First Brisket (pron) - Updated at 4 hrs 30 mins of cook

I decided to try a brisket. Just got her going at 8:45 (eastern) this morning. I did a light Montreal Steak seasoning that sat just long enough for the smoker to come up to temperature. This also gave the meat time to warm up to room temperature a little as well. I will post updates later today. Enjoy!

The brisket has been on for 2hrs 15 mins now. The meat looks good. I've been holding around 240-245* on the smoker, and the internal temp is at 142*.

For the backwoods users out there - this is my second cook on the backwoods. It seems that my charcoal is burning fast. The tray was down to about half capacity at the 2:15 check so I added more. I've now gone through about 1/2 - 2/3 of a 20lb bag of charcoal. The vents are both open only about 1/8 of an inch. Judging by that, I would take it that the smoker is running pretty efficiently and I always had more air than that going into my WSM. Is it just that the standard basket is so small that it appears that I'm burning through more charcoal? That 20 lb bag should easily last through a 10 hour cook and still have enough for another 4-5 hours on the WSM. Is it the start up that burns a lot of charcoal, and it'll settle down once it's at temp for a while? I'd love some insight on this if anyone has the time. I did ribs for my first cook using RO lump, and had identical results. I decided to try standard KBB briquettes for this one since I had it on hand, and figured I could pack more in the tray.

Anyways... some more pron...

4 hours and 30 minutes into the cook...

It seems that the charcoal consumption has settled down a bit. The smoker wants to hold at about 245-250* with both vents open to 1/8 of an inch. I've decided to close down one side and see if I can get closer to about 230*. I'm having a wonderful time trying to remove the charcoal pan to clean out ash. I have a set of Kingsford grill gloves (not the leather ones), and a pair of welding gloves. Neither set keeps that heat from searing through after about 5-7 seconds. Also, I improvised a some pipe fittings so that I can fill the water pan a little easier. It has a 2 inch mouth which makes pouring water ouf of a 1 gallon gatorade jug pretty easy, and it tapers to 1/2 inch which will be very good if I'm ever cooking on the bottom grid. The water doesn't back up at all. I kinda thought it might since it was going through a pretty big taper along a fairly small distance.

Back to the meat! It's sitting at 162* at the moment, and the picture hardly does it justice. Right now it looks like the outside of a nicely seared medium-rare NY strip.

Bob, I hope your cook is going well! I wish I had bought a 22" WSM, I probably would've held off for a few more years on the Backwoods, but I got tired of trying to cram racks of ribs on the limited space of the 18".

Chingador, so far I'm really happy with this cut. The true test will come at dinner time, but it looks great so far. If it tastes as good as it looks, I may have to take back some of the nasty things I've said about Wal-Mart meat.

Well, the brisket has been on for 8 hours now. It seems to be in a stall - sitting at 174* and hasn't moved much in over an hour. Magic happening inside hopefully! Up until about the 7 hour mark the outside looked moist, but you can see on the 8 hour picture below, that the top seems to be pretty dry now. I don't know if this is an indication that the inside is drying out as well, or not. Any seasoned brisket cookers, I'd love to know if this is normal, or if I should start thinking about a mop. Other than the moisture, there isn't a huge difference from hour 6 to hour 8. The backwoods is has settled way down. The water consumption has fallen way off just like the charcoal consumption. The water was boiled a bit for the first couple of hours, I'm wondering if that is what has changed the moisture appearance of the brisket as well.

More pron!

At 6 hours:


At 8 hours:

El Ropo - definitely agree. I'm still getting used to this cooker, so I have been monitoring it a bit closer than I probably need to. I think the biggest problem is with my start up. I think that it's just consuming too much during that time. It's settled way down after the first hour or two.

The brisket is at 188* and I'm planning to leave it all closed up until about 195*. Then I'll start probing.

I'm right behind you bob! I just hit 195* and did a probe test. The point was perfect. The point is a little firm so I'm going to leave it for 30 more minutes. Enjoy!