Dry brisket again, what am I doing wrong?

Picked up a 6lb flat from Costco, seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning and put it on the UDS at 1:30 pm fat side down with a few hickory chunks in with the charcoal.

I held pretty close to 250° all day and foiled at 170 (about 6hrs into the cook). After just a short time in the foil the internal temp read 194° so I pulled the foil and put her back on the fire to toughen the bark just a little.

Once removed from the foil my internal temp dropped to 170ish again so I left it on without the foil until I reached 194° and it probed fairly easy (should it be as easy to probe as a pork butt?) She seemed to hold in at 170ish for a long time before finally climbing up to temp. Total cook time 10-1/2 hrs or so.

Looks good, nice smoke ring, good flavor, but dry as hell again. I see pron here of nice juicy looking briskets but both times I've tried I get a beautiful looking piece of dry meat, what am I doing wrong?

That looks beautiful. Your rub certainly did penetrate.

As for being dry, you did say it was brisket right? Welcome to the club.

The only other thing i'd have to ask is how long did you let it rest before slicing? Resting time is important as well especially with brisket, too short and it will be dry. Just my thought.

Last one I got at Costco was a whole packer, flat and point. It was dry but not as much as this one.

Yesterday all they had were what I believed to be untrimmed flats in cryo vacuum packs.

I did no trimming of the fat, just rinsed, patted dry and applied the rub. Left fat cap down to protect from heat.

helljack6 said:

The only other thing i'd have to ask is how long did you let it rest before slicing? Resting time is important as well especially with brisket, too short and it will be dry. Just my thought.

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Ahhhh, I only let it rest 10-15 minutes. Would it make such a drastic difference? I mean its DRY!

KC_Bobby said:

Rest it for a good hour. Did you inject prior to cooking or add in any liquid into the foil? Next time inject a bit of beef broth and add about a cup of it when you foil.

10+ hours also seems like a long time for just a flat, especially on a UDS. UDS users????

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That's a REALLY long time on a UDS considering I did one this past weekend that was 3.5lb flat and it was done in around 4 hours, and that picking it up from the store that morning, bringing it home, seasoning it and putting it on the UDS at 240 degrees. I'd check your therms to make sure they're reading right too. The only other way it would have been that dry is if you overcooked it on top of not letting it rest.

Here's the link from where I posted in another forum:
http://smokingmeatforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80056

Thanks guys for all the help, I'll do another soon and try watching my time and resting it longer.

IGOLF2 may have the best suggestion. Just make sure your guests are well lubricated. Enough lubrication and they'll eat anything.

Thanks,

you can inject it or brine it or use a mop sauce

I stopped reading here because this is a pretty good response.

First of all... I don't think you should post pictures of briskets on here with smoke rings that have been enhanced in Photo Shop. Seriously, you expect us to believe that was the real smoke ring... too perfect.

Now, I TOTALLY agree with the time aspect. If its taking ten hours to get the IT temp right we know two things... one, throw away your probe or cut off the electronic portion of it. There is a direct correlation between the failures in brisket posted on here and the level of detail there is in the IT temp data.

The Brisket was probably done much earlier.

I think FIRST you should get another one of those flats and go and do my ENTRY level Experiment...

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57815&highlight=dark+closet+night+train

It is NOT a smoker experiment.... But crucial to understanding the proper texture and moisture level attainable for Brisket and also what you should try and duplicate on your smoker.

Now the flat itself - yes you can make a great flat BBQ but its more expensive this way and you have so many things against you. fat content, age is indeterminable, left or right side is harder to tell, but you will need either FOIL or higher temps.

On a UDS is even harder... Not where I would start out at if I wanted to make some good brisket quickly.

Once again - nothing wrong with a flat but harder... i liken it (but not entirely) to trying to smoke a whole hog instead of chosing a pork butt instead. Buit if you're gonna do it - Like if your gonna go out and punch a hole in a hot stripper, its best to use some protection. For the stripper you'll need a condom and then you can go scribble all over her. For the flat you'll need a fat cap or foil or higher temps to protect or limit the amount of exposure.

KC_Bobby said:

Rest it for a good hour. Did you inject prior to cooking or add in any liquid into the foil? Next time inject a bit of beef broth and add about a cup of it when you foil.

10+ hours also seems like a long time for just a flat, especially on a UDS. UDS users????

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warren said:

you can inject it or brine it or use a mop sauce

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These are not a good ideas at your level.

The brine, forget it

The injection (treats the symptom not solve the problem - and for those that want to go off half cocked by me saying this) You are probably successful because you are using the injection after YOU HAVE MASTERED THE PROCESS

Inject a flat AFTER you have mastered the time and heat and rub and you will have something excellent.

Also, of course there are some who don't know about brisket because of their regional areas. In other words, your brisket may be the best in you have ever had but then that is subject to what you have had.

Mopping will add to the disaster of dried out meat. Unless you are doing open pit cue. Mopping will mean MORE time in the pit making up for the heat and moisture loss you created. We have discussed this at length here.

I hope I have not offended anyone that thinks they are using these processes correctly - the poster intended.

Sincerely,

P