Beef chuck smoking

[DobriDim]

Hello everyone.
Sort of new on this forum. Well, actually, not new, been reading it for quite some time, but, just made an account here.
Coming from Serbia, where bbq traditions are (talking bout low and slow smoked meats), well, you can say, pretty much unknown.
Opening a small bbq place here (not advertising myself, just saying :P), and i come to a certain problematic. I mastered my pulled pork, and satisfied to say that it is very very good (we are primarily a pig eating country), but, beef... beef is another matter.
So here comes an introduction to it, and a question regarding it.
Here, cow is butchered differently then in the west. The way butchers do it, there is no brisket part. Its chopped between several cuts, so, it is really hard to get. One butchery (amongst many in half a million city i live in) offered it to me, but, they said it is not 100% ill get it every day, and, the price is 50% more than other boneless beef meat (not talking about out of class like tenderloin or so, but, well, normal ones), so, its almost impossible to use brisket for my beef offer.
Beforehand, i smoked chuck, and sliced it like brisket. IMO, it was quite good, beefy, tender, moist. So generally i think ill go with the chuck, price is more or less okey, results are satisfactory. Its not as pretty as the brisket, but, what can u do.
Now, for my question - how do you people (if you do at all) pre - prepare it.

-Do you brine it? (if you do, what do you use? a classic one (water salt sugar?))

-Do you inject it?

-Rubs? Any ideas? So far i used brown sugar, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and dry
rosemary. I see rarely people use brown sugar with beef? Any reason to it?

-Do you wrap it? Put anything in wrap? (i did it with broth plus some adds like garlic and rosemary).

Any advices from you folks is appreciated :) Ill post some chuck photos i made.

Thanks,
Borivoj

 

[DobriDim]

Also, im using El Fuego Portland and Portland XXL gas smoker.

 

[fivetricks]

Heck of a smoke ring on it. Also, I see BBQ sides are much different in Serbia as well!

I'd cut the sugar from the beef rub, but that's just me.

 

[DobriDim]

Hey! Yea i was surprised with the smoke ring as well. Brisket that i made in the same run had awesome s.ring too. For the sides, well, on the pic, we kinda used what we had on hand. Was a drinking party. For the place have several sides and sauces ready. My own opinion is that lots of sides are not needed - the meat is so good on its own, but, you gotta please the people.

 

[fivetricks]

I wasn't knocking the sides at all. Just never had brisket (or chuck) with lettuce and cauliflower!

Over here we serve pickles with pork. :)

Also, I have to ask:

Is that...

Ketchup(?!?!) On the one fellas plate with the chuck? I'm hoping I'm wrong here

 

[DobriDim]

Its pickled cabbage and cauliflower. Actually really nice. In winter we pickle lots of our veggies (carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, green tomatoes and so on..). Yea pickles go well with pork. Was always wondering what goes well in sandwich with beef.. Was thinking beetroot perhaps (semi-pickled), but, lots of people abhor it :)

And, Gods, no, its not ketchup :) Texas styled BBQ sauce. Beside it got mustard based bbq sauce, sourcream with coriander and lemon (awesome with pork), and enriched mayo. Its a bad picture :)

Do you have any opinions on to brine a chuck or to inject it prior to smoking?

 

[xray]

Hi and welcome.

In my opinion, a brine isn’t needed for chuck roast. There is so much intramuscular fat that it tends not to dry out. Brines lend themselves well to thinner and leaner meats, and also poultry.

As for injecting a chuck, I see that as an opportunity to introduce a certain flavor profile to your meat. So that is entirely up to your taste...you could also use a different rub on your chuck and mix the reserved meat drippings back in. That will give you the same result as an injection, more or less.

Good luck with the bbq business.

 

[DobriDim]

How long prior to the smoke you inject the meat? So it just helps with the taste, not the moisture?
And thanks!

 

[xray]

You could inject the night before or prior to smoking. If injecting the night before, refrigerate the meat so it stays below 40F.

After injecting, you want to be more mindful of getting the meat up to 140F within 4 hours because whole muscle meat is no longer considered sterile after injecting....the needle can push any potential bacteria/pathogens on the outside of the meat into the center.

 

[ab canuck]

Hello and welcome, I would stick to the basics of Salt ( Coarse ) Coarse ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder, or just salt and pepper for a rub. Your pics look great the way they are. Smoke / cook the way you are and see what you think.

 

[WaterRat]

A couple other beef ideas: tri-tip, short ribs, shoulder clod. Ribs might be expensive and they're not really for slicing but are so tasty. I just did a tri-tip you can see it here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/tri-tip-done-brisket-style.282367/
The clod - I don't know - it used to be popular in Texas before brisket took over you'd need to do some research on that.

As others have said I'd skip sugar when it comes to beef unless you're doing an Asian style. You could add a little (or more) hot pepper or paprika if that would go well in your area.

 

[banderson7474]

I think it’s very cool that this message board can bring people together like this. I never would have thought I’d see a person from Serbia talking smoked meat. Pretty cool! So I’m definitely not an expert and there are a lot of good guys here that have tons of experience but my two cents are:

-Do you brine it? (if you do, what do you use? a classic one (water salt sugar?))

I stopped brining roasts especially if it’s beef. Just seems like a waste of time to me. I only brine poultry and I can definitely tell a difference when I don’t.

-Do you inject it?

I think to inject or not is one of the top debates in smoking. Some people live by it and some people never do it. I’m in the middle. My suggestion is to try it both ways and decide what you like best. Some people like the more natural taste of beef b/c when you inject, it takes on a different flavor.

-Rubs? Any ideas? So far i used brown sugar, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and dry rosemary. I see rarely people use brown sugar with beef? Any reason to it?

There are a ton of rubs but like someone mentioned, a safe go to is Salt, Pepper, Onion powder, Garlic (SPOG) for beef. I think the norm in the US is no sugar rubs on beef, but yes on pork and others. I’m not sure where that came from. Maybe b/c Texas is known for the best smoked beef and they have a “texas rub” that doesn’t have sugar in it.

-Do you wrap it? Put anything in wrap? (i did it with broth plus some adds like garlic and rosemary).


Wrapping it is as big of a debate as injecting. The best I can say is try different methods and see what you like. I think wrapping it lessens the overall amount of time needed. I don’t think normally people put anything in it for beef. For ribs, sure. Another issue is wrapping with foil vs unwaxed butcher paper. The pro’s wrap with the butcher paper b/c foil keeps the meat from breathing and tends to steam it a little. I’m not good enough to tell the difference yet to be honest but I did just purchase a roll of butcher paper to try it out.

Like someone mentioned, keeping the juices is vital in my opinion. Once you’re done, you can de-fat it and pour it over the meat. That’s liquid gold! Some people keep pans under the meat during the smoke and some put it in a pan once it’s wrapped in order to save the juices.
btw, if you can't get brisket, I think chucks are just fine!

Hope that helps!

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I can't offer much help here but I just want to chime in and say...

I hope your resturaunt works out and you keep us in the loop! :)

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!

In Texas we do a lot of beef. Brisket is generally less expensive then Chuck Roast here but we do both.
I think you have the right idea to do chuck roast because you cannot get brisket and the price of brisket is too expensive.

I believe that using a brine on your chuck roast is not needed and just a waste of time, effort, and resources (salt, seasonings, etc.)

For seasoning I recommend going Salt, Black Pepper (x 2), Onion, and Garlic, this is my favorite. Or just Salt and 2 x Black Pepper but I like SPOG with 2 x Pepper better. In Texas I rarely see people use sugar in any rubs or bbq seasoning. I think this is because sugar will burn and turn bitter and we often cook beef at higher smoker temperatures like 135C-140.5C (275F-285F). Sugar would not do well at those temperatures for long periods of time.

I don't thinking injecting is necessary UNLESS you want to change the flavor like if you want to inject some Pineapple juice or something like that.

To me, Wrapping depends on how you plan to serve the chuck roast or if you want to guarantee it is not dry.
In Texas I mostly see that chuck roasts are shredded, chopped, or "pulled" so they come out like the following picture:

DSC_0373[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

If shredding or chopping I would wrap the chuck roast in foil when the Internal Temperature (IT) hits 82C (180F) and let it cook to an IT of 97C (208.4F). Also wrapping will ensure that the meat does not dry out. Sometimes cooking a chuck roast that high will cause it to dry out some.

I see you are slicing your chuck roast like sliced brisket. In that case I wouldn't wrap it at all unless you start noticing that your chuck roasts are drying out or the quality of your chuck roast is not very good.

The pictures of your beef look good.
My suggestions/advice is to keep your preparation, your rub, and your cooking process as simple as you can make it. Learn what you like and don't like and make small sensible changes to improve.
If you do this I think you will find that you only need to do a few simple things well to produce amazing bbq beef!

Oh and if you do ever do chopped/shredded chuck roast it is very easy to season that meat to make beef tacos!!! You could totally offer some bbq beef tacos as a special like one day a week if you wanted to introduce new food to your area!

I think it is amazing what you are doing. Best of luck with your food and your restaurant and here are some pictures of my chopped chuck roast to give you some ideas.

DSC_0369[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

DSC_0372[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

DSC_0373[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

DSC_0374[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

DSC_0376[1].JPG

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

 

[DobriDim]

Hello Everyone! Thanks for replies! Much appreciated!
That pulled beef looks delicious. I am looking for something sliced though.
As you said, i will cut out on sugar for beef, onion salt its really hard to get here but ill try.
Got some new pics from the smoking, its brisket i did, and pork neck (i decided on neck for pulled pork, IMO gives better results than boston butt).
Funny thing, both brisket and chuck came to internal 84-85C, and then stalled, an started cooling all the way to 78. No idea why that happened. Never before it stalled and cooled at that high temperature.

 

[Shootr]

View attachment 382713

Nothing I can add as advice, I'm new to this too - but this pic is really, really good - if that was in an advertisement for the restaurant I would beating the door down to get some! Best of luck!

 

[banderson7474]

Dobri,

Not onion salt, it's Salt, Pepper, Onion powder, Garlic powder. I imagine it's easier to find onion powder than onion salt.

 

[DobriDim]

banderson, yes, i mean onion powder too, really hard to come by here. Funny thing though, as we put onion in 95% of dishes here.
Shootr, thank you mate.

 

[fivetricks]

I tell ya what, if the restaurant thing doesn't shake out for you, it looks like you have a secondary career waiting for you in photography! Those pictures are very well shot

 

[xray]

Your photos look fantastic!