MMMM.. BRISKET..
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Q-talk *ON TOPIC ONLY* QUALITY ON TOPIC discussion of Backyard BBQ, grilling, equipment and outdoor cookin' . ** Other cooking techniques are welcomed for when your cookin' in the kitchen. Post your hints, tips, tricks & techniques, success, failures, but stay on topic and watch for that hijacking.


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Old 09-28-2020, 09:29 AM   #1
Robert
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Default The advice to cook until probe tender rant

Brethren, do not take this wrong, as I believe that all of your advice is intended to help beginners/newbies out, not hinder them. I have been hanging out here since the about the beginning but did not join until 2009. This is a fantastic community of individuals who share a passion for cooking barbecue and other greats foods as well. And you all readily share tips, techniques and recipes. That's what keeps me coming back daily. While I do not know anyone here personally other than the artist formally known as Toast, I feel like many of you are friends.


Now this is where I go off on my rant:

Telling a newbie to cook until probe tender is a huge disservice to that person. Why? I feel that cooking to the point of knowing when the meat is done by probe tender really only comes with experience. How and when does the newbie know when to start checking for probe tender? If the meat is not probe tender, how often do they need to check. As you slowly turn your piece of meat into a pin cushion what happens to the meat during this probing? Have you ever noticed what happens to the piece of meat when you remove the probe? Moisture immediately starts to run out of the probe point. Wouldn't you think that piece of meat would be better if that moisture remained inside?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZfpwIp7etc


Please reference this video by Malcom Reed of "How to BBQ Right". Please note at the 5:25 minute mark after he wraps the pork butt in foil that he inserts a meat probe connected to a Thermo Works Dot. Also note that he cooks the butt to 200. He doesn't mention probe tender at all. Why? because he knows that at 200 degrees that he is going to have a pork butt that will be able to be pulled with ease.



He is using a tool that will produce predictable results time after time. You can start to pull pieces of meat off a pork butt at 190 degrees or less. But the center isn't going to pull very well until it reaches 195-200, but closer to 200.



Pork is much more forgiving than Brisket. Using the probe method and certainly against better judgement, in competition, I have twice taken Waygu brisket above 210 degrees because the flat did not probe tender. in each case the end result was an overcooked dry, crumbly brisket. Had to turn in slices 3/4 inch thick. Didn't score well at all. I have had practice briskets that never got probe tender and were perfect. 203 is my target temp now.



The first perfect score my team received in competition came in my first year back in 1996 with a brisket cooked to 180 degrees. Pure luck and we didn't know any better.



So, my advice is to invest in a meat thermometer that you can leave in the meat to monitor the internal temp and eliminate the guess work.



Thermoworks Dot is $43.00 and Inkbird 4 probe about $50.00. I don't care what you buy, just get one. Polders used to be about $20.00. No idea if they still make those or not.



I do not want nor intend for this post to become a "white bread" thread as I will not respond.



Rant over.


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Old 09-28-2020, 09:58 AM   #2
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It's easier to trust temp with pork butts than briskets. I used to rely on temp, until I changed cookers. Things changed and I stopped getting the same results at a similar finish temp. The new one ran hotter/faster and would almost always require a higher finish temp. It was blowing my mind and a well respected pitmaster beat it into my head to stop relying on the thermometer. When I listened to him it improved my cooks. Eventually I figured out what was causing the difference between the cookers, but his initial advice was still invaluable.
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Old 09-28-2020, 10:01 AM   #3
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Old 09-28-2020, 10:07 AM   #4
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My .02, most people know what pushing something into butter/avocado/whatever should feel like. Trying to tell a newbie to start probing around a certain temp or suggesting a target finishing temp assumes many things - knowing the cooker temp, the accuracy of the device measuring the cooker temp, the internal meat temp, the accuracy of the device measuring the meat temp, type of cooker and fuel being used, atmospheric/weather conditions, etc.

Probe texture is the best measurement for doneness that removes the need to know all those other variables (for which the data being provided may even be incorrect). Often times the "probe tender" comments are associated with other general guidance like "the higher the cooker temp the higher the temp will be when it probes tender". Do you need to know when "it's time to start probing"? Yes, I can mostly do that by sight now, which only comes with experience. Perhaps knowing the internal temp would be useful to know when to start probing for texture. However, speaking from personal cooking experience and seeing others post it here - it seems like just having the "internal temp data" available often results in something being pulled before it's done/probes tender, because "Why isn't this meat done yet? It should be done, my last one was at this temp". With great power comes great responsibility . Us "probe tender" folk aren't saying to not use a thermometer to monitor meat temp, just let "probe tender" be the final guide on doneness.

Quote:
Also note that he cooks the butt to 200. He doesn't mention probe tender at all. Why? because he knows that at 200 degrees that he is going to have a pork butt that will be able to be pulled with ease.
That method is TRULY one born out of experience, because he has the skills for a repeatable process with enough sample size to know that cooking a piece of meat of a certain size, at a certain temp, on that particular cooker, will almost always be done by 200*. Rarely do my butts ever finish at 200*, probably because I cook hotter.
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Old 09-28-2020, 10:17 AM   #5
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You're 100% right IMHO. You will not understand/know the proper probe tenderness "feel" for a while, so internal temp is your best bet by far in the beginning.

That said, once you start to cook more you will also soon find out that not every piece of meat is the same. 180 may work for one brisket and 207 may work for another. There is significant variance in some of the muscles we cook.
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Old 09-28-2020, 10:51 AM   #6
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I think it's fine to monitor the internal temp during a cook. On a prime rib or beef tenderloin roast.... it's darn near mandatory because it's best to cook something naturally tender to temp.

I treat big barbecue meats differently, I have to cook them tender. I don't even stick them until 5 or 6 hours into the cook. And if I'm wrapping on a particular cook, I wrap on color, not on temp. At the end of the cook, I do like to know when I'm in the tenderness zone (195°-205°) and I use a very fine, very fast thermometer to spot check. But I don't have a magic number, like 203° for example. My briskets might be tender at 203°, or they might have to remain at 203° for an hour before they tender up. So I pull on feel, and believe in long holding times.

I do think there are better examples to judge tenderness than "a hot knife through butter". The closest feel is jello, like in those condiment cups, and peanut butter is a close feel too.
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Old 09-28-2020, 11:10 AM   #7
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I use temp as a guide to know when to probe. But the probe is the final determining factor as to doneness.
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Old 09-28-2020, 11:30 AM   #8
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The amount of water/juices allowed to run out of a probe 'hole' is trivial. Checking temp or probing to determine tenderness does NOT contribute to a dry piece of meat. I use temps to get an idea of 'when' to expect ETA. I cooked a Sam's Club Prime whole packer ($6/lb) this weekend running my Primo at 225 with a PartyQ controller with the thermistor hanging about 4 inches from the top exhaust opening. I was VERY surprised to find probe tenderness at the juncture of point/flat using a Thermopen with a fresh battery reading temps around 182. WAY less than expectations. It had cooked in an aluminum pan on top of a wire grate to allow smoke to access all surfaces and I covered the pan loosely with foil after 12 hours with probe temps around 160. I took it off after about 17 hours when probing found 'butter' - best brisket I have ever done. My point is that it is done when done not at a set time or temp.
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Old 09-28-2020, 11:37 AM   #9
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We agree
My telephone teaching went way down when most of my callers got pellet cookers(and temp probe display) Some are gradually coming back to charcoal but in my experience the pellet people have a short learning curve and seem to nail the cook quickly.

I watch a lot of cooking shows. Lots of celebrity cooks use temp.
275* Cooker
165* wrap
203-205* vent 15 minutes and into cooler couple hours

I’ve told many friends this. It works fine.
Fine tune later
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Old 09-28-2020, 11:52 AM   #10
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Temp is nice guide for milestones, like when its near ready, but temps are not the end all be all, and looking for tenderness is more reliable. There are so many factors that relying on temp as an end point has resulted in far more ruined dinners, especially for people just learning, than probing for tender has.



Examples- what cut is the meat? Waygu will finish at a lower temp than choice. How floppy was the brisket? every cut will vary by a few degrees. Even 2 briskets of the same grade bought on the same day from the same meat case cooked side by side may finish at different times and end ITs. Yes, this has happened to me.


What temp are you cooking? a brisket cooked at 225 will finish in the low 200s. Somewhere between 201 and 204 is normal. If I cook at 300, the brisket won't be done until 210, 212, I had one go as high as 218. If I would have pulled it at 203 it would have been shoe leather.



Pork is much more forgiving than a brisket. the window is huge. Undercooked can still be chopped. Overcooked is still hardly noticeable unless its way over.



Maybe a new guy starting out thinks his smoker is cooking at 225 but its really 275 at the grate. Then he pulls it like a 225 brisket and ruins his dinner.



Probe tender is a more accurate measurement than meat temp, and I will always recommend it over temp. Its just more universal. Once you have a method dialed in and do it a bunch of times, you will know roughly what temp your food is done, but it just doesn't translate that well to anyone else.



I would say this is less true if you cook low and slow. The reason Low and slow is usually recommended in most recipes is because its easier. the finish windows are HUGE and its much easier to get it right. Its once you start ramping up to a quicker cook that things get less consistent and you need a better indicator.
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Old 09-28-2020, 03:36 PM   #11
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I'm sorry, but I'll be in the minority on this issue. Cooking to temp will only leave you with a great brisket every once in a while.

They will say they grill said they were cooking at 250*, but grate temps will/can be 275*, that will lead to a finish temp that is not close enough for my liken.

You must learn that it's not the feel of the probe going in, but more of the feel of it releasing from the brisket that maters.

But do whatever you like or want.
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Old 09-28-2020, 04:19 PM   #12
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Was going to go off on a mini rant of my own- but you are onto something... If I had a guy who was cooking his first brisket called me up, I'd tell him the same thing that Adam said- and He'd probably be ok. Then after a few of those they might come back and ask how to improve. Then I tell him "the rest of the story" "Temp gets you close- but tenderness gets you there."

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Old 09-28-2020, 04:23 PM   #13
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The best probe is a Thermapen. You can see and feel the resistance of temps.
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Old 09-28-2020, 08:23 PM   #14
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I'm not a competition guy or a caterer, nor even an especially prolific backyarder. But over the years I've cooked many pork butts and more than a few briskets. And I've never been able to nail the probe tender feel. It never feels like butter to me. And if I leave it on, stubbornly waiting for it to probe tender, I eventually end up with sawdust.

I've developed a pretty good eye for pork butt perfection based on IT (about 200) and the overall look and feel of it. Usually the bone will wiggle, though not always, because sometimes the bark will hold the bone tightly. But always the muscle groups will start to separate when I try to lift it. This is a sure fire sign that it is done and needs to come off pronto.

Briskets are harder, but low and slow to 200 IT, a quick check to make sure the point is jiggling on top of the flat, followed by a hold, will usually produce a moist, tender flat.
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Old 09-28-2020, 08:54 PM   #15
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Just plug the probe holes with small pieces of white bread so the juices don’t leak out.

The best way I found to show people what probe tender feels like is to have them probe the thin end of a rack of ribs about 3/4 of the way through the cook. It’s like jelly. Then I have them probe the unfinished thick end and they can feel the slight resistance of the probe pushing through the meat.

When the thick end probes the same as the thin end the ribs are done.
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