Yesterday I cooked 2 chuckies in my 14.5" WSM. I just did a write up at the 'Show us what you are cooking' thread. An interesting problem arose during the cook. I copied this from my write-up at the 'show us' thread:
I used my 14.5" WSM for 2 chuckles. One was 4 pounds the other 3.5 pounds. I put the bigger one on the top rack as it's a bit hotter than the bottom rack. My plan was to have the water all evaporate within 1-2 hours and then run pretty hot, in the 250-270 range and wrap if I needed to speed up the end of the cook. After a couple of hours my cooking chamber probe was giving readings that were all over the place (I've been having problems with this probe for a while). So, I pulled this probe and replaced it with the one extra probe I had which was a meat probe. I don't clip the probe to a rack in the WSM, I just push it through the grommet so it is suspended between the 2 racks. Temps quickly spiked to 285 and it took me an hour to bring temps down to 270. The meat powered right through the stall and when it reached 205 I went to pull it. The chuck on the top rack was sweating and when I grabbed it with the tongs not only was it firm but I smudged the rub. It hadn't even developed bark yet and was quite clearly still in the stall! So, I took the meat probe that I was using as a cooking chamber probe and jammed it into the meat. My suspicions were confirmed. I had 1 chuck at 205 and the other at 162. This lead me to (wrongly it turns out) believe that my other meat probe was malfunctioning as well. I got the top chuck up to 175 internal and I decided to go for another peak (the bottom chuck was now at 210). Bark had set and when I peered at the chuck reading 210 it was very clear that it was probably at that temperature. So I pulled both, wrapped and went to cambro for 45 minutes. The 210 chuck was falling apart and it shredded really easily with bear claws. As for the 175 chuck bear claws were useless. I ended up pulling it by hand. Fortunately, the meat was tender enough so that it wasn't chewy. Both chucks had nice bark, they were moist and had the best smoke flavor I've yet achieved with beef.
Here is a pic of the 2 chucks when they were slathered and rubbed to provide a visual for how similar they were in size:
Here is a pic of the chuck on the top rack. It was at 162 (after I inserted the probe) and the chuck below was reading 205 at this point. Visually, it was quite clearly in the stall phase.
This is what they looked like when they were pulled. For reference, the one that was reading 210 is on top in this pic:
Had I not incorrectly concluded that the probe in the bottom chuck was malfunctioning I would have pulled it at the 205 mark and mixed it with half of the sauce and peppers/onions/mushrooms I had and would have let the slower-cooking chuck go until it was done. I had to discard a few pieces of bark from the 210 chuck because they were crunchy. I had to discard a small fatty chunk of the 175 chuck because it was pulled before it was properly done and that big chunk of fat intertwined with beef hadn't rendered. In spite of these problems I could not have been happier with the final product. These sandwiches were amazing (you can see the full write up at the 'show us' thread).
Has anybody else experienced something like this? Any thoughts as to why 2 similarly sized cuts cooked at such different rate in a cooker that has minimal temperature variance between the top and bottom rack?
I used my 14.5" WSM for 2 chuckles. One was 4 pounds the other 3.5 pounds. I put the bigger one on the top rack as it's a bit hotter than the bottom rack. My plan was to have the water all evaporate within 1-2 hours and then run pretty hot, in the 250-270 range and wrap if I needed to speed up the end of the cook. After a couple of hours my cooking chamber probe was giving readings that were all over the place (I've been having problems with this probe for a while). So, I pulled this probe and replaced it with the one extra probe I had which was a meat probe. I don't clip the probe to a rack in the WSM, I just push it through the grommet so it is suspended between the 2 racks. Temps quickly spiked to 285 and it took me an hour to bring temps down to 270. The meat powered right through the stall and when it reached 205 I went to pull it. The chuck on the top rack was sweating and when I grabbed it with the tongs not only was it firm but I smudged the rub. It hadn't even developed bark yet and was quite clearly still in the stall! So, I took the meat probe that I was using as a cooking chamber probe and jammed it into the meat. My suspicions were confirmed. I had 1 chuck at 205 and the other at 162. This lead me to (wrongly it turns out) believe that my other meat probe was malfunctioning as well. I got the top chuck up to 175 internal and I decided to go for another peak (the bottom chuck was now at 210). Bark had set and when I peered at the chuck reading 210 it was very clear that it was probably at that temperature. So I pulled both, wrapped and went to cambro for 45 minutes. The 210 chuck was falling apart and it shredded really easily with bear claws. As for the 175 chuck bear claws were useless. I ended up pulling it by hand. Fortunately, the meat was tender enough so that it wasn't chewy. Both chucks had nice bark, they were moist and had the best smoke flavor I've yet achieved with beef.
Here is a pic of the 2 chucks when they were slathered and rubbed to provide a visual for how similar they were in size:
Here is a pic of the chuck on the top rack. It was at 162 (after I inserted the probe) and the chuck below was reading 205 at this point. Visually, it was quite clearly in the stall phase.
This is what they looked like when they were pulled. For reference, the one that was reading 210 is on top in this pic:
Had I not incorrectly concluded that the probe in the bottom chuck was malfunctioning I would have pulled it at the 205 mark and mixed it with half of the sauce and peppers/onions/mushrooms I had and would have let the slower-cooking chuck go until it was done. I had to discard a few pieces of bark from the 210 chuck because they were crunchy. I had to discard a small fatty chunk of the 175 chuck because it was pulled before it was properly done and that big chunk of fat intertwined with beef hadn't rendered. In spite of these problems I could not have been happier with the final product. These sandwiches were amazing (you can see the full write up at the 'show us' thread).
Has anybody else experienced something like this? Any thoughts as to why 2 similarly sized cuts cooked at such different rate in a cooker that has minimal temperature variance between the top and bottom rack?
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