I cooked a 2000lbs Bison like a chicken

Today we are cooking a 2 000 pounds bison. And I guarantee you haven't seen anything like this before. It's big we're doing this for a great cost. Shout out to all the veterans out there this one is for you. Enough talking roll the clip. Before we can even see the bison the first thing we need is transportation. Luckily our host John had this. They call it the wrench tank. It is all terrain not the most comfortable thing in the world. But come on now we're not here for comfort let's just call it what it is. It is a manly vehicle. And as chef Russ was getting ready to rock and roll we also had another guest that was not sure what was going on. We got Albert in the house. You look nervous Albert are you all right? I'm nervous. Why? I never hunt, I never seen bison. This man is very nervous everybody but I gotta keep him together. What are the dangers we're gonna be facing if something goes south? You don't need to be scared but you do need to have respect. If you see them shaking their head like this that means back away. I don't back away I just run John. That works but most importantly don't pet the fluffy cows. Good advice. Right now you will notice that we are in the great northwest and it was cold. I was dying. Every single person had a jacket on but one guy is made out of steel. You're not wearing a f***ing jacket? Who needs a jacket? Chef Russ what the f***? Armor? That's your armor? That's armor. What the hell everybody. I'm over here Yep that man is not human. But as Chef Russ was finishing up getting ready it was extremely important to have a plan and to make sure everyone was on the same page. There are many moving pieces in this adventure and a good amount of people. Not only the ranchers that were there to ensure our safety but also my camera crew so we needed to know everything that was going to happen. John what's the plan? Well I'll load up into the tank it's got a gunner's hatch up on top so shuffle right up there. Arms out even though it's cold. We'll scope out this bull. He's been a bad bison though. He's jumped some fences. He's gotten into the neighbors. He's caused problems with the herd and when you have bad bulls like that sometimes they can take your whole herd away. At that point you got to do what's called Cullum. You have to get rid of them but we don't want to just waste it. Every little bit of meat on that is going to go to a donation. You know what I say to bad bison? What? Bye son. It's a tight squeeze everybody. Let's just say that but we ready. It's a tight squeeze Albert. Are you ready? I'm not ready. You're not ready. It's a very tight squeeze but we're excited. Let's go. Super shot. Couldn't have gotten any better. Went down right away. That's how a bison harvest should go. If you don't eat bison, bison won't exist. They're the only species that are 99% privately owned. They cost a lot to raise and it's only through commerce that for every bison that somebody eats I can raise two more in its place. So it's a very unique species in that way. By eating bison you're actually preserving it. Is that fair to say? That's absolutely true. They almost went extinct. We went from 60 million to only 300. Wow. And it was only through the efforts of ranchers that they've come back now. And like John said, if we don't eat them they wouldn't exist everybody. Now they're going to process them up and we're going to cook them. This is important information. A lot of people think that bison is an endangered species but a simple google search will let you know that this is no longer the case. The American plain bison is no longer listed as endangered and it's all due to ranchers like John. If you ever harvest your own meat you know how much work it is. From removing the hide to butchering the whole thing it is extremely challenging. Not only because you need to know what you're doing but remember this is a 2 000 pounds beast. So you got to put in some apple grease. I'm impressed chef that was a lot of work man. That was a lot of work you know the meat is butchered, fabricated. John and his team they did an amazing job. That was a long day. So you know what we're gonna do we're gonna let this rest and then later on tonight we're gonna season the meat. And why are we cooking it? We're gonna cook it on the wheel of pain. Wait what? Wheel of pain. You don't know what that is. You're gonna find out. And also 4 a.m. I'm waking up at 4 a.m? You're actually gonna get up at three o'clock because you got to get ready by four. But if I don't wake up what happens? You know what happens. I guess I really gotta wake up early tomorrow. But then I thought maybe I can cook a feast for the chef and he might go easy on me. So we decided to go ahead and grill some beautiful bison tomahawk steaks. As you can see right now they are being finished directly on the live fire. That's because we cook them in indirect heat first in the red tech smoker. It does the job well. One important thing to keep in mind whenever you're cooking this way is to constantly flip them. Live fire cooking can be unpredictable so you must be present at all times. Flipping them constantly will ensure even cooking. Because remember the last thing we want is an angry chef. We also grilled some veggies to keep it healthy. Gotta have veggies. And funny enough we had a visitor come in as soon as it smelled the veggies. This is Oreo, John's bison pet. She thinks she's a dog. She's friendly and stayed throughout the whole dinner. Talking about that the food was awesome and everyone was happy. That was a good thing because the very next day the hard work will begin. Well chef we didn't make it out at 4 a.m but it is now 7. I hope that you don't punish us too bad. I'm punishing you especially since you're so overdressed. Damn we are only getting roasted. You're gonna get roasted in front of the fire. Can you give me an explanation how in the world are we gonna put the spit up there without getting burned to death? Easy these. And so it began. Just taking this beast out of the refrigerator truck was challenging and that was the easy part. Next up was to strap the whole thing down so it can be secure. The last thing we need is for it to fall off as it's being roasted. Next up was to bring it to the wheel of pain and for that we needed as much muscle as possible. Oh yeah. Oh wow. Very slow very slow. Nice and easy. Watch your steps where you're walking. Oh that's a good idea. Oh one second. I can't even speak properly. Lift it up. Push it towards the logs. Push it. Very slow. Here we go. We're thinking it's a thousand pounds. That's not a thousand pounds. That's two thousand pounds. Easy. Plus the metal rack right there that's way more than two thousand pounds. It is heavy everybody but we got it done. Now that it was fully secured we can start cooking. But first we needed some seasoning and for that we started with some Worcestershire sauce so that the rub was thick. And I decided to use my rub, Guga's rub. I'll be honest with you it is the most amount I've ever used in my life. This is a huge piece of meat and we gotta make sure to season it properly. And I loved how he immediately started changing color on the bison because if there's one thing this rub will do is to make it taste real good. The key now was to put the wheel of pain to work. This contraption is insane. To explain a little bit more how it works here's John. What inspired you to build this? This is insane. Well it's a really long story. It goes like this we're drinking some beer watching Conan. You know with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yes sir. And that movie starts with him pushing the wheel of pain. And I've always wanted to roast a bison and we thought man we should build our own but put a little spit on it so it turns it like a Costco chicken you know. Let's just say this is as cool as it gets. Made completely out of wood, steel and ingenuity. This machine is basically a huge rotisserie style chicken but as you can clearly see made for a bison. I would say that the biggest challenge here is for it not to break it down because trust me we had one of those. I just want everybody to know my weld held on this but the steel actually broke that's how heavy this thing is. However John and his team quickly fixed that up. The last thing we want is for thousands of pounds to go on the floor. Once everything was fixed up the important thing was to roast the bison nice and slow. Remember this is for our veterans it must not only be edible it needs to taste good. And after pushing this wheel for quite some time I was hoping that chef Rush forgot that I arrived late. Boy was I wrong. Guga remember you came late right? Yes sir. Hey everybody else out just Guga here. Keep going. No problem chef. You know what I got something better for you. Stop there. Get over here. 23, 24, 25. All right recover. Yes sir. Okay you're forgiven we got work to do they need us. Let's go. Let's go. Once the punishment was over and after about 10 hours of roasting I knew it wouldn't be done on time. So I came up with a second plan. So the plan was just to cook it as a rotisserie but it's such a big huge piece of meat we want to cook this properly to give to all the veterans. So here's what we're gonna do. Right now we're putting a crust a nice wonderful crust to be crackly delicious maillard reaction goodness. Then we're gonna quarter it and cook everything to perfection. That way we can focus in individual pieces of meat to make sure that they're cooked perfectly. Just as you would imagine taking it down is as hard as putting it up. The biggest issue was that everything was now hot, really hot. But using manpower and machine we successfully achieved the task. Next up was to slice everything to smaller pieces and cook everything to perfection. For a big animal like this this is the best way to do it. However we all know chef rush is the muscle and he said that he doesn't even need a knife this man is a beast. But once everything was cooked perfectly it was time to portion it and take it to the veterans. This is the best part of the video and I think the most rewarding where we're gonna pack up everything for the veterans. John thank you for this awesome experience man. Thank you guys for coming making this happen this is very meaningful very important thing you guys are doing. This is fantastic thank you for inviting me chef rush. No absolute pleasure a great experience great opportunity great people and John you are absolutely amazing your team did an amazing job. Thank you guys too. But again John this experience was amazing thank you. Yeah thank you guys again. Every year we find one person that like they're that clutch guy that comes through. This year's winner goes to Albert. Hope you guys enjoyed the video make sure you guys check out chef rush and Albert. Thank you guys so much for watching and we'll see you guys on the next one. Take care everybody bye-bye.