Hot & Slow - a Tale of Brisket Appreciation
Let me start by making one thing perfectly clear: I L-O-V-E BRISKET!!! When folks ask me what my favorite cut to Q is, I always answer, "brisket!". The highest (and most bizarre) compliment ever paid my BBQ was a friend of my son's who told me, "I would wake up with a smile on my face every day knowing that I had to strangle a man to eat this brisket!" A little weird maybe, but heartfelt nonetheless.
And so I enter this Appreciation of the Brisket TD because it's true - I appreciate the heck out of brisket!
I chose a packer from our freezer that proved to be a troublesome yet rewarding challenge in the end. From the moment I uncrated this 13LB hunk of lovely, it was - well - weird...the processing plant had left a big gash in the flat and the point had a gristly flap of meat attached; but still, I loved this brisket.
Unaware of the wife's plan to tie up my entire weekend, I thawed this oddball out on Friday and gave it a soak Saturday in preparation for a Sunday cook. With no time for a shopping trip to secure the usual marinade ingredients, I cleaned out the fridge and made a "kitchen sink" marinade:
Went back to an old rub combo and got the smoker started around 6:30 Sunday morning. Somewhere during my second cup of coffee, I chucked it on a 245* smoker:
The intention was to go slow for 4 hours - 225ish - then ramp up to 275* for the final part of the cook, but you know what they say about good intentions...don't think the smoker ever went below 230* for the whole cook and yet this freak of nature stalled for over two hours at 155*, yet I did not despair. I reached for the iPod and cranked up Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus, allowing plenty of time for my beast of a beauty to finish.
Once it finally started moving, it was agonizingly slow to reach tenderness at 190* in the flat (even with temps running as high as 373*!). So I occupied my time as any loving Brisket devotee would by throwing back several barley pops and choking down a few good stogies.
Finally, at 7:45, I pulled and rested my homely hunk of goodness:
I didn't plate this entry because, well, by 8:30 I'd already eaten a salmon dinner provided by some neighbors who brought home over 30 lbs of fish from their vacation:
But I did slice up a few samples:
So here is my attempt at avoiding dreaded goose egg status, hopefully I have not violated too many TD rules; please use this as my TD entry photo and thanks for lookin'!: