Hot and Fast v whatever you call it

First off, I am no expert by any means on this subject. I have found that hot & fast works for me though. My last few briskets (14-15 pounds) I have done at 300-325, nekkid the whole cook, and had them done in roughly 6-7 hours. They turned out fabulous. Again, I'm no expert, but I have found that it cuts the time in half and they were amazing...

Anything in the 14lb-low 20lbs range takes about 6hr give or take 30mins when I cook 300-350.

But cook the temp you like. If you have the time doesn't really matter. Fun to play around.

I'm a fan of cooking them faster so that I can hold them longer.

Sure, 300 doesn't seem much more than 250, but stretch it out over six or so hours and it's a huge difference. Kinda like driving 70 vs. 60. At a couple of miles, that's not a huge advantage. At 500 miles, all else equal, you're arriving over an hour earlier.

That said, I cook around 250ish, maybe crank up toward the end when we're in butcher paper.

At 225° a normal ~12Lb brisket (at least that's about normal size after I trim them) will take roughly 16 hours to get tender...usually at about 195-200° internal temp (IT).

At 275° it takes me roughly 8 hours with an IT temp of around 203-207°.

At 350° it takes me roughly 4 hours, with an IT temp of around 208-211°.

I run a BBQ food truck so I tend to be pay pretty close attention when I'm doing "test cooks" to see how much time I need to make sure I'm in place at certain times. I also hold an engineering degree, so I like numbers.

SmoothBoarBBQ said:

At 225° a normal ~12Lb brisket (at least that's about normal size after I trim them) will take roughly 16 hours to get tender...usually at about 195-200° internal temp (IT).

At 275° it takes me roughly 8 hours with an IT temp of around 203-207°.

At 350° it takes me roughly 4 hours, with an IT temp of around 208-211°.

I run a BBQ food truck so I tend to be pay pretty close attention when I'm doing "test cooks" to see how much time I need to make sure I'm in place at certain times. I also hold an engineering degree, so I like numbers.

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Very informative, thank you. I think its time I start to play with hot and fast

SmoothBoarBBQ said:

At 225° a normal ~12Lb brisket (at least that's about normal size after I trim them) will take roughly 16 hours to get tender...usually at about 195-200° internal temp (IT).

At 275° it takes me roughly 8 hours with an IT temp of around 203-207°.

At 350° it takes me roughly 4 hours, with an IT temp of around 208-211°.

I run a BBQ food truck so I tend to be pay pretty close attention when I'm doing "test cooks" to see how much time I need to make sure I'm in place at certain times. I also hold an engineering degree, so I like numbers.

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Any taste or texture difference from one cook to the other?

halfcocked, there will be many folks who claim they don't like the way a hot n fast brisket turns out compared to their low n slow briskets. I suspect they are cooking to temp instead of checking for probe tender and/or jiggle test. When cooking hot n fast, the mindset has to be completely changed. In my experience, hot n fast can be just as excellent as the 16 hour low n slow, since I understand that the finishing temp will be much higher than a low n slow. Most hot n fast cooks I've done, the thickest part of the flat isn't probe tender till internal temp is well past 210F. Even cooking at around 250F, I've seen internal temps ~205-210F before the brisket is ready to be removed from the heat. I do confess to cooking a lot of select and choice packers though. It may be a slightly different final temp range if cooking primes and other higher grades of beef like waygu.

2 reasons I started doing hot and fast. Bludawg and MM. Have had very good luck in doing so. It's just fun too playing around with other methods

halfcocked said:

Any taste or texture difference from one cook to the other?

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Great question. On my offset I don't see any differences at all. On my insulated cabinet when I cook "low and slow" I do tend to get a large buildup of steam in the cook chamber, so the briskets tend to bark up a bit less. They still have a ton of flavor, but the rub doesn't quite make that full transition to bark. It took me too long to figure this out, and now I cook in there at 275° and everything comes out just fantastic.