Large Big Green Egg, Weber Performer Deluxe, Weber Smokey Joe Silver, Fireboard Drive, 3 DigiQs, lots of Thermapens, and too much other stuff to mention.
As best I can figure, those 2”-3” thick chuck roasts are sliced out of a larger chuck roll, right?
Chuck roasts can be so confusing, with 7 bone, arm, blade, etc.. Sam’s has cryopac whole chuck roll for $6.48/lb, but the roasts are $6.58/lb. For 10¢/lb I’ll get what I need, and not bother with freezing etc
When I was a kid my Mom managed to feed our family on $1/day/person. Even back in the 60's and 70's that was no small feat. Our most regular staple beef was "chuck steak". About 3/4" thick with one long thin bone and one more complicate bone with a joint in it. These were quite large, about 8x10 inches or so, and fed (typically) about 6 of us. I seem to recall cooking two for laeger equations. You could barely fit one on each side of a two-grid hiibatchi that had the square grids.
As is the case with chuck, lots of flavor, but requires some chewing.
I had these as a kid too. Mom would cook the crap out of it like she did with everything. It would feed our family of six. It was considered a special treat. At least by mom. The rest of us struggled through it because that’s what was served. Eat it or go hungry. Man it was like shoe leather.
Fortunately we didn't over cook ours and they were pretty good. My mom would cook them in the broiler in the winter. In the summer one of use would be drafted to cook outdoor (Dad never participated in that, so it was us kids). Fun to play with fire . We had tons of sticks so never used charcol.
If not cooking outdoors, I am cooking on the stovetop with my 14" carbon steel wok, 12" CI skillet, or in the oven with my two Lodge CI pizza pans, or two dutch ovens. I've also got a nifty Lodge carbon steel grill pan that rocks for veggies outdoors.
The chuck roll is probably where Sam’s gets their chuck roasts, but the roll actually can be broken down into a ton of steaks, ground beef and a few small 1-2 pound roasts. gboss piloted how to do that for us a few years back, and I did it when the rolls were 4.29 a pound or something like that.
Equipment:
'88 Vintage Fire Magic gasser with over 4000 cooks to its credit
Large Big Green Egg
18 Inch Weber Kettle (Rescued from neighbor's trash)
Rotisserie for 18 inch kettle
Dyna Glo propane smoker
Pit Barrel Cooker
Smokey Joe with mini WSM mod
Garcima paella burner
Anova Sous Vide
Slaiya Sous Vide (gift)
LEM grinder, sausage stuffer and meat slicer (all gifts)
The price advantage of the chuck roll is that it is fabricated into several cuts that are more expensive than the chuck roast. Some are chuck eye steaks (often sold as delmonico steaks), denver steaks, sierra steak, boneless chuck ribs, and probably others.
If not cooking outdoors, I am cooking on the stovetop with my 14" carbon steel wok, 12" CI skillet, or in the oven with my two Lodge CI pizza pans, or two dutch ovens. I've also got a nifty Lodge carbon steel grill pan that rocks for veggies outdoors.
It is crazy that the chuck roll is within 10 cents in price of the chuck roast right now. A year or two ago it was $1-2 less per pound than chuck roast. In 2022 I paid $4.28 a pound for chuck roll, and at the time, chuck roast was still up around $5.50 to $6.
I still think it is worth it to get one. Here is where gboss linked to a video or two that make it easy to break one down.
When I broke down a 16 something pounder, I got about 14 steaks, some big, some small, 2 roasts, and 3-4 pounds of ground beef. I had little waste as I ground most of the trim.
DaveD I remember because I went to the trouble to go out and buy a chuck roll, and replicate what gboss had done. I only did it the once, but more recently used similar techniques to break down a full 20 pound ribeye roast (prime rib) into a full slab of beef back ribs, a very large ribeye cap / spinalis steak, that I ended up cutting in two for the freezer, and the complete "eye of ribeye" if you will, a couple of thick steaks and a large prime rib was in the newsletter (but mislabeled).
. We had tons of sticks so never used charcol.
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