Smoked Pot Roast on the PBC -

[bbqLuv]

We just bought a cast iron Dutch Oven for camping, first ever, made dump cake, nachos, and enchiladas, but know you're giving great ideas at home. Thank you.

[Alabama Smoke]

ByTor I have made this several times and done basically the same way each time. My first was pretty darned near perfect. The second, the meat was tough. We were hungry so took it off before totally probe tender. Ate, then froze the rest to thaw and put into oven for more time whenever I get to it. I think the difference might well have been the meat quality. I think the second was tougher to begin with. For the warm up I plan to thaw in fridge overnight, then put into one of my oiled dutch ovens and into the kitchen oven for about an hour, then probe for tenderness. If needed, I will put back into oven and test for tenderness say about every half hour after that.

[ByTor]

Need to get me a Dutch oven now, the ones I have are the enameled ones and guessing they would get messed up. I have about 6.5 lbs of Chuck and going to try to foil pan. Used the PBC beef and game rub overnight covered in plastic wrap Added a small chunk of hickory, not sure of the flavor profile therebut it’s what I had.

20 minutes in the temp seems to be slowly dropping at 257 Thoughts?

dropped to 240 so I cracked the lid a a few and closed at 280, went up to 290 and is slowly dropping again. I added a lava lock seal this week and the lid seems tight. I probably should have let the original temp get up higher, I think it was a little over 300 when I added the roasts. 15 minutes later it seems to be slowly dropping and down to 256

temp kept fluctuating but all good. Took about 3 hours to get near 160 so I put it in the uncovered pan. Added some red wine, beef broth, rosemary and garlic in the pan.

let it go an hour uncovered but the meat temp had dropped and it wasn’t doing much so I covered it, pulled a rod and things seem to be cooking now. Another 2 or or 3 hours and we should be rocking, lol.

[Alabama Smoke]

You might need to crack the lid about a quarter inch for 10 or 15 minutes to get temps up some but I would leave as is unless temp drops below 220. It may start cycling within an acceptable temp on its own, and if so that is fine.

[HawkerXP]

No gasket for me but yes, start temp is usually at least 350s or higher.

Once meat hung it will work its way down to normal temps.

[fzxdoc]

Getting a good light on the coals is essential for solid PBC temps. For my PBC and KBB, the 10/10/10 method works great. Kingsford Professional takes 15 min and Weber charcoal takes 20 min in the first step to get the topmost coals slightly ashed over in the chimney. YMMV.

As others have said, just crack the lid and let the temp get up past 300 (although I shoot for 350-375 initially), reseat the lid and you should be good to go. I wouldn't take it as high as 350-375 once the meat is in it, though. 300ish should be fine.

You've got some good eats ahead. Enjoy the cook and enjoy the delicious food.

Kathryn

[Sweaty Paul]

Nicely done!

[ByTor]

pot roast, continued.. Okay, so basically about 3 hours smoked to 160, uncovered for an hour and half or so. It had dropped back to 150 and finally made it back up to 160 and I started worrying bout getting it done so I covered it. After 3 hours it was still stalled at 170 so I popped in the oven at 350. It finally broke and climbed in about an hour to 204 and it still seemed a little tough with the fork so I decided to let it go to 207. That took another 40 minutes, lol. Oh well, big learning experience and the family was starving but they loved it. I feel like I smell like Hickory smoke But they said they could barely taste it. I learned a lot and will make some adjustments next time. All in all fun and very good.

[fzxdoc]

Wow that's beautiful, ByTor . Gorgeous smoke ring. Congrats.

Kathryn

[ByTor]

In retrospect I need to make sure I have it a lot hotter from the get go. I also wonder about the addition of fluids to roast like this. I make a mean beef stew with chuck roast and I use an entire bottle of wine and it's fine. But when I cook a roast in the oven too much fluid seems to make the cook drag on forever so I barely add anything up front and a just a little as I go as needed. On this I added a cup each of wine and broth which I thought was minimal but could have slowed the cook?

[fzxdoc]

I'm surprised that adding 2 cups of liquid, especially with an oven set at 350-375 could have slowed the cook. I wonder, though, when you do pot roast only in the oven if you cook it by temperature or by time?

Kathryn

[ByTor]

I'm surprised that adding 2 cups of liquid, especially with an oven set at 350-375 could have slowed the cook. I wonder, though, when you do pot roast only in the oven if you cook it by temperature or by time?

Kathryn

well first I was thinking of the fluid in the pan in the smoker coupled with the lower temps I was getting on the PBC and if that was slowing the cook. But I also try to keep the fluid to a minimum in the oven as well. To answer the question I've always just done it by guesswork. I'll run some rough numbers in my head on time and just check for fork tenderness. I've had it seem to go into an endless stall when I've had to much fluid so I've poured some out to speed things up. But chances are this is all in my imagination and I'm wrong, lol. As I said, in my dutch oven there is plenty of fluid and it's fine.

[BFlynn]

If it's not smokey enough, I'd add more wood chunks at the start.
I also wouldn't worry about internal temp on this. Just cook to desired tenderness.
I found 8 hrs was great. Your mileage may vary.

I wouldn't think that little liquid would change the cooking time. Might be you just had a really long stall.