weeds tucked into the top and lit those up before going inside to work on the chuck roasts. This is another way of doing a doughnut-minion that doesn't require a chimney.
Here's the meat - raw in the package - about 4 lbs before trimming
Chuck roast is pretty easy to "trim up". The big, hard white fat peices between the meaty peices will not render down, so I like to seperate the sections and remove those bits and the silver skin in there, then tie it back up.. Since I'm only using "Salt & Pepper" I'm calling it "Tied Up Texas Chuck"... I actually used some Blues Hog Bold and Beefy" seasoning on these chucks. It has salt, peper, and some beef base in it. I've had this around a while so wanted to give it a shot.
After about 15 minutes, I had a good little fire going in the charcoal ring. I'm a fan of pecan chunks. I had about 3 of them buried in the charcoal, and I put one more kinda on top of the lit section, and sprinkled even more pecan chips on top just before I put the WSM together. I put a pan of thinly sliced onions, whole garlic cloves and about 1 inch of water and put it under cooking grate to catch drippings and provide some moisture during the cook.
.Here we are about 4 hours into the cook. I put them on about 9 AM, and this shot was from about 1 pm. The WSM ran great yesterday and held around 250F with minimal adjustments here and there. Bottom vents were about half open, top vent about half to 1/3 open most of that time.
After I put the chuck roast on, I seasoned up two packages of wings with Cattleman's Mexicano seasoning. I put these guys in the fridge for a while, and put them on the smoker about 2:30 so we could render out some of the fat/dry out the skin, before crisping it up over high heat.
Here's the chuck after I untied it, before slicing. Nice and barky, but not tender.
Here's the smoke ring and bark shot. Next, into the instant pot. I took the onions and garlic pan and added a little more water to it (it was mostly dry after 6 hours). I tasted the water/onion broth and it needed some salt and more beef flavor so about a teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of "better than bouillon" was added, then I put that into the instant pot with the meat.
Here are the wings on the WSM.
Here we are crisping up the chicken wings over some really high heat on the WSK... probably just about 45 to 60 seconds a side for each one.
After crisping/charring a bit, I put them all in the aluminum pan and onto the genesis to keep warm.
I didn't get any pics of the chuck roast after pressure cooking, however, it did turn out pretty nice. I removed the meat chunks shredded and put into an aluminum pan, then used a stick blender to puree the garlic, onions, in the cooking liquid, then poured that into the pan with the meat just to cover and keep it really moist. I used a set of tongs to serve so you could control how much au jus went onto the slider or taco. I got several compliments from my guests on the beef, but the wings were my favorite... I fed 8 adults and then about 10 or so teenagers showed up and wiped out all that was left... Some of the teens thought it was brisket, so I just grinned a little and let 'em think it was brisket.
I think a little butter in that pan with the onions, and maybe some red wine or beef broth in there from the start would have been a great idea... maybe even some jalepeno or pablano. I'll probably do another cook like this again soon.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and thanks for lookin'
️ cook done there. Beautiful!
