Old research showed that bovines tend to marble toward the head (anterior) first; subsequently the carcasses of young market cattle are much more likely to display higher degrees of marbling in the chuck and rib regions. That natural phenomenon was first observed by butchers and is thought to be associated with muscles located closer to the heart and large arteries. Intramuscular fat (marbling) is the last type of fat to start depositing and the first to be recalled to provide energy, if/when needed by an animal. Since marbling evaluation made during USDA carcass grading or certification is viewed at approximately the middle of the loin-eye, chuck roast originating from high quality beef grades & brands will often be highly marbled. I’ve seen supermarkets offer both high quality branded chuck roasts and uncertified USDA Choice chuck roasts for the same price per pound. I have also witnessed customers requesting leaner chuck roasts after viewing heavily marbled cuts in a full-service meat case. Due to a widespread consumer misconceptions, where buyers seem to want meat that looks like Select but eats like Prime, high quality branded chuck roasts are often a difficult sell.
Ground beef products are blended to various fat percentage ranges (+ or – a few percentage points); the type of fat (subcutaneous, seam, marbling or maybe even suet in some shops) doesn’t matter. Grinding well-marbled chucks probably isn’t the most lucrative market practice. Because of high quality chuck characteristics, smoke-cooking some of them to produce shredded beef seems like a prudent value-added course of action. Currently there exist a strong nationwide market for pulled-pork. That fact might indicate that the market demand for shredded beef is not being completely satisfied. Given that long – low heat cooks are required to effectively gel collagen and aid in finished product moisture retention, high marbled chucks would be good to use. Marbling bastes the cooking beef as it mostly renders out while leaving good grain-finished beef flavor behind. Exterior and seam-fat trimmings, generated during raw beef chunk fabrication, can be blended in as the fat component of ground beef. Sirloin-tip roast are lean and good for grinding/blending with chuck fat trimmings.
As you may have gathered from the picture at the beginning of this post, I’m advocating the cooking of marinated chuck chunks in large fibrous casings; just as in pork shoulder butt pulled-pork production. Buy high quality chuck rolls by the wholesale distributor or wholesale club store case, remove the tapered end of the loin-eye muscles for grilling, seam-out the serratus ventralis muscles to make corned beef and/or Denver steaks then remove any fat that is greater than about 1/8 inch thick from the remainder of the meat. Cut trimmed meat into 2 1/2 to 3 inch cubes; also include any smaller pieces of meat inadvertently generated. Marinate chuck meat for a day or two in a mixture that contains water, the label recommended amount of sodium phosphate by meat weight, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, coarse ground black pepper, bourbon, crushed garlic, brown sugar and purified salt. I like to boil the black pepper and garlic to sterilize the pepper and to “take the bite off” the garlic (chill before adding in with everything else). Hand-stuff marinated chunk meat into large fibrous casings (about 10 pounds per chub). Low temperature slow cook chubs in the Wolfer Smoke-Cooker; it takes about 13 hours for the bottom rack and 14 for the 3 chubs on the top rack.
Somewhat smoky. partially red pigmented, reasonably tender and moist meat is what’s expected in highly palatable shredded BBQ beef. Moisture and tenderness levels “compete” against each other as cooking nears completion. If you have a counter-top bowl chopper, a good compromise is stop cooking before the meat pulls easily; then jog the chopper to shred the slightly chewy moist end-product.
Pre-cooked shredded beef is versatile in a number of culinary applications and it retains a good quality level during reasonably long freezer storage (if you wrap it tightly and hold it below 0F).
End note: Beef round sirloin-tip roasts have less marbling than chuck, but not much tougher connective tissue. Sirloin-tip is less expensive than chuck and can yield decent shredded beef.