'Cue that bottom!

Cafe Society
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Today I’m making BBQ beef. As you may remember from a country pork ribs thread, all I have is a Weber charcoal grill. Last time I made the pork ribs, I cheated and did most of the cooking in the oven and then finished them over the coals. They turned out quite good. Now, trying to maintain the correct temperature on the Weber is a challenge. And I’m a little short on charcoal. And it’s raining. (I know. Rain is no excuse!) So I’m going to cheat again; this time, with beef.

The selection at the supermarket was not spectacular, so I had to get bottom round. I made a fresh batch of rub and gave it a liberal coating. Now it’s in the oven, on a rack in a pan, with a little water, and covered with foil. I’ll let it sit there at 200º for six hours or so. Maybe eight. We’ll see.

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I really like the Amazing Ribs website for smoking advice, www.amazingribs.com. I use a Weber too, but I purchased the Smokenator after someone mentioned it on this site and I’ve had some great results, each time is better than the last.

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Bottom round is a bit tough, but I really enjoy it cooked to 125 and sliced thin against the grain on a meat slicer. It makes good roast beef for sandwiches. Never had too much luck with it cooked low and slow for hours. When I make Chicago style Italian beef or a Baltimore style pit beef recipe , top sirloin, top round, and bottom rounds are my favorite cuts to use, in that order. But you need a very good slicer to get it right. I slice it thin enough that it almost shreds, but not quite.

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I jabbed it with a knife about half an hour ago (elapsed time: 7:00) and it was still firm in the middle. I boosted the temperature to 225ºF and I guess I’ll let it go for another hour and a half from now before checking it again.

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Keep us updated. Like I said, I haven’t had great luck with it cooked the long, low, & slow route. I’m not sure why, as it supposedly it’s supposed to be collagen-rich, but I’ve always had a bad experience with it and the rare roast beef sliced thinly method is the only way I’ve gotten to work to my satisfaction. If you have a good experience with it, I’ll give it another shot with an extended cook low & slow.

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Agreed.
Bottom round is too lean, no fat or connective tissue. For low and slow beef I like pot roast cuts like the ones labeled 7 bone.

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I’ve never seen anything beef used for barbecue other than ribs or brisket, and only done briskets myself (if we’re all operating under the same definition of barbecue). Brisket is somewhere around an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half smoking/cooking time per pound. I start the temp at around 225 degrees for the first couple of hours, then usually try to ride the rest out at about 200. I often put a bottle of sweet white wine or apple cider in the water pan at first, the refill with water as necessary.

But those instructions are for brisket. There are lots of differences in the two cuts of meat, first being the shape. So, the roast will probably take longer per pound to get to the same state. How’d it turn out?

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Anyone else think the thread title sounds like stage direction at a porno shoot?

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Chuck roast barbecues up pretty well, too. Basically, any cut of meat that you could pot roast should barbecue relatively well. So, bottom round in theory should work–as it’s a common cut for pot roast–but I’ve had less than great experiences with it, and I don’t like bottom round as a pot roast, either. For me, that’s chuck or brisket. I find that the round roasts just have a mealy dry texture once they get to that soft stage.

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:smiley: :wink:

The good news is that it came out fall-apart tender. The bad news is that it was a bit dry. Some extra BBQ sauce helped the dryness. It tasted good though. The SO thought the rub was a little on the spicy side. I only used a heaping quarter-teaspoon of cayenne in it. It was mostly brown sugar, paprika, and Coleman’s mustard. I didn’t find it ‘spicy’.

I didn’t want ribs; I wanted a brisket. But the only briskets they had were corned. So at the supermarket butcher’s recommendation, I went for the bottom round.

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Johnny, Johnny…Johnny…where do I begin?!?

Yeah, sure, your dry rub can bestow some pleasant flavor notes to your meat. And, your Weber Grill can put some smokiness and Maillard reaction into the equation, but…so what! Will you be satisfied with a brown, tasty piece of sole of shoe? No, of course not.

I assume you’re old enough to get the connotation of “one word: plastics”, referencing “The Graduate”, correct? I will now impart similar insider-information to you with regard to tenderizing your meat: “two words: pressure cooker.”

Indeed, knock yourself out searing flavor and smokiness into your ribs until nicely browned with your Weber Grill for 45 seconds or so on each side. Just assure that you leave all but the outside millimeter of your meat raw. Then, transfer your ribs to a pressure cooker and pour, to coverage of meat, the liquid of your choice (e.g. aus jus, bottle of beer, Maalox®…whatever). Now, fire up that baby and cook under pressure for no longer than it takes to take a dump (no reading!), then fast-cool the cooker under cold water, open the lid and behold a meal worthy of the gods.

Your ribs will not just be “fall off the bone, tender.” They will be, “bone literally pulls meat off itself, massages till soft as a baby’s bottom, then decadently spoons into your mouth, tender.” Yeah, it’s that good.

I cook virtually all family meals with my pressure cooker, much to the delight of 99 year-old nanny Tibs, who has only 5 teeth left in her mouth (none of which, unfortunately, oppose each other). Sure, my two pre-teen daughters often lament, “Dad, can’t we just have grilled hamburgers tonight?”, but they will pine for my pressure-cooked masterpieces someday, after I’m dead.

But, seriously, sear on grill, finish in pressure cooker—you won’t be sorry.

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^ :eek:

Now, make food how you like it. De gustibus…as they say. But “fall off the bone” is generally considered a minus in the barbecue world. If you like it that way, though, it’s really easy to do. Pressure cooker, as you mentioned, is the fastest way, but you can also braise your ribs in a Dutch oven or even foil them with a little bit of liquid and bake them. Some heretics even boil them. It’s just a function of time, really. Ribs will naturally turn to “jello” if you cook them steady in a moist environment. Same thing happens with chuck roast and pork shoulder. Also, the typical order for things is do the braise thing first, and then finish on the grill to get some nice caramelization. If you do it the other way around, you just get wet fall-off-the-bone ribs, which are more like a braised short ribs stewy kind of thing rather than what one might expect if they ordered “barbecued ribs.”

So, as long as you don’t call it “barbecue,” I’m cool with it. :wink: (As you can tell, I don’t care for that style of ribs.)

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Ok, good to know, I’ve driven around quite a bit in the middle of the night looking for a brisket when I dropped one. :eek: Knowing I could have made due with a chuck would have saved me a lot of time.

If I do end up with a bottom round roast for some reason in the future, would tying trimmed fat to the outside make it more brisket-y?

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Too bad they didn’t have brisket. That’s what I was specifically looking for.

The other half of the round bottom – I mean, bottom round – is in the freezer. I’ll chunk it up eventually and use it for some chili colorado.

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Chuck turns out a bit differently, but still good. It’s more like the fattier point/deckle section of a brisket rather than the leaner flat (which has some similarities with bottom round, but not enough to make them interchangeable.) So, barbecued beef chuck roast is going to come out more like a pork Boston butt (which makes sense, as they’re both shoulder cuts).

I don’t know for certain, but, for me, it’s not so much the problem with exterior fat, but rather intramuscular fat and connective tissue. I like a fat cap when I do shoulder or brisket, but I always trim it down to about 1/8" or so without any discernible compromise of the final product (in fact, I think it’s better as the meat seems to absorb more of the smoke). So I don’t think layering some fat on a bottom round is going to do much for moisture or flavor, as it’s mostly the fat inside the meat that does this. Perhaps if you properly larded the meat (using a larding needle and all that) that would make a more noticeable positive difference, but I’ve never tried that.

Like I said, my favorite use for top or bottom round is roasting to 125, resting, and then slicing on a deli slicer thin enough so it’s almost shaved. But you might need a proper deli slicer to do this. It fantastic when combined with wood smoke, done low & slow (although it finishes in about 1-2 hours, IIRC. I just remember it being pretty quick.) If I wanted to be super fancy, I’d get a torch and sear the exterior at the end, but I’ve never bothered. I dare say, on some days (many, actually), I prefer this to brisket.

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Thanks, I didn’t even know a larding needle existed until now!

That does sound damn tasty, but I don’t currently own a slicer. So if I end up with one, it’ll probably just get cooked like one big point unless my wife gets the itch for a new gadget.

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If your knife skills are really, really good, you may be able to manage it, but I’ve never been able to get that thin style of roast without a meat slicer.

You know, and I’m just thinking out loud here, I wonder how it’d be injected with creole butter or something of that nature. Now, and I’m once again thinking out loud, I wonder if adding a bit of gelatin to the injection would help things, too. Hmmm…

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Watch it, next you’ll be injecting cheese!

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My appetite was stirred after the edit, but:

I’m pretty ok with a knife. I still have all my fingers. I bet I won’t know what I’m missing if it gets sliced thick, anyway. When I get asked what I want for Sunday dinner, I’m gonna ask for a bottom roast and some rolls. maybe I’ll cut it in half and try inserting fat and cooking one half of it to death. Your suggestion of a little gelatin is a good one. Do you suggest anything to dress it up? Hot, coarse mustard, maybe? I’ll probably give it Angelo’s brisket rub, which I taste garlic, cayenne, salt, black pepper, and maybe onion powder in. Hmmm, maybe some grilled hatch chilies for a topping…

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I like it with mustard, horseradish, or even a gentle dollop of barbecue sauce. If I’m doing it Chicago Italian-beef style, I will make a small pot of seasoned broth (think of something like the jus in a French dip) and dunk the meat and the bun in there before consuming.

Just remember to cut against the grain. This is critical. If you cut with the grain, it’s going to be tough and stringy. Here’s something similar to what it looks like when I’m done with it. Just get it as thin as you humanly can with your knife skills. Good luck!