My 1st Brisket

[jwilliamson1000]

Brisket

This is just my $.02 and I am sure everyone has their own opinion.
1-That brisket doesn't have much marbling so I would inject. You could use beef broth. I use some combination of beef broth, water, and Worchester sauce.
2-I would wrap in it foil as soon as I was happy with the bark. With this brisket you want to keep tenderness a priority. With a smaller brisket with less marbling you want to protect the flat.
3-I would put it in the oven after it
s wrapped to ensure consistent temperature. I would also put a little moisture in the foil with it. Leftover spritzing or injection liquid would work.
Good luck

 

[Brookman]

Ok here it is, 8 hours into it now 5:30pm getting dark here on the Oregon coast.
250F temp in the Weber Q sprayed about once an hour with apple cider.
Internal temp of the brisket is showing 149F.

According to a video I watched, the 12 mistakes people make when cooking brisket,
and transcribed.

#6 "How long before you wrap?
a. Color- darker it is the more smoke you have
b. bark - when the bark is right
c. evaporation when it's shrunk 40%
if not, washes off bark in wrap.
d. Fat rendered, yellow and soft poke your finger, should go right in.
e. Temp- 175 to 185

So, I'm at around 150F and it's not shrunk that much, so I'm willing to wait.
Also fat not rendered.

But it's starting to look pretty good, but it's also starting to look like this thing won't be
ready to eat before midnight, with the post-wrap cook and a 2 hour rest.

Looks like I'm in the 'stall'. Maybe next time, I should cook at a higher temp?
What sayest thou my Brethren?

 

[rwalters]

Lookin’ gooooood buddy

I do briskets/butts overnight loooow n sloooow... and find the cook so much more relaxed as I am never up against the clock for the next days dinner or even lunch. You can definitely bump the temp another 25° and be just fine. It’ll help push through the stall faster.

 

[Brookman]

You know, I was up late last night, I work from home, and work whenever so, I keep whatever hours. I almost was gonna put it on at 2:30am. I guess that would've been ok, though I like to keep an eye on things, and I would been out.
Maybe next time, I'll just start it late at night?


So once I wrap then what? Leave it on the Q, or put it in the oven? What temp?
It's done smoking since all my pellets burned up in the 1st 2 hours.
Lesson learned, don't over fill the maze or it'll jump across instead burning slowly for 8 hours.

 

[rwalters]

You know, I was up late last night, I work from home, and work whenever so, I keep whatever hours. I almost was gonna put it on at 2:30am. I guess that would've been ok, though I like to keep an eye on things, and I would been out.
Maybe next time, I'll just start it late at night?


So once I wrap then what? Leave it on the Q, or put it in the oven? What temp?
It's done smoking since all my pellets burned up in the 1st 2 hours.
Lesson learned, don't over fill the maze or it'll jump across instead burning slowly for 8 hours.

This is my method in a nutshell...

-On around 8pm.
-Pit running at 210°
-Should be in the stall when ya wake in the morning.
-Wrap in butcher paper once in stall.
-Jack temp to 250° and return butt to upper grate and let go til probe... usually between 195-210°. Will probably be done around noon or a little past.
-Once probe tender, remove and place on kitchen counter unwrapped for 20ish mins to stop the cooking process.
-Wrap tight in foil and place in cooker with a towel over it. It’ll stay piping hot for hours and hours. A long rest is a good thing.

 

[Brookman]

This is my method in a nutshell...

- return butt to upper grate

Are we talkin' Pork Butt or Brisket?
Hour 9, time to check it and spritz.

Still hanging at 150, bumped up the grill to 275.
Edit: 7:35....Getting hungry Yarr :wacko: 10 hours now...
8:35- 11 hours! Still in the stall...lardy lardy.

 

[Happy Hapgood]

You've got the point and a tiny bit of the flat under the point. The "butcher" (of whom few real ones exist these days) just put it on the band saw and cut a brisket in half horizontally at the place the flat and point overlap. The flat goes under the point (or vice versa however you are cooking it, point up or point down). They are two different muscles. To properly separate them you cut diagonally through the fat layer that separates the pectoral muscles.

....but this guy was separated by a meat counter guy, not a butcher. They cut the flat off the whole packer and are selling it separate.

Good news is that at that price you got a decent deal (for the point) and I prefer the point to the flat all day long.

Cook it low and slow at 225 degrees until it's probe tender. Don't worry about the "stall", time, and all that. Cook it until you can push a wooden skewer or temp probe into it like it is room temperature butter and that's when you are done.

Agree 100% and probe at what's left of the flat.

 

[Brookman]

So, finally was served at 3am. The stall lasted for hours and hours and hours. :twitch: At around 10pm it finally started to creep past 150. Thats 12.5 hours on the BBQ. I also at that time bumped the temp up to about 300 to get things moving! My phone went dead but I got some pics, will post later.
The bark came out black black black!
Finally about 1am the temp finally hit about 170-175. The temp outside is around 40F so maybe that has something to do with it, but i had a ambient probe near the meat.
I wrapped it in pink butcher paper and put it in the oven at 325 but I just realized I accidentally put it to 350.
Hit 195-200 pretty quickly and out of the oven at 2am.
Rested for an hour wrapped in the paper, sitting on the counter till it hit 150, time to eat.
3am, sliced some up, separated the 2 pieces. Fat was pretty well rendered.
Turned out to be nice piece of flat in there, sliced it up and had a
couple small sandwiches with BBQ sauce. Wasn't like some of the Briskets I've seen where the meat is dripping and falling apart, but tender and perhaps just a little dry, though the wifey didn't think so.
All in all, it was better than much of the brisket I've had at most BBQ joints, tender but maybe just a little bland, but put a little BBQ sauce on it, and yum ! Very good. But room for improvement.

Turned out it would've been ok if I'd put more smoke and more spices as well. All those pellets in the 1st 2 hours I thought was going to be a problem, but no. I think in the early phase, most of that smoke washed off with the moisture being released. Started out with a 4.5 lb piece of meat and finished with a couple pounds of meat.


I'm not sure if I undercooked or overcooked?

 

[rwalters]

Are we talkin' Pork Butt or Brisket?
Hour 9, time to check it and spritz.

Still hanging at 150, bumped up the grill to 275.
Edit: 7:35....Getting hungry Yarr :wacko: 10 hours now...
8:35- 11 hours! Still in the stall...lardy lardy.

Oops, that was a copy/paste from my notes on my phone. I do butts and briskets pretty much the same way. Thought I had removed any “butt” references before I posted that... lol. Butt = Brisket in this case

 

[rwalters]

Sounds like a pretty successful first attempt! Nice work. And you ain’t kidding when you say you don’t really keep a schedule. Can’t imagine my wife and I having brisket sandwiches at 3am. You da man!!

 

[Brookman]

Sounds like a pretty successful first attempt! Nice work. And you ain’t kidding when you say you don’t really keep a schedule. Can’t imagine my wife and I having brisket sandwiches at 3am. You da man!!

Next time it goes on at night! And probably do the Texas crutch. Off to bed!

 

[Brookman]

The finished product. 15.5 hours on the BBQ, an hour in the oven andcan hour resting on the counter.

 

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

That bark looks excellent!

 

[Brookman]

oops. Accidental post, and it doesn't let you delete?

 

[Mikhail]

Got pics of it cut? Looks nice.

 

[Brookman]

Got pics of it cut? Looks nice.

Unfortunately, no.
I'll take a pic next time I have it out of the fridge, though not much left!
Really shrunk.
Wifey likes the black bits from the point, sort of like pot roast
while I've mostly been eating the flat in sliced sandwiches with BBQ sauce. :razz:
The 2 pieces separated easily after cooking.