Skip
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2007
- Location
- Wantagh, NY
So Memorial Day weekend fell apart for us. We had plans to go judge at Roc City Ribfest and more so to see so many friends we miss so much. But the weather, money and just about everything else kept us away but it also made us crave BBQ.
We have been away from cooking for sometime and found ourselves craving the BBQ we should have had that weekend. Saturday passed with rain and cold weather but cleared near the end of the day so I ask the wife if she wants to swing by RD to pick up a brisket. She has reasons why not and has to get our daughters friend home too. But somehow someway I get a call from RD and a few questions about meats. I think ok cool we'll have a brisket. So just to warm up on sunday we do some chicken thighs and wings in the smoker. Boy was that good. Disappointed with the thigh skin but hey it was still really good.
Sunday night rolls around and the brisket needs to be prepped. 14 lbs of awesome brisket. It must have been a mislabeled CAB but it said choice. It had beautiful strands of fat between the muscle fibers. So I need to get it ready right? Gonna start cooking at 3 am or so right? Gonna take 12 hours from trim to table right? Wrong! I fall asleep and the hours tick by. I wake the next morning around 8 or 9 and go downstairs. No one is happy. Daddy why didn't you start the BBQ my daughter whines to me. I shrug and give them the dog face. I was tired shoot me. So in an attempt to appease my family I say...."Hey why don't we do a hot and fast brisket?" Well my wife tells me i missed the face my 24 year old made. She described it as the "Why not just throw it in the garbage now instead of working to make it terrible?" look. He later confirmed she couldn't have been anymore right. To further throw a wrench in the works we decided to throw out our years of competition experience and do what Aaron Franklin mentioned in a youtube video. He said "Just use a one to one ratio of salt to pepper and remember less is more". As well the phosphates and injector stayed in their storage too.
We crank the cooker up to 325....its 11:30 am when the brisket goes on. All I can think is "you dummy you just wasted a great piece of meat that will be so late that it will be put in the fridge and used for chili". But I keep a good poker face and assure everyone its gonna be Great!!! :mmph: Well I gotta say the brisket and the porkbutt, also hot and fast but another story for another day, are cooking away like no tomorrow. I had said as a general guide we would consider three hours a probable point for checking the brisket. wouldn't you know I was able to separate the point from the flat and wrap the flat at 2:30. I thought this can't be going this good. I put the point back in unwrapped to continue to cook and render. About two hours later we probe tested the point to realize...it was done and we pulled it out with the intention of cubing and saucing and putting it back in the cooker to caramelize yummy yummy. We start to cut and are actually cracking the surface slightly in some parts. Almost seems, dare i say, overdone? So my son pops a piece in his mouth and get a little crunch with a beautifully tender piece of meat. I see his eyes light up. I try a piece so does the wife and child and friends and by the time we are all satisfied that we have gotten a taste....the whole point is gone but a piece or two. They were the second best burnt endz i have ever had. First best are Matt Fisher's and you can taste them anytime at Fletchers in Brooklyn. When we are done we clean up and go out to the cooker to check the brisket for tenderness. I had to hand my son the probe and ask him to check. Could this be right? Could it be ready to pull and rest at 5:30 just 6 hours from when it went in. Well it was not only done it was perfectly tender like you pray it would be at every competition.
Sitting around smelling the brisket is worse then any anticipation. So you could imagine after the those incredible burnt endz how much we wanted to dig in. Well just 1 hour later we pull the brisket and I make the first slice. Did I really just slice through like that? This piece of meat was incredible. every slice from tip to stern was flawless. No surface crumble no slice degrading. Each piece was beautifully tender with just enough resistance to stay together but no where near enough to create a tug. Hanging one slice over my finger i finally understood what you really look for when you do that. So with all of this good I still thought a shoe was going to drop. I know, I said to myself, it will be the smoke flavor. Well the pellet cookers already get a bad name for smoke flavor but i never saw it. I guess thats because i only use the good stuff....BBQ'er Delight. But I now ran it hot and fast too. So surely this will be a gray piece of meat with no smoke flavor right. Wrong! It had a wonderful purfume of ample smoke. No issues there. When we were done, and I mean done not a speck was left, we decided that we appreciate all the food we have cooked low and slow but wonder now why we would ever go back. Please don't hate us but this was the best brisket we ever remember cooking. :grin:
We have been away from cooking for sometime and found ourselves craving the BBQ we should have had that weekend. Saturday passed with rain and cold weather but cleared near the end of the day so I ask the wife if she wants to swing by RD to pick up a brisket. She has reasons why not and has to get our daughters friend home too. But somehow someway I get a call from RD and a few questions about meats. I think ok cool we'll have a brisket. So just to warm up on sunday we do some chicken thighs and wings in the smoker. Boy was that good. Disappointed with the thigh skin but hey it was still really good.
Sunday night rolls around and the brisket needs to be prepped. 14 lbs of awesome brisket. It must have been a mislabeled CAB but it said choice. It had beautiful strands of fat between the muscle fibers. So I need to get it ready right? Gonna start cooking at 3 am or so right? Gonna take 12 hours from trim to table right? Wrong! I fall asleep and the hours tick by. I wake the next morning around 8 or 9 and go downstairs. No one is happy. Daddy why didn't you start the BBQ my daughter whines to me. I shrug and give them the dog face. I was tired shoot me. So in an attempt to appease my family I say...."Hey why don't we do a hot and fast brisket?" Well my wife tells me i missed the face my 24 year old made. She described it as the "Why not just throw it in the garbage now instead of working to make it terrible?" look. He later confirmed she couldn't have been anymore right. To further throw a wrench in the works we decided to throw out our years of competition experience and do what Aaron Franklin mentioned in a youtube video. He said "Just use a one to one ratio of salt to pepper and remember less is more". As well the phosphates and injector stayed in their storage too.
We crank the cooker up to 325....its 11:30 am when the brisket goes on. All I can think is "you dummy you just wasted a great piece of meat that will be so late that it will be put in the fridge and used for chili". But I keep a good poker face and assure everyone its gonna be Great!!! :mmph: Well I gotta say the brisket and the porkbutt, also hot and fast but another story for another day, are cooking away like no tomorrow. I had said as a general guide we would consider three hours a probable point for checking the brisket. wouldn't you know I was able to separate the point from the flat and wrap the flat at 2:30. I thought this can't be going this good. I put the point back in unwrapped to continue to cook and render. About two hours later we probe tested the point to realize...it was done and we pulled it out with the intention of cubing and saucing and putting it back in the cooker to caramelize yummy yummy. We start to cut and are actually cracking the surface slightly in some parts. Almost seems, dare i say, overdone? So my son pops a piece in his mouth and get a little crunch with a beautifully tender piece of meat. I see his eyes light up. I try a piece so does the wife and child and friends and by the time we are all satisfied that we have gotten a taste....the whole point is gone but a piece or two. They were the second best burnt endz i have ever had. First best are Matt Fisher's and you can taste them anytime at Fletchers in Brooklyn. When we are done we clean up and go out to the cooker to check the brisket for tenderness. I had to hand my son the probe and ask him to check. Could this be right? Could it be ready to pull and rest at 5:30 just 6 hours from when it went in. Well it was not only done it was perfectly tender like you pray it would be at every competition.
Sitting around smelling the brisket is worse then any anticipation. So you could imagine after the those incredible burnt endz how much we wanted to dig in. Well just 1 hour later we pull the brisket and I make the first slice. Did I really just slice through like that? This piece of meat was incredible. every slice from tip to stern was flawless. No surface crumble no slice degrading. Each piece was beautifully tender with just enough resistance to stay together but no where near enough to create a tug. Hanging one slice over my finger i finally understood what you really look for when you do that. So with all of this good I still thought a shoe was going to drop. I know, I said to myself, it will be the smoke flavor. Well the pellet cookers already get a bad name for smoke flavor but i never saw it. I guess thats because i only use the good stuff....BBQ'er Delight. But I now ran it hot and fast too. So surely this will be a gray piece of meat with no smoke flavor right. Wrong! It had a wonderful purfume of ample smoke. No issues there. When we were done, and I mean done not a speck was left, we decided that we appreciate all the food we have cooked low and slow but wonder now why we would ever go back. Please don't hate us but this was the best brisket we ever remember cooking. :grin:
