Brisket burned bottom??

[ETOH]

Hey guys, having a new problem... Did a brisket today at a buddy’s house on a Mak 2* cooked at 280 for about 10 hours. Costco prime packer.

Ran it till probe tender, let it rest for a couple hours... the bottom of the fat cap was hard like a piece of wood! I’ve done a lot of brisket and this was a first for me. He said his last one was the same way...

On the Mak is the bottom grate too close to the flame shield? The diffuser covers were on...

Do we need to go up a shelf and put a pan down below?

Share some wisdom.

[smoke ninja]

I prefer to flip my briskets on almost any cooker I own.

I dont have a Mak but I do have a pit boss that cost 1/10 the money. I have found the bottom of food can burn on longer cooks or hot and fast. I either raise the food up on the upper grate or place a rack on top of a hotel pan with some water to dampen. the heat

https://i.imgur.com/Mgore09h.jpg

[sleebus.jones]

Yep, that is how a pellet cooker with the firepot under the grates works. Both of my GMGs do that; you're just going to get a lot of bottom heat with that design...which is every pellet cooker out there, except for my PG-1000. It does not do that at all because the indirect side is truly indirect, not just baffled. No heat under it.

https://i.imgur.com/TiheRAb.png

[sudsandswine]

I cook at 245* or less on my Mak 2* for that reason, or cook on the top shelf. Cooking on top of another pan with a grate in it might help but I’ve not tried that. I don’t mind 245* on the Mak because it doesn’t require any effort from me to tend it and it still cooks the food in a reasonable amount of time.

It is definitely the radiant heat off the deflector/drip tray. My Primo XL will do it to a piece of meat too if there’s too much radiant heat coming off the ceramic diffusers.

[tom b]

yep move it up top

[SmokeRingsMatter]

Get a Timberline, @ 350F i couldn't even get a chunck of wood to burn on top of the difuser. Even when i make jerkym the bottom rack is always the last to be pulled.

[Cat797]

I've found the same problem with my Yoder YS640. When I'm usually cooking, I don't have a full smoker so I cook on the upper rack. Otherwise, like above, I keep the heat at 235-245.

[ETOH]

Wow, that’s pretty annoying. You’d think they’d space the darn thing far enough from the bottom to be usable...

Glad to know I’m not losing my mind. Thanks for the feedback.

[gtsum]

Yep it happens cooking too hot and too close to the deflector pans on most pellet grills. I always cooked on the upper racks of my pellet grills because of this.


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