Hot and fast brisket help...
 

I have a 7 lb flat on right now.

I was going to put it on yesterday afternoon and try to get it done early evening, and Shane suggested hot and fast. Well, it was raining and I just didn't feel like messing with it as I got home later than expected.

So since today if a holiday for me, I have it on now. I am able to get my offset cranking today... usually I can't get it much more than maybe 275. Today, that baby is CRANKING... it is doing a slamming 380, and after an hour that brisket has gone from 56 to 140 degrees.

Now, should I be looking for something out of the ordinary, or just keep on target for my stall zone then wrap?

Any suggestions... thanks.

Bill

Just ran out to check.

cooker is now 408 :eek: that is the hottest ever.... something is going my way, I think....

the brisket is up to 159 and looking good.

guess I will keep a close eye on it for a bit.

Should I slow down the heat?

164, so I just juiced and wrapped... temps dropped a little as the coals were just starting to burn down, so I topped off the sfb, and closed it all up... will see what happens. I was going to take a pic, but got so involved with wrapping, juicing, and refueling, didn't think about it until after I wrapped... :oops: even had the camera sitting there and turned on. will get after cooked then...

I'm glad I am not at a comp trying this. It is cooking at 401, and the brisket is at 180.... and it has been on cooking since 8:45am... not quite 2 hrs....

pics so far.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/inde...lbumId=1672276

I checked temps again. The Therapen went in tight, and did not really correlate with the temp, so apparently I had the thermometer probe in a hot spot (fat pocket) and it was reading high. I checked it with the trusty Thermapen, and moved it. Now doing better.

Shouldn't be much longer now.

Really looking for your opinion on this Bill.

Here is a before shot....

Keep us posted! You are cooking that sucker good and hot!:cool:

I am hoping for some input, but so far, none.... I sure am glad I am NOT trying this at a comp, or I would be trying to hold this one for a LONG time before turn in time... that is why I am trying it now. At this rate, it looks like it will only be cooking for about 3 hrs.... :eek: compared to my usual 9-12... so if this works, looks like I can get a little more sleep before I have to get busy... :-P :rolleyes:

i tried hot and fast on two briskets this weekend on my uds i didnt like them i didnt wrap either one though i will be wrapping my next one

All rubbed up and waiting for me to make it hot.... that is my favorite fillet knife for reference to the size of the brisket.

Thanks for that input. I did wrap mine so I will see how it does. I have read some on the hot and fast, and have heard some, but this is my first attempt. I am really surprised that I can get my offset that high, usually I can't... so I will see. More to come.

I take it that most of the time that they are not quite that hot??? It seems to be averaging close to abt 380, with some spikes at or just over 400, and some dips close to 300 when I need to refuel this fuel hog....

380 is about average for high heat. I thought I read something well over 400 there, but that was just a temporary spike I guess! :cool: At that temp it was sounding more like the super-high-heat-over-direct-flame briskets. I've never done a flat, surprised to hear it might be ready in 3 hours, but again, I don't do flats.

both of mine were flats and i cooked them at 325. I put them on as soon as i added a chimney of coals to my basket it takes 2 hours for my uds to come up to that temp so they where on there a total of 7 hours but the first two it was getting up to speed.

2 hrs and 45 minutes later, sitting in my trusty $25 Cambro resting... I did bring it in and it is sitting on the kitchen counter.

Man, if this thing turns out, I will be able to get some serious needed zzzzz's on Friday night comp nights.... :biggrin: :-P

After it rests for bit, if I can resist those great smells that I had while putting it in the Cambro, we will see how it slices up... We were planning on it for this evening, but I guess we will be having some brisky sammies before long.... :wink: :lol:

yeah, I am calling it a spike, but it was more like close to 45 minutes... so, would that be a spike, or a medium burn time....

I had good luck with high heat briskies, I cooked mine at 375, about the same as you did. I cooked them this way for a couple years. Then I did a low and slow again and switched back. The convenience factor is worth it, but then you may find yourself after a couple years willing to work harder for that extra little bit of tenderness. I also like the bark better on low and slow, but that's just personal opinion. I do agree that good hot and fast briskies are indeed possible, I've made them.

I would call that a temp spike personally. I don't think you have to worry about burning really, you would have known if you had problem by the look and smell when you foiled. My father did hot and fast briskies for a number of years roasting them in the O-word at 500*, and they turned out really good for O-word briskies. He would trim the ever-loving crap out of them, season with only a little salt and pepper, and let them cook for a couple hours (they cooked fast). I don't know for sure if they were braised or not, I'll have to ask him if you want to know more about that. He would usually whip one up before everyone came over and serve, so i never watched him make one beginning to end, and at the time I was in to low and slow so never bothered to ask about it. At the time i thought my low and slow were better for the same reasons I stil prefer low and slow, it was more tender, and had better bark.

how does the bark look? mine was black?

So, you didn't get your drums up to temp first???? I am curious as I am all but ready to make me one to try. I usually get my offset up to temps before I put the meat on, most of the time abt 30-45 minutes to do so, depending on outside temps.

Today it was low 40's when I started and I did put the brisky on a little early, it was close to 225 or so when I did... then it shot on up to over 300 pretty fast, so I guess it didn't hurt too much. And I did have a water pan in there also which usually helps steady the temps....

I will have to wait until I unwrap it.... it has only been resting for abt 20 minutes, I am going to make myself wait a little longer.... (maybe) kinda hard to wait to see what it is going to be like, and I know that a couple here are awaiting to see how it turns out....

these were the first long cooks i have usually done chicken on it for a couple of hours i really like it i hae to feed my offset to keep it where i want it about every hour the drum i fill my basket with wood and charcoal then dump a chiminey of coals in it it was hot for another 3 hours or so before it started dropping.. I have heard of guys putting them on before it gets up to temp so i decided to try it.

I was curious as I have read on here, that some are getting like 9-12 hour burns with like 13 lbs of charcoal..... that may be more low and slow too.... I guess when I get mine built, and can experiment and see how it does.

yeah my BIL gets those kind out of his and ours are almost identical. I am gonna put a second rack in mine for a water pan

OK, the unveiling is coming real soon... but for now, until I get the pics finished transferred, here is my opinion on my first HOT and FAST brisket....

overall: not overly pleased with it.
A) nice smoke ring though
B) not overly tender, and I let it cook until 203 degrees vs my normal 193
C) not real tender, not quite pull apart tender, and has a slight pull to it when trying to bite it.
D) should I have cooked it to even a higher temp?
E) should I have cooked it at maybe a little lower temp?
F) was I expecting more out of it? The last angus I did, was way more tender and more flavorful....

Will I do another one, maybe, just to see if it can be done on my offsets. If it is being done on others, I should be able to do it on mine right?

pics to come soon. after my sammie....:biggrin:

The unveiling will now begin:

My thoughts, a hot and fast will never be as tender as a low and slow. Since tenderness is relative, that does not mean you can NOT make a tender hot and fast, yet that same brisket done low and slow would have been more tender, guaranteed. Higher finishing temp may have helped. It's a lot easier to cook until it is tender doing low and slow, because when doing hot and fast you can't just open it and probe it as easily...

LOL Once my firebox on the brazos is redone (firebox size is 4 feet by 4 feet by four feet) I will be hinging up a rather large sturdy steel basket made out of 1/2 inch mild steel bars that you can plop several briskets in and swing inside and close the door for pre-searing the briskets.

Firebox Internal temps - about 600! I can sear in 6 minutes! LOL

Might have been a little better if you had rested at least 2 hours and maybe longer.

I did hot and fast, but, not that hot and fast, I was more around 270 to 300, and it was very good. I am very interested to see if you get good breaking down of the meat and connective tissue at the high a temp.

At last, something you and I totally disagree about.

Of course I cook at 270 DO NOT FOIL - and have had more tender Briskets in Lockhart (where they have been known to spend a considerable time in the 400 -500 degree range than some briskets done all the way through 225 that have won first place awards at reputable contests.

My respects bigabyte; a master at experiementation and documentation. I seriously mean that. But I must disagree.

For instance, I don't know what it is but my fat is much more rendered than this. In addition I don't wrap but have long rests and maybe even my banking process has something to do with the quality. I know my briskets done on my meat mama are a little different then on the brazos at the same temp..... I NEVER had any luck on those pits at 350 degrees for long periods. But on a brick pit hell yeah!

As far as the probing - I do it once maybe twice. I use sound to judge when its ready or about ready, If I see it... I know. So to say it will NEVER be more tender than low and slow is not satisfying either. You could say, that maybe my problem (or those that can do great hot and fast) is that WE personally cannot cook a low and SLOW brisket as tender as we can a HF one... LOL. As far as ease, most pits naturally burn hotter than 225 so keeping a fire at low and slow for 15 hours is much harder to do than keeping a fire at 300 or so for 6. Heck, just look at all the mods to the old Banderas and you can prove that. Everyone afraid of the ":spike"

But even when I did foil back in the day- I still could trounce most people in tenderness as I was merely simmering and steaming my meat while I had it in foil anyway.

Honestly I am not sure where the pretztle logic screw up happend where people started thinking that hot and fast was about finishing hot instead of lower occured. The best practice for this is:

Step ONe - Optional Set the Ring at maybe 200-220 for about an hour - more if your briskets are cold. Caveat - I notice when I place on 500 lbs of briskets in my Brazos, or 200 lbs or so in my Meat Mama,

or 3000 pounds (it does more - I hear up maybe 4000 pound of brisket) to in the Oyler pit I can start right off at 270 as it takes a LONG time for all that mass to get up to over 140 anyway (external). In other words, the more you do the less needed the ring set temp is needed.

Step Two - Ramp it up to anywhere from 250 to 350 - I choose 270 because thats what my pits do best for the briskets. This is the main cooking temp and lasts until the stall (170 if you still temp probe :roll:) or until the deckle is flimsy (which means little flimsy thing in german anyway) OR they begin to overtly weep (drip their fat and sizzle like a bag of on its way popcorn in the microwave).

Step Three - your choice - hell, go back to 225 if ya want. My meat mama has breathing problems after 4/5 of the cook so I naturally tapered down in temp. In the Brazos, which breathes better, I COULD go up to 600 damn hundred if I needed to. I bank briskets often so in turn they are sort of between resting and low and slow stacked up like that. In addition, my briskets often sit an a hold pattern for long periods like at the meccas.

I DO know that finishing high is counter productive. When the puppies start weeping their juices, which is when that fat links with the colegen and is carried away, you either need to slow it down or stay steady, not ramp it up.

Once again, just making exception as a brother here who arguably has cooked more Hot and Fast Briskets than just about any other brother under 55 that I know. Bobby Mueller, Schmidt, Perez (he's 56 I think), and Mares are the exceptions I know of. Tender enough to me sliced with a dull pizza knife and still pour out juices.

No disrespect to Chris either.

No disrespect taken!:cool: I'm just speaking from my experiences, all done on a WSM and small offset. I think I may have accidentally misled you about my comment about a higher finishing temp though. I didn't mean to ramp up the cooker temp at the end, but to have taken the brisket to 208 internal instead of the 203 internal. In that case, it should have had an opportunity to get more tender if it was going to do so by rendering some more. That is what I meant by higher finishing temp, a higher internal temp reached, not cranking the cooker to a higher temp output.

I think I cook hot and fast (Jackie Wilson Mode) and Chris Cooks at HOT and FAST (Rick James Bitch Mode.) LOL I am not sure why it was foiled. Steaming like that inhibits the fat rendering. Mighty high temp to be pulled off....sure looks moist though, but looking at the fat I can tell its not as tender as it could be.


I also think in a wrap, 270-300 and 375-400 are as about as different styles as true low and slow.

The term low ans slow was originally started as just a way to set apart fro grilling anyway, so we are all, sort of, still low and slowing it.

There's theory I have about foil and hot and fast. My brisket external at 270-300 is at a lower temp than anyone 375 degree brisket that is wrapped. Figure that one out and why its important to the fat rendering process and collagen removal. I get better and more complete rendering with no foil.

Yeah, sounds like I'm doing the SuperFreak brisket.:lol: When I was being told about hot and fast (the way I was told how anyway), the foiling was to prevent charring of the bark, not necessarily for braising.

The joke used to be - LOL that I was incapable of doing a low and slow tender brisket in much the same way others could not do hot and fast like I could. Put them on the same table and watch out. Mine was as tender but had the better bark - however, great bark does not do well in KCBS mushy bark does well though (that was a shot LOL.) I saw none of the American Royal Brisket Champions even have what I call a bark (or texan). There was a delicious entry (i forgot to write down the number they said during appearance) that was wonderful but it was not any of the shows primaries.

You have an obligation to learn your father's method regardless before he passes. Please do it - I beg you.

Thanks so far for all of the input. I think maybe a little longer in the pit and a finish temp a little higher might have helped, as the probe was not going in quite like butta, I normally pull at abt 193, so I didn't want to over cook.... and yes, Ford, I think a longer rest time would help, but, I was hungry, and wanted a brisky sammie.... so the wait time didn't happen like I really wanted it too. So, next time, a little longer in the heat, and a longer rest time. I also noticed, I was cutting not quite across the grain of the meat, but kind of like a 45 degree angle to it. After I caught it, and managed to get a couple of slices, they were a little better, but not quite what I was looking for, so I WILL try another one.

Thanks again,
Bill

I suspect, now that I think about it, that the problem was the actual time the brisket spent in that crucial 170 and above range. Here is where most of the work that happens that makes things tender. This is why I dont like internals/. As Chris rightly alluded, and you are discovering, and Internal temp of 203 means the brisket should be done by a longshot. So - then, next time boil it all the way or microwave it and it should be done tender right?

Nope. What happend is at the 375 temp or 350 or so, when you got to that 170 average temp where real work begins on the meats tnederness, you went from 170 to 203 too quickly, leaving you a tougher slice with more fat than normal. I bet ford would be right....with all that heat trapped in that brisket, wrapping and holding should do the trick. But what if the collagen is locked up and won't come out no matter what you do?

I think still, kind of like with my weeping ribs, how fast you get the internal to 170 does not matter. Its going to definately be in there long enough to get the smoke it needs (providing you dont wrap it) but what happens after you get it there that matters most. In every case I have seen, low and slow and hot fast, time needs to slow after the stall... By Low and slow, it does this by default. In hot and fast in needs to be purposely slowed down or rested.

As someone who worked for the Old Kruez as a bus boy I know one thing. When they say "we pull them off in 4 -6 hours" that did not mean they were ready. When they say they "hold them" that did not mean they held them according to the standards of the HD. Mostly,what happend, like in the case of muellers, they pull them and place them in their sausage smoker. Holding temps for beef are 145 for rare, 170 for well done. But sausage temps are 150 when they are cooking them. Thing was, when they had their doors open, they usually polopped those damn briskets in a coller stack of the smoker far from the fire (and put more on). When the doors opened, I NEVER saw them take a brisket off the hot side and slice it. It either came from the sausage holder oven or the coller area of the pit - in essence and controlled holding (like my technique of using a large proofing oven to hold my briskerts while they rrested. The temp never tapered down,like in an igloo or cambro.
The first briskets they served were naturally the ones from the previous day that had not been eaten. About 12:30 on a good day they were tapping into those newer briskets if at all (say on a slow day).

When I do one brisket, I make sure its resting time is pretty long. When I do a bunch, I have no choice.

tons of good info here...my last high temp (275 or so) brisket came out very good and I am going to try another one this weekend.....I am going to hold my next one for at least several hours and see how it goes

Now that is an interesting thing to have noticed Brother Funk, the two places I really liked the brisket from out here would store their briskets in the corner of the smoker, all piled up, never in a steam table or cambro type device. It was in an area of the smoker that seemed cooler than the cooking side. Makes me wonder now, if the area they were storing the briskets were just hot enough to keep those briskets in the 150 range, I need to try this somehow, see if resting my brisket in a kettle at 145-150 for a couple hours makes a difference?

I think Brother Funk is onto the truth here. The conversion of collagen to gelatin is a function of time in the presence of heat and moisture. Perhaps higher heat does not necessarily equal less time. Then again, maybe once the meat hits a certain temp the whoel conversion process stops. Something to think about anyway.

Interesting concept Pops. I think next time I do a brisky I'll only spend an hour setting the ring at low and slow, then shoot up till 170 internal and drop back down again till done. As long as I can start a brisky in the morning and have it done for dinner I don't care how I do it. I just wants me sleeps.

All we do are hot-n-fast briskets for comps...my timeline is 6 hours including 2 hours in the cooler. We do 12-15lb packers with the point separated from the flat. Fire the WSM and toss the meat on cold as soon as the coals are lit. The bullet comes up to temp 325-350 in about an hour...I foil @ 160...then pull and cooler @ 190 ish. She rests in the cooler for at least 2 hours. The point is chopped and put back on the pit for burnt ends. Out of 5 comps...we have 2 first place briskets...:cool: