First smoke of beef chuck roast

[JC in GB]

All,

I did an 8 lb beef chuck roast over the weekend. This is the first time I have done any beef other than brisket.

I used a basic SPOG seasoning on the meat and smoked it low and slow with cherry wood for 4 hours and then wrapped and into the oven for another 6 hours until the meat came up to temp.

I pulled the meat at 195 degrees as I wanted slices not shreds. The meat sliced up perfectly.

The flavor was great but the meat was a bit dry.

So, why did my meat turn out dry?

1) Too high a finish temp (195 F)?
2) Should have injected the meat before cooking?
3) Should have rested meat longer. (No time to rest as starving family needed food.) :(

Looking forward to any guidance this forum can provide.

Thanks,

JC

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I'd actually suspect it was the oven that was the culprit. Ovens normally actively draw the moist air out...

I know some times meat seems dry or tough if you don't let it go 'all the way' to completion, and I suspect since you just wanted to slice this as opposed to fall apart, you might have pulled at some in between stage. I'm just theorizing here though JC. I've done chuck roast part way in a smoker then used a Sous Vide, never did it in the oven.

 

[JC in GB]

The flavor was awesome and it wasn't tough. Just kind of dry.

You might be right about the oven. I used my smoker probes for temp control and was shocked to see that my oven has a +40 degree hysteresis point from the oven temperature set point.

Just trying to do a post mortem so my next result will be better.

Thanks...

 

[Ricardo Galindo]

I would blame the oven. Nextime use your Weber kettle and yeah needs to rest a bit too. I tell my family all the time that they just have to wait a little longer or make a ham and cheese sandwich :)

 

[noboundaries]

Chuck is a finicky cut, but the oven wasn't the culprit.

1. No rest. Resting just about any meat is essential and not giving the meat a rest would be my first thought. Resting meat allows it to continue cooking, continue to melt the collagen, and redistribute (or balance) the internal juices. The juices in chuck are not water or fat, they are melted proteins, aka collagen.

2. Final IT. Usually 190-195F IT will do the trick for slicing, but not always. That piece of meat may have needed 200F IT, maybe even a little higher, to slice juicy and tender. Underdone chuck will always taste dry. An overdone chuck will crumble when sliced, but usually be juicy and tender unless ALL the collagen has melted out of the meat.

The dry meat may have been 1, or 2, or a combination of them both. Developing a feel for "probe tender" slicing, using IT as a guide, not a destination, will help put a perfect roast on the table. The probe resistance for slicing is a little firmer than for pulling, which is close to no resistance.

It's the little things that can make a big difference.

 

[JC in GB]

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right about the resting. I knew that was a mistake straight away.

I need to develop a better feel for how tender the meat should be. Right now, I am relying too much on IT.

Great points. I knew that chuck roast would be a challenge but you can't improve until you fail.

 

[noboundaries]

I've cooked chuck roasts in the oven for decades before I started smoking meat. Used a 350F oven temp, and once I learned how to probe for tenderness instead of time, they always came out great.

Then I started smoking meat. My first boneless chuckie, a 3 lb'er smoked on my Kettle at 190F to 225F, took 8 hours and NEVER got tender. I didn't check IT, but expected it to be done in 6 hours. Tasted great, but was basically a brick. Ended up cutting it up and making chili. It still took 2 more hours of braising before it became tender. Lesson learned; master the probe.