1. Begin by trimming beef cheeks thoroughly of all silver skin, any residual skin and thick fat. Beef cheeks have plenty of inter muscle fat, so we want to get rid of anything thick from the outside.
2. Liberally coat the beef cheeks with the salt and pepper rub. Pat the rub gently to help it adhere to the beef cheeks.
3. Preheat smoker to 225-250F and place on a fist sized chunk of your favorite smoking wood. Personally, I like pecan or hickory for this recipe, but anything you like will work great. Place beef cheeks indirectly on your cooker and allow to smoke until the beef cheeks hit an internal temperature of 165F. This will usually take about 6 hours.
4. After the first two hours, begin spritzing beef cheeks about every 60 minutes. This will help you to build up that thick, crusty bark that smoked beef cheeks are known for.
5. Once beef cheeks have hit 165F, remove from the cooker and add to a foil pan or roasting dish big enough to hold them all with some additional head room. Melt enough beef tallow to fully cover all the beef checks and pour into the pan, being careful not to disturb any of our hard-earned bark.
6. Place your tray of beef cheeks in the oven or place back on the smoker at 200F for 15 hours. During this time, the internal temperature of the beef cheeks will get up to about 210F. This is exactly what we are looking for. At this temperature, the intermuscular fats and connective tissues are gooey and delicious.
7. Allow the beef cheeks to rest for about 20 minutes before serving. Serve with mashed potatoes and a strong, piquant au jus or on toasted bread with pickles and your favorite barbecue sauce.