Wine Braised Beef And Peppers

I am a member of a very awesome and informative grilling/BBQ forum. The guys on there are great and they share some really good recipes. Years ago, one of the guys posted a recipe for something called "pepper stout beef." Oh man, that looked sooo good. Just the other day someone made a post about it. If people are still making the pepper stout beef, it must be good. I decided to give this a try. I changed a few things from the original recipe as it calls for an extra stout beer. I would have loved to use it, but my wife and kids probably wouldn't like it since my wife hates beer. Instead, I decided to use red wine as my braising liquid. I also left out the jalapeños so it is not too spicy for them. Here is the list of ingredients for my wine braised pepper beef:

-3-4 lb chuck roast
-kosher salt
-black pepper
-1 yellow bell pepper
-1 orange bell pepper
-1 red bell pepper
-1 large red onion
-6 cloves minced garlic
-1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
-12 oz red wine

I heavily seasoned the chuck roast with kosher salt and black pepper on both sides.

This is a long cook so I set up my grill to cook indirectly. Instead of putting and lighting all coals in the chimney starter, I started with about 50 briquettes on the grill grate and 20 in the chimney starter.

 I did this to keep the heat low. I only wanted the grill to be around 250 degrees for the first 3 hours. I also added a chunk of cherry wood to give the beef some smoke flavor.  I took the meat off a little bit after the 3 hour mark.

We had gone out for breakfast and when we got home, the roast was already at 168 degrees. Oops!  I wanted to pull it off at 165 degrees.  I diced up the yellow, orange and red peppers along with the red onion.  I also added the garlic, red wine and the Worcestershire sauce to a foil pan.

 

For the wine, I used 2011 M. Chapoutier Belleruche Cotes-Du-Rhone. It is a 60/40 blend of Grenache and Syrah. I put the roast on top of the veggies and sealed it tightly with foil. By this point I had already added more charcoal to the grill to bring up the temperature to 350 degrees.  I put the foil covered pan back on the grill once the grill temp hit 350 degrees. 

I let it ride for another 2 hours and 45 minutes. 

I pulled off the beef and did the fork test and it passed with flying colors.  The fork test is when you stick the fork into the beef and twist it like you are twisting spaghetti on a fork.  If the beef easily winds on to the fork, it is nice and tender.  I left the foil off of the beef and veggies and threw it back on the grill to cook down the juices.  After about an hour on the grill I pulled it off.  The juices didn't really cook down too much.  I decided to go ahead and pull it anyway.

 

 

Here is the finished product served on a french roll with some horseradish and some mac and cheese.

 

Jenny and I liked it, the kids not so much.  All in all it was definitely worth the hype and I would make it again.  Thanks for looking!!!

Chuck