Hot and fast brisket help...

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.

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

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.

bigabyte said:

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...

Click to expand...

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! 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.

bigabyte said:

No disrespect taken! 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.

Click to expand...

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.

smoke-n-my-i's said:

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

Click to expand...

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