Brisket practice box--first time doing burnt ends

Fat Freddy

Fat Freddy

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I am hoping I do this right with my first pic on here. Anyways this past Thursday I did an overnighter practice brisket. Since we were doing the practice cook I thought we should also do a general practice box. I had never done burnt ends before but it sounds like turning in the candy with the slices is the way to go.

The pic inside had to much glare so we went outside to take this pic and that is snow in the background.

Here is what I know is wrong WAYYY to much sauce on burnt ends and I dont like the injection blotches on the slices. The taste was pretty good(not great but good) and I think my wife did a good job on the box.

I would appreciate any thoughts on what we should do beyond what i already know. Also I did not sauce the slices just the burnt ends, just dipped the slice in the juice from the brisket.
 

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The box looks great...very nice arrangement! :thumb: As far as sauce vs au-jus...ya never know what the judges are looking for...:crazy:
 
I would def go with an 8. My only negative is the few dark "blotches" that make it look almost dirty.

Really great job!
 
I would give it an 8. I am guessing you injected the meat. That is usually where the blotches come from. Make sure to inject with the grain.
 
Great looking first brisket practice box! I will be doing a brisket practice this coming weekend and hope my box turns out that nice.
 
Other than the blotches, the other things I noticed is that the glaze/jus is a little unevenly applied. Also, the top three slices are kind of crooked looking. The bottom 5 are nicely spaced and even, and then there is a dip in the top three.

Assuming that the blotches and glaze issues are fixed, I would give this an 8. If there are no crooked pieces, it would be a 9.
 
Great looking box... before reading you post, I was thinking that you injected that brisket based on the dark spots. But overall, it looks really good! I have never judged, but that looks like an 8 to me!

Toad
 
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See this is why I love this forum. I learned something(injecting with grain) and we didnt notice when we made the box or in the pic I took, the uneven pieces at the top but when I posted the pic it was bigger and noticeable.

Thank you for all the comments I figured if I posted here I would get a good variety of comments and it gives me more to practice.
 
Man, those slices look REAL tasty, as do the burnt end chunks. As folks have said, the dark splotches detract a bit, and the top three slices don't add any uniformity to the bottom five. If that's all you had to work with, I would have pulled out number three from the top and gone with it. I'd go a high seven / low eight. You're almost there!
 
I think the burnt ends look great... To me the top three slices look out of place, they seem to have come from a different part of the brisket. Personally I try to turn in slices that are all cut from the same section. I also agree with everyone else here that the injection marks detract from the overall appearance, maybe more than anything else in the box. Also, the front edge of the box looks a bit dirty, like greasy finger marks maybe. And finally, a lot of judges are looking for an even frame of garnish around the edge of the box.
Now having said all that I hope you know that I'm just being hyper-critical and would give the box a high 8 in a comp... And also add that it's important to remember the weighting of scores at a comp, appearance carries only a fraction of what taste does and based on looks, that is some tasty brisket right there!
 
A solid 8 here. The injection marks take away from it a little but I see no prob with the sauce on the burnt ends. Good Job!
 
i think it all looks great, kudos to you..
I have to work on burnt ends on myself..have not tried yet
 
sampson said:
And finally, a lot of judges are looking for an even frame of garnish around the edge of the box.
Click to expand...

Is this a criticism of the meat placement or the garnish? I thought the judges weren't supposed to take the garnish into account? Could a change in the meat placement fix this?
 
Good feedback above. As a judge, not sure you'd see all the imperfections noted in the few seconds you get to judge appearance. I try to consider that when I see folks post a box to be reviewed. One thing to possibly make this very nice box even better would be to try to make the burnt ends also more consistent in shape and how they're laid in the box. The first two things I noticed when I saw the picture of your box was the injection marks and slight inconsistency of the 6th, 7th and 8th piece in terms of shape. If you took piece 6 out, you'd notice less because it would just look like the brisket slightly changes a natural shape there (splitting hairs!). Overall, really nice box, I'd likely go 8, maybe 7 if I noticed everything.
 
Somewhere someone suggested taking a picture of your box before turn in because you can spot the problems better with a picture that you can looking at it 3 dimensionally.
 
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