For The Cen-Tex Smoker. A monster in the making.

SGH

Brother Cen-Tex here is the 34 pound clod that you said you would like to see. Bare with me I'm going to update this post periodically through out the night. I have a lot that I want to share about this clod and the cook and it will take some time. Here is my beautiful 23 year old DIL holding the monster for a size comparison. Hope you enjoy sir.

ChillyWillis

Ahhhhhhh the time has come! Can't wait to see what follows my friend. =P~ $-) <:-P

SGH

@ChillyWillis‌
You knew it was coming didn't you?

ChillyWillis

@SGH‌ I had faith my friend. I haven't been around here for too long but you've always been willing to help out the new guy, and that's a rare thing on the interweb. To be honest I've really got no idea what has this whole forum whipped up into a frenzy over all of this... all I know is I come here for cooking advise, ideas, and feedback and you do that in spades my friend. Thanks for that. :-bd

Now about that clod.....

NPHuskerFL

@SGH‌ That's a monster for sure.

Grillmagic

I'm ashamed to ask what a clod is this a brisket???

SGH

@NPHuskerFL‌ @ChillyWillis‌
Thank you for the kind words my friends.
@Grillmagic‌
The clod is taken from the beef chuck primal reduced to a subprimal. It contains the Teres minor as well as the Teres major from the deltoid head. Think of a pork boston butt. This is the same thing except cut from a bovine instead of a swine.

SGH

@ChillyWillis‌
Brother all I have ever wanted to do in my time here is help those who need it and post unique cooks. Again thank you for the kind words above.

SkinnyV

Standing by periodically for this one, great explanation above.
Life is good friends!
\:D/

NPHuskerFL

@SGH‌ Looks good as far as the cut thus far. I'll look later. I'm out as I've got a full plate tomorrow. Hasta mañana amigo.

Grillmagic

You learn something new every day, do you pull it, slice it, chop it and if so at what temp and is it any where near as good as a low and slow pulled pork cook. I'm buying one of these...

SGH

The monster bathed in its own blood for a binder then salted and peppered only for this cook. Blood is a excellent binder on beef.

SGH

@Grillmagic‌
Brother all the questions that you asked above will be covered in my write up shortly. But all those are excellent questions my friend. Just hang in there my friend it's coming.

NPHuskerFL

Ok. I'm still watching. Like the spice (KISS) regime. And totally agree on beef has its own natural binders.

SGH

@NPHuskerFL‌
It's so big that putting anything other than salt and a little pepper on it in the beginning would be a waste my friend. But at the end when I seperate the Teres Major I will spice it up a little. But that comes when the cook is complete.

SGH

I know some of the more astute cooks are wondering why I did not remove the Teres Major for this cook. The answer is simple and contains no ambiguity at all. I wanted to show the clod with all three muscles fully intact. The Teres Major the Teres Minor as well as the Infraspinatus. The whole unaltered clod in true Texas style. I will offer different ways to cook and cut each of these before the end of this post.

SGH

A little about the prep and cook. I set the unopened clod in a cooler full of ice for over 24 hours before the cook began. The reason is obvious and I won't delve any farther into here. The clod contained a great amount of adipose and that's why it was selected. I merely squared up each end of the heavy cap. No farther trimming was done to the clod. I let the clod dwell at 150 degrees under heavy oak smoke before walking the unit up to the final cooking temperature of 225 degrees. At this point I added a water pan. Let me say that you should not cook at 150 degrees. This is just something that I chose to do.

SGH

Once the smoker reached 225 degrees and settled in I started spritzing every hour with a 50/50 solution of water and beef broth. Even though I was using a water pan I still like to spritz when cooking a subprimal of such massive size. You can argue and debate the merits of spritzing but in my opinion on cuts this size it's a plus. If I were going to wrap somewhere in the cook I would not spritz. But this one was cooked unwrapped from take off to touchdown. Hence the spritz. You can use plain water as well and get excellent results. I just happened to have beef broth on hand so I chose to use it . But it's not a must.

SGH

@Grillmagic‌
Just to clarify the brisket is the pectoral muscle or chest muscle if you will. The clod is the three heads of the deltoid muscle or shoulder if you will.

stevethegreat

Cool! Looking forward to the final product.

SGH

@stevethegreat‌
Thanks man.

stevethegreat

I assume you're doing this in your vertical? 34 lbs is huge, what are you estimating for cooking time?

SGH

@stevethegreat‌
I actually cooked this last weekend. Just waited until now to post it. Wanted to wait until all the hoopla died down.

SGH

@stevethegreat‌
I'm slowly typing in all the details of the cook. But I will go ahead and say if you count the dwell time at 150 degrees it was a total of 32 hours in the cook chamber.

stevethegreat

Wow! Cool stuff. Look forward to the writeup. Have you done many clods before?

SGH

@stevethegreat‌
Yes sir I have. I usually remove the Teres Major and cook it seperate but I will cover that later in this post.

hapster

Very cool... That's an impressive hunk of beef. Can't wait to see the rest of the cook.

SGH

@hapster‌
Thanks again man.

Dyal_SC

That's a lotta beef! Can't wait to see the finished product.

SGH

@Dyal_SC‌
Thanks man.

johnmitchell

Like everyone before me, also looking forward to follow this cook. I have learnt some new words already "Teres major etc.."  This is one of the reasons I enjoy this forum. Thanks for posting.

:-O