So after reading all the posts about putting pulled chuck roast in chili (and swapping red wine for beer in the recipe) I have been itching to try it. Since I have family coming in later this week and we are having a nice cold snap down here I figured now was the time.
I stopped by Sam's on the way home and picked up 2 very nicely marbled chuckies with a total weight of about 5.25 lbs (and a medium priced bottle of Cabernet) I headed home to get things going.
I have been using lump coal in the basket of the PBC for a while now and am very used to its higher cooking temps vs. Kingsford Blue, but this time kinda of blew me away. My normal routine is to arrange the large pieces of lump in the firebasket first, then place the medium pieces around the large ones and finally fill in all the empty space with the small pieces. Since I had neglected to buy a couple of new bags of lump, all I had was three nearly empty bags with just small pieces of lump so I decided to just use them. To define "small pieces" a bit better I'd say most of the pieces were just large enough not to fall through the expanded metal on the bottom on the firebox - yes - that small.
I filled my firebox about 3/4 of the way with the small pieces of lump and my mini-chimney with the usual 40 briquettes of Kingsford and lit 'er up.
I let the hot Kingsford sit on top of the unlit lump with the PBC lid completely off for about 10 minutes as usual until the whole firebox had a nice orange glow. I added my cherry and pecan chunks to the firebox and put the 2 chuck roasts on the grate (with PBC Beef Rub - mmmmm) and closed the lid.
Up to now things had gone completely normal and according to plan. I am totally used to seeing the PBC jump up to 300 and then settle down to 250-265, but this time I had to do a double-take. The PBC temps jumped straight up to 350 and help for like 20 minutes. It finally "settled down" to about 315-325 after a half hour or so. It finally occurred to me that packing all of the (near particulate) small pieces of lump was the cause. It was like packing the PBC with fine grains of gunpowder - it all lit up at once and took off like a freaking rocket!!!!
Instead of the usual 4.5 to 5 hours to the meat up to 170 degrees, it only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes. By then the PBC was down to a modest 270. I wrapped both chuckies in foil with several ounces of beef broth and it only took another hour to get the IT of the meat up to the desired 195-200!! After I removed the meat totally and put the lid back on the PBC kept chooglin' along at 290-300 for a few more hours.
I went to bed before the chuckies cooled enough to be pulled, but the wife woke me up out of a sound sleep to taste it when she pulled it. She swore (and still swears) the pulled beef was better than my pulled pork --- now that is a BOLD statement!!!
Anyway this new knowledge will help anytime I want to do a PBC cook on WARP speed with sustaining temps of 300-325. Thankfully I was using a pretty tolerant cut of meat and not something more dainty like chicken or turkey -- that could have been a bad deal for sure.
So for future cooks I'll keep this in mind - definitely a good nugget to tuck away.
I will also be much more careful when loading up the firebox with lump and be sure to mix large, medium and small pieces and to only fill with small if I want a hot, hot fire.
I am assuming many of you old pros that use lump know this secret, but this was news to me! Thankfully good news on this cook, but it could have very easily gone bad had I selected a different meat or cut of beef than chuck roast.
I stopped by Sam's on the way home and picked up 2 very nicely marbled chuckies with a total weight of about 5.25 lbs (and a medium priced bottle of Cabernet) I headed home to get things going.
I have been using lump coal in the basket of the PBC for a while now and am very used to its higher cooking temps vs. Kingsford Blue, but this time kinda of blew me away. My normal routine is to arrange the large pieces of lump in the firebasket first, then place the medium pieces around the large ones and finally fill in all the empty space with the small pieces. Since I had neglected to buy a couple of new bags of lump, all I had was three nearly empty bags with just small pieces of lump so I decided to just use them. To define "small pieces" a bit better I'd say most of the pieces were just large enough not to fall through the expanded metal on the bottom on the firebox - yes - that small.
I filled my firebox about 3/4 of the way with the small pieces of lump and my mini-chimney with the usual 40 briquettes of Kingsford and lit 'er up.
I let the hot Kingsford sit on top of the unlit lump with the PBC lid completely off for about 10 minutes as usual until the whole firebox had a nice orange glow. I added my cherry and pecan chunks to the firebox and put the 2 chuck roasts on the grate (with PBC Beef Rub - mmmmm) and closed the lid.
Up to now things had gone completely normal and according to plan. I am totally used to seeing the PBC jump up to 300 and then settle down to 250-265, but this time I had to do a double-take. The PBC temps jumped straight up to 350 and help for like 20 minutes. It finally "settled down" to about 315-325 after a half hour or so. It finally occurred to me that packing all of the (near particulate) small pieces of lump was the cause. It was like packing the PBC with fine grains of gunpowder - it all lit up at once and took off like a freaking rocket!!!!
Instead of the usual 4.5 to 5 hours to the meat up to 170 degrees, it only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes. By then the PBC was down to a modest 270. I wrapped both chuckies in foil with several ounces of beef broth and it only took another hour to get the IT of the meat up to the desired 195-200!! After I removed the meat totally and put the lid back on the PBC kept chooglin' along at 290-300 for a few more hours.
I went to bed before the chuckies cooled enough to be pulled, but the wife woke me up out of a sound sleep to taste it when she pulled it. She swore (and still swears) the pulled beef was better than my pulled pork --- now that is a BOLD statement!!!
Anyway this new knowledge will help anytime I want to do a PBC cook on WARP speed with sustaining temps of 300-325. Thankfully I was using a pretty tolerant cut of meat and not something more dainty like chicken or turkey -- that could have been a bad deal for sure.
So for future cooks I'll keep this in mind - definitely a good nugget to tuck away.
I will also be much more careful when loading up the firebox with lump and be sure to mix large, medium and small pieces and to only fill with small if I want a hot, hot fire.
I am assuming many of you old pros that use lump know this secret, but this was news to me! Thankfully good news on this cook, but it could have very easily gone bad had I selected a different meat or cut of beef than chuck roast.
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