May Day chuck

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Unity

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The freezer was clean out of chuck, so I did a 6-pounder today, using Dizzy Pig Cow Lick rub. (The next one will be WRB, Larry. :D )

A strange thing happened during the cook. The cooker temp was holding at 267°, a tad warmer than I intended. The meat was at 160°, and I figured it was going to plateau for a while. The next time I looked, about 20 min later, the cooker temp had jumped to 322°! Meat was at 165°, my foil target, so I double-foiled, and after all that opening and closing, the cooker temp dropped back below 300°. I had the vents all shut down by this point. Cooker temp stayed in the 290's from then on. When the meat reached 198° I took it out, wrapped it, and put it in the cooler. The roast was done in almost exactly 1 hr/lb!

The meat pulled easily and has good taste and texture, so no complaints. But what the heck might have caused the cooker temp to spike like that, 55° in a few minutes? (I had started with a full ring of Kingsford using the Minion Method, and it came up to temp normally, except as I said, around the 4-hr mark it was running a little hotter than what I had in mind.)



--John 8)
 
I don't know why you spiked however i do know that looks very yummy and I like that rub from Dizzy pig.
 
Captain Morgan said:
alls well that ends well...what are you cooking on?
WSM.

I think part of the problem is that I'm comparing chucks to butts, and I'm figuring out that they don't cook the same. My chucks usually do cook faster than I expect, but I was guessing it was mainly because the chucks I've found up to now have been small, ~3 lb. I thought this bigger one would take longer. Maybe not, huh?

--John 8)
 
Diva Q said:
that looks very yummy and I like that rub from Dizzy pig.
It is yummy. :D Jody and I greedily ate about 1/3 of it (with plain rice and pintos) for supper. The DP Cow Lick rub is definitely good on beef. :)

--John 8)
 
That sounds like something that would happen to me. :LOL:

All you can do is check for holes. To me it seems that lump is easier to control after a temp spike. ;)
 
John,
I usually figure chucks take around 1.5 hrs per lb, so an hour per lb at the temps you cooked it at aren't that abnormal. The rest time with the chuck is critical IMO and makes a big differernce in the finished product and it looks like you did it perfectly!

As far as the temp spike go you have to have some sort of air leak somewhere. When you get a chance light up a chimney half full of coals and dump them into the empty cooker and add a couple wet chunks of wood. Close all the vents down and if you have a leak you should be able to see exactly where it is by doing this.

John I agree about Dizzy Pigs rubs and the Cowlick is one of my favorites here at home as well when I'm not using Wolfe Rub. Hopefully one day you'll get around to trying the Wolfe Rub Bold on a chuck one day though! :roll: LOL
 
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