Experiment: smoked Mississippi pot roast

[DaveD]

I'm all set to start a cook first thing in the morning on an experiment combining our two favorite ways to have chuck roast: the venerable Mississippi pot roast in the crockpot, and smoking them low and slow. So why not smoke it for a while and then put it in the crockpot with the Mississippi recipe stuff the rest of the way? I didn't earn my title of Master Of The Obvious for nothing, y'know.

Got this here nice-looking Choice chuck from Wild Fork, right about 3lb/1.4kg, dry brining. I'll hit it with some coarse pepper and garlic powder lightly before it goes on, running about 225/105 with B&B oak/hickory coals and some hickory.




I'll run it until it's got some decent bark, probably about 3-4 hours, then put it in the crockpot with a cut-up stick of [EDIT: unsalted] butter, ranch dressing mixed from a recipe omitting salt, and a packet of au jus, and a few pepperoncinis on low for the rest of the day. I'll leave the temp probe in there so that I can take some data, I want to poke it every so often to assess tenderness against temp while in the slow cooker, just because I'm curious.

EDIT: I'll be mixing up a salt-free version of the ranch dressing mix, the store-bought is super salty. And I do intend on adding some taters, carrots, and onion at an appropriate stage in the crockpot to go along with.

See ya in the morning

[Mosca]

I tried this in an Instant Pot, but it failed. And I had to replace the IP gasket because it took on a smoke odor. I’m not sure why it failed, I don’t remember now, but I don’t think my result would extrapolate to a slow cooker. I remember thinking it was an IP specific thing. I’m interested in your results.

[wrgilb]

DaveD In addition to the Ranch dressing mix we use French onion soup mix in place of the au jus mix. I add some celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes to the crock pot. I'll also sauté some quartered mushrooms to get rid of their water and then add them to the crock pot when there's about 2 hours of cook time left. We do this every couple of weeks. Next time, I'll try your suggestion of smoke for a few hours first.

[realdocBBQ]

I do almost the same... Although I add my veggies a little over halfway through. When there's about 3h to go or so. Fantastic flavor on the veggies.

[DaveD]

realdocBBQ Yep, that's my plan too, put them in about halfway through.

[wrgilb]

I've never tried putting the veggies in half way through. I'll try that next time. Putting them in at the beginning has never been a problem with over cooking for me. Also, when it's done, I'll take the meat out and shred it, removing any fat and then adding it back to the pot and mixing it in.

[TripleB]

Look forward to seeing the results of your experiment.

[texastweeter]

I do that all the time with my chucks, just not the Mississippi pot roast kind. I smoked one and the put in the crockpot Monday. Yesterday I used some of the leftover to add to grilled cheese sammiches.

[DaveD]

Oh man, that sounds like a killer app for grilled cheese...

[jtw]

Do you find that the extra dry brining is too much salt? We love MPR here but usually the butter + ranch + au jus + pepperoncini is enough salt already. I do love the idea of the kiss of a little smoke in there....

[DaveD]

Neglected to include that I'm mixing up my own ranch mix, salt-free, for just this reason. I wanted the benefits of dry brining, so I'll make it up that way. Plus I'll be using unsalted butter. I think it'll be OK. But I don't know what I'll find yet... this is the experiment!

[Clawbear57]

Pics.please

[DaveD]

You wound me... have I ever provided too little documentation!??

[texastweeter]

But can you do it with less than 4 probes?

[DaveD]

texastweeter Challenge accepted! I shall do TWO, just for you

[Sweaty Paul]

Following.

[DaveD]

We did think about the salt, and I'll be mixing up some ranch dressing powder from a recipe, and leave the salt out. The packet is SUPER salty, so this should greatly reduce the risk of oversalting. The butter will also be unsalted. I'll still use the au jus packet though, because it's tough to make that salt free, because of beef bouillon cubes or powder in the recipe. I think it'll be OK.

And I didn't mention it (will edit the OP) but I'll be adding some small red taters [edit: I thought our baby taters were Yukons, I was mistaken] and some carrots at some point, maybe a quartered sweet onion as well. Great to have those cooked along with.

[realdocBBQ]

Only issue I can see and the reason I havent done this is thinking the heavy flavoring in a Mississippi pot roast would likely overpower and obscure any potential smoke flavor. Really interested to see olif you can detect this. Also, I like to do a hard sear on my pot roast before the slow cooker, usually on my Blackstone, wieghted down with a cast iron skillet for surface contact. Putting a hard crust sear on it would probably prevent smoke from adhering and penetrating the meat to any significant degree - or so my laziness attempts to convince me. Lol

Update us on the results!!!

[DaveD]

Agreed, a sear crust would be likely, I'd think, to inhibit smoke uptake (and the sear flavors might obscure the smoke too). That's not something we've tried before, far as I can remember... when my lovely bride does the crock pot version, she just drops it in there.

[DaveD]

Goooooooooood morning Pitmasters & Pitmaestras, it's a beautiful day here in northern Virginia, the only fly in the ointment is that it's still a bit muggy with dew points nearly 65/18 but temps forecast to get a little above 75/24, so definitely not terrible, and there is a big drop in DP on the way in a couple days, which will give way to classic, brilliant fall weather here in the coming week. My favorite time of year!

Got the fire lit about 7:45 and Sir Charles entered the chat at 8:45 after getting a light dusting of a pepper/garlic powder mix. Running on the SnS with B&B oak/hickory coals and a couple of hickory chunks, with grate temp stable at about 230/110. Making do with just two temp probes today one in the side of the piece and the other in one end. ITs starting at freezing or just below at the outset, good for smoke uptake.




Houston, we have cleared the tower...

[texastweeter]

That gonna be enough data points for you, lol. I make fun of you for that, but you should see the data I keep up with when I am working up a new handload, lololol!

[DaveD]

texastweeter No worries, I know it's entirely good natured! And I'm a lab rat through and through, I instrument the snot out of everything... no such thing as too much data IMO!

[Steve R.]

I've been wanting to do this for at least a couple of years now, but just haven't gotten around to it. Thanks for the reminder and for walking us through the process!

[DaveD]

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch...

My lovely bride provided the following recipe for homemade ranch dressing mix: https://kitchenfullofsunshine.blogsp...oning-mix.html

Converting everything to tablespoons, then recalculating the proportions with no salt, then scaling down to a 2 Tbsp batch size, and finally converting those to teaspoons for easier measuring, it works out to:

2.25 Parsely
0.50 Dill weed
0.75 Garlic powder
0.75 Onion powder
0.50 Minced onion flakes
0.33 Dried chives
0.33 Black pepper

The recipe says that 1 Tbsp of this mix is equivalent to one package of the store-bought dressing mix. The package weighs 1oz/28g, so I aimed to weigh out that amount so that it's directly equivalent to the package. My mix ended up a few grams short, but I'm going with it.

On the au jus, I'm just sticking with a Knorr brand package, because the beef bouillon's salt really can't be avoided and the recipe we have for making it is not any less salty, if I've done the math correctly.

Ranch fixins:



Status check on the chuck: an hour in and all well. Temps starting to flatten out and converge between the two probes.


Keeeeeeeep going...

[jlazar]

Thanks for the recipe. We find the combination of packaged Ranch and Au Jus to be almost too salty.

[DaveD]

Another 90 minutes in, and we are fully in Stallsville. Juices accumulating on that flat top surface are having exactly the effect you'd expect.



I'm actually quite happy to get a stall right here, so that the bark can continue to develop while IT holds steady. More later...

[DaveD]

Another update: still stalling, ITs have barely budged. Still tons of juice on the top surface, but the bark is starting to look good. I'm thinking another hour or so before I transfer to the crockpot...

[texastweeter]

Trap them juices somehow and add to the slow cooker.

[DaveD]

texastweeter I didn't collect those juices, but I think there is plenty more where that came from...!

[texastweeter]

I will refrain from the joke