Sous Vide Chuck Roast (Chuckie) Help

[jhoskins]

Hey all! I spent some time digging through the forum, including giving this page (https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...s-vide-chuckie) a detailed read, but I need some help!

Today is Tuesday morning. I am serving some tasty pulled chuck roast nachos at a friend's party on Friday night. I was a little late getting my chuckies defrosted and so my original plan has to be amended. I was GOING to do 72 hours at 135 in the Sous Vide, then finish with some smoke, pull, and re-heat on Friday night. however, I have to travel across the state Thursday night so I have to be done by Thursday at 7pm.

Now, I have both chuckie's on the KBQ as of noon Tuesday. Can I get some help? I want these two to be tender and pull apart and I am not sure I can achieve that with 48 hours in the Sous Vide. The last time I did 48 hours, it was good to slice but didn't really want to pull.

Current plan is smoke until 130 IT today, sous vide for 48-60 hours, pull it Thursday night, shock it, then reheat in the oven at my friend's house slowly on Friday and then pull. Will this work or does anyone have any better ideas?

Also, any links to other posts diving deep into the chuckie prep methods may be useful. Even using advanced search, I was struggling to get some of the comprehensive pages up that I know exist here. Thanks in advance!

[rickgregory]

Unless you want to have it medium rare for some reason, I'd just smoke it traditionally, pull and pack. The SVQ approach really only makes sense to me in two circumstances:

1) If you want the chuck/brisket less than well done. Then you need enough SV time to get it tender and there's no way around that (you can play with temp a little).

2) If you can't do a long smoke for some reason (living in a condo, etc etc) but you can do a long SV.

So... is there a reason to SVQ?

[rickgregory]

If it's fresh (not already spent days in the fridge) I'd just dry brine it ~24 hours before you want to smoke it then smoke it to 200 or so, pull and pack.

[jhoskins]

the problem is it is already on the smoker...

[rickgregory]

Then just smoke it to 200 or so, pull it and ziploc/vacseal it.

[TripleB]

Many ways to skin a cat...Smoke to 120 IT, then SV for 25 hours to 132 IT.

I SV'd a Chuckie for 25 hours to 132 IT and it came out very good.

But I'm in agreement with rickgregory, if your going to smoke it, just take it all the way and pull and pack.

[CHNeal]

If it’s in the smoke now leave it till it’s done, pull it, pack it, travel with it, reheat it, eat it.

[Polarbear777]

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/the-pit-mastery-program/sous-vide/448657-sous-vide-chuckie#post448657

I still finish them in smoke but the SV allows you to control the schedule.

[rickgregory]

Yeah, but he doesn't have (didn't have) 72 hours. So then the question is whether a materially shorter time would still work and while he could bump the temp a bit from 135 if you're doing 145-150 you're out of the medium rare zone. So then the only advantage is schedule control.

[shify]

SV is a good tool and would be helpful in this case but still not sure why you’d SV to a medium rare if you want to pull. Smoke and then SV for 24 hrs at around 150-155 would get you to the texture you’d want for pulled chuck

[jhoskins]

Yep I just left them in the smoke, almost done.

Just trying to figure out the algorithm for how to SV to a pull-able end product. 24hr at 150-155 will do it as well? Maybe next time!

[Allon]

rickgregory

I just wanted you too know, I tried a mini homemade SV today.
I figured if you and so many others are using this technique, I should at least try it.

I won't go into the details but I was very impressed.

Thanks for giving this old man a kick in the butt.

Now, as for getting SV equipment... That's another story.