How NOT to do brisket - Mega Failure!! WARNING - Not for Weak Stomachs!!
 

I posted this over in the BBQ Disasters thread, but thought that it might be a big enough failure to deserve it's own thread...

**PROCEED WITH CAUTION**



I had a friend ask me several months ago to make pulled pork and brisket for 200 peeps at his parents 50th anniversary. I said yes... :doh:

Pork came out great as it usually does. Brisket, umm, not as well...

I usually inject briskets with Butcher's beef marinade and prime dust, well I had the prime dust, but was all outta the butchers marinade, no biggie, prime dust is pretty good and I'll just grab a couple beef marinade envelopes at the store, it won't be the same, but this aint competition so I think we'll be alright.

Now - I want to make this quite clear - The results of this Kroger beef marinade and Butchers Prime Dust injection from hell is in no way the fault of David from Butchers BBQ - His product is great - The bad seed in this equation was the Kroger marinade, I'll explain in a bit...


So I mix up the 2 envelopes of kroger krap with the prime dust and start poking holes in the 7 full packers I've got. I just injected 1 side thru the cryo pack, again, not competition so I figured 1 side would be enough...

I toss 2 packers on the UDS and 3 onto the char-griller at about 6 pm on friday night (everyone is set to be chowing the next day at 5 pm, I planned on getting them to 190* and then hold them in a hot cooler till they're ready to be served).

At about 1:30 am I go out to check on everything, I poke my dull ice pick probe at them to see how things are progressing and to my total disbelief, the probe sunk into the meat about 1/2", like it was already done!! :shocked:

WTH??!!! I scrape the probe across the top and a piece of meat tears out... Oh this can't be good.

I taste it and it completely MUSHES in my mouth.

We're not talking about over-done soft "pulled" brisket type texture... we're talking about wet dog food mush!!!!

From a past expirence, I get this sinking feeling in my stomach. I head back inside and dig one of the kroger envelopes out of the trash and there it was... "Beef Marinade... with TENDERIZER" Oh crap. What have I done?

Well I decide to let them finish cooking and see how they look in the morning. Maybe I could cut off the top layer of mush and still get decent brisket out of the rest of it. :rolleyes: Sleep depravation makes you think wierd things. :crazy:

So about 8 am when I get the courage up to test it out again, I poke it with the probe and it slides right through. I scrape the top of the meat and it literally opens up a crevice. Oh this is bad.

We'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING***
**SOME PEOPLE MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING PICTURES DISTURBING AND INAPPROPRIATE TO POST ON A BBQ FORUM - VIEWER DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED**








http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1322Medium.jpg



http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1323Medium.jpg


http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1324Medium.jpg


More tack marks than a heroin junkie

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1337Medium.jpg


It really didn't look too bad when you sliced it...

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1342Medium.jpg


Until you tasted it or tore a piece off... below is a pic of the same slice as above.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1344Medium.jpg


http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1335Medium.jpg


This is what it looked like when you pulled all the nasty crap off the top... it had been sitting out for a while by the time I took this pic so it's especially ugly looking.


http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1347Medium.jpg


My bucket of SHAME...


http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1350Medium.jpg


Of the 7 packers, only a few points were able to be salvaged. Since I had injected only thru the top of the cryo, the flats were the worst of it... here's what I had left of 7 briskets.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1339.jpg

I had to scramble at this point - there was no way I would be able to recook enough briskets to feed that many people.

I called Costco and asked how much Tri-Tip they had on hand - they said several cases - I could have all I needed - $3.48/lb... OUCH!!

I grabbed a 56lb case, trimmed them up, seasoned with doctored montreal and tossed them over a hot lump fire...

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1329Medium.jpg


Used the traeger as a holding area

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/a...1330Medium.jpg



I cooked them all to about 120* and moved them to hotel pans to take to the party - that gave them enough of a rest to come up to about 130* (sorry, no sliced pics, was too busy!)

I was blown away - I served 50lbs of med rare beef to a couple hundred people and only about 4-5 asked if I had anything that was more well-done!! Amazing! :clap2:

Out of 24 tri-tips I ended up with only 3 left over!!!

That day was both the biggest disaster and biggest save of my life... hope that NEVER happens again!

Lesson learned - I will ALWAYS be checking pkgs for tenderizer in the future!!

Wow. that looks horrible.

Damn :doh: Ry, you owe me a screen and keyboard. I cant get the green chit off of them. :-P

Wow what can I say? Great save! I've never injected before but I'm glad you posted this so that myself and others can be weary of products like that.

Um...did the word "Kroger" not give you a clue? ALWAYS check the ingredient list.
How many dollars were wasted I wonder?

Nice save:clap2: Thanks for the post.

Yeah, contemplating the cost part of all that meat is what makes me the sickest. :puke:

Looks good for Bunswick Stew

Like a moth to a flame, I couldn't look away. Nice save, glad the guests were happy. Seriously though, thanks for the post, I don't have an injector yet but am getting one soon. Good chit to look out for.

thanks for posting. sorry about your experience. definitely learned from it not to use any type of tenderizer.

:puke::puke::puke::puke:

Thanks for posting your disaster. May others learn!

My recent one was using Farmland enhanced St. Louis ribs with sodium phosphate. That pales in comparison, though. Nice save with the tri-tip, and btw, Kroger's ribs have sodium phosphate, too.

Sounds like brisket tacos for the next few months!

NUTZ

Yeah thats not what you want your brisket to look like. I once over cooked mine using high heat and foil and it completely fell apart if you just looked it at.

Now lets look at the positive. Great save with the tri-tip. It must have been good if only a few people wanted well done. It's crazy how many people love dried out steak. What a waste.

Never seen a Kroger and I believe I never want to, Nice save.