Beef Clod

Now that looks darn right tasty RZ. Nice job.

Dang RZ,

Just color me jealous.

That is my favorite cut to smoke. MMM shredded beef tacos!

Sure looks good to me. so what exactly is a beef clod? Is it marbled with fat or is it a lean cut? Does it cook up like a pork butt?

I like to smoke a large chuck roast when I can find it on sale for a good price (good luck with that...haven't seen it for less than $4/lb lately).

The clod is from the front shoulder and neck area in front of the chuck. It should have enough marbling in it. I personally prefer to smoke a chuck roll as the fat content is just a little higher.

RZ, just a suggestion but you might want to cut the clod into two or three pieces in order to cut your cooking time and to increase the amount of bark in the mix after you pull it apart.

A beef clod is basically a beef butt. Very similar to a pork butt. There was not very much fat in it when pulling it apart though. The "garbage" I had left over after pulling it could fit in the palm of my hand.

I put a half size (I think?) hotel pan in the bottom rack of the smoker, it slides right into the rails. There was probably 2 to 3 cups of pure fat that dripped into the pan. I think I like smoking with a drip pan in the bottom rack.


Next time I think I will get a larger one and cut it down into 3 or 4 pieces. That 13 pounder was all I could fit on a 14 X 14 rack in an SM055.

I have a meter I plug the smoker into to. It used 12KW hours to cook that hunk of meat. The element is on roughly half the time, or was on for about 12 hours total of the total 24.5 hours . Temp was set at 225 for the entire cook, except for the last 4 hours I bumped it to 250.

Bottom line, it taste very good!
Thanks to all for your feed back!

The first chuck clod I did was 25 lbs. After some consulting I was convinced I should cut into 3 pieces. I preferred the flavor of the clod over the flavor of a brisket. However, I can’t seem to be consistent with clods, while some are great some are only ok. The ones that are great are better than any brisket, IMHO, but the ones that are only ok aren’t near as good as a brisket. Brisket, on the other hand, seem to be easy to be consistent with, at least for me

quote:

Originally posted by Chef-Boy-Arnie:
The first chuck clod I did was 25 lbs. After some consulting I was convinced I should cut into 3 pieces. I preferred the flavor of the clod over the flavor of a brisket. However, I can’t seem to be consistent with clods, while some are great some are only ok. The ones that are great are better than any brisket, IMHO, but the ones that are only ok aren’t near as good as a brisket. Brisket, on the other hand, seem to be easy to be consistent with, at least for me

I wanted to do a brisket. Went to my local butcher and they hauled out this monster 17 pounder and it was $80! I didn't want to risk $80 worth of meat on only my second or third smoke in the SM055. That's pushing $5 a pound for brisket.

So I found that clod at a local restaurant supply and it was about $3.40 per pound for Canada AAA which is about equivalent to USDA Choice.

This clod was VERY good.

I have a 22 lb chuck roll which is being cooked for tomorrow. I want to slice it, not pull it. Are you taking it to 190 degrees and would you cut it in half to cook it.

How many hours are you thinking to cook it?

I would slice it, CR, if it were me. I would probably cut it into thirds or quarters to end up with more bark. Especially since you want to slice it.

Are you going to slice soon after taking it from the smoker? If yes, why slicing instead of pulling? Just curious.

John,
I was initially thinking about keeping it whole and putting in at about midnight at 225. Let it cook until either 4 pm or 190 - 195, whichever came first. Wrap it and put in cooler until supper.
That would be at least 2 hours until supper. The reason for keeping it whole is to keep more internal moisture.

I use to pan and foil mine after the internal temp reached 165. Yes, you would lose some of the crunchiness to the bark but the juices I was able to capture and then defat helped the finished product after I pulled and added the juices back in.