This year we will conducting various polls about grilling/barbecuing/smoking.  If you have ideas or suggestions about polls please drop me a line or two by using the “Ask The BBQ Grail” link at the top of the page.

[poll id=2]

I love smoking chuck roasts. This particular cut of beef is simply wonderful after several hours on the smoker. It provides a great “pulled” meat and the yield is fantastic.

I was at my local Sam’s Club the other day looking to purchase a couple of chuck roasts for some shredded beef tacos. I wanted to try smoking the beef to give the tacos a little different flavor profile than normal.

They had some three and four pound chuck roasts and the price was pretty competitive. I inquired about the case price and since it was over a dollar a pound cheaper I bought 53 pounds of chuck roasts.
I got the case home and inside was three cryo packs of meat. I figured they would be like buying pork butts. A couple of individual cuts of meat inside each cryo. Nope, wasn’t going to be like that. One giant cut of meat. The Chuck Roll.

After a good coating of rub the chuck roll went on the Weber Smokey Mountain. A few hours in it looked pretty good:

After 16 hours at 225 degrees I was able to pull this piece of meat of the smoker and put into the cooler for a few hours of rest before pulling it.

What was really great about cooking the Chuck Roll was that it gave me a great new yield. I probably only lost about 15% of the weight during the cooking. The marbling in the meat kept it very moist, without having to inject.

I’ve got two more of these monsters in the freezer and can’t wait to get them cooking. There’s so much you can do with leftover pulled beef. I should have some fun in the weeks to come experimenting with new dishes to serve.

I had to make time today to cook the pork butts for pulled pork. It’s going to be a great time with good good.

I started by rubbing down the butts with John Henry’s Apple Chipotle Rub and injecting with apple juice.

Here’s a couple pictures of the WSM chugging away. What a great smoker this thing is.

After a couple of hours the two butts were at temperatures that were far apart. It’s weird how that happens.

I peeked after a few hours. They were looking good.

And here they are ready for the cooler.

And of course, as usual, a big piece fell off that had to be eaten.

Apple/Olive Spatchcocked Turkey

I did a little cooking for the wedding of some friends daughter and the WSM came in handy. Here’s a few pictures of everything. It was a great time. Exhausting, but fun.

Here’s a couple of my smokers hard at work. The ever faithful UDS (Ugly Drum Smoker) and the new WSM.

I came up with an new appetizer for the wedding. Pre-made and cooked beef meatballs wrapped in a little bacon, sprinkled with a good dose of Plowboy’s Yardbird Rub and smoked until the bacon was crispy. I call them MOINK BALLS (Beef = Moo, Pork = Oink. Put them together and you have MOINK.)

Here they are smoking away on the WSM:

The Moink Balls were then glazed with a Raspberry Chipotle Balsamic sauce:

Here’s a few pictures of the rest of the spread. Hoisin Pork and Teriyaki Chicken rounded out the little menu.

One Pound of hamburger, one pound of ground pork, two eggs, panko bread crumbs, bell better, onion, Dales Seasoning and a good dose of Plowboys Yardbird Rub.

Mixed it all up and put in the pan:

A little bacon (of course):

Into the smoker at 225 degrees until internal temperature was 165 degrees. Glazed with a little bbq sauce:

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

And on the plate with a baked tater and some corn on the cob:

If…I mean when i do this again, I’m going to leave some of the bacon off the top so I get more of a crunchy top to the meat load.