10 Angus Choice 1855 Briskets + 1 #WhoDat1 Smoker = #BrisketHappiness

Well, there was a reason I bought that huge insulated smoker...It's because I want to cook for bigger n bigger events, and I want to sleep sometimes.

Well, my buddy is planting a church, and they are reaching out to the neighborhood where they meet, not a rich neighborhood, and they have given a bunch of neighborhood kids the opportunity to go to camp this week. Well, my buddy Kedrick came to my place on his birthday for some Brisket, and he and the wife loved it!

So, they are doing a real cool supper for the kids and their parents at the end of camp, tomorrow night, and he wanted to do it big! So he asked me to BBQ. I started talking about Pulled Pork, economical and all...and he said, "Well how about Brisket."

I couldn't agree more.

So I got my food wholesaler friend to order us 2 cases of 1855, Angus, Upper-End Choice Briskets, from G F Swift.Click image for larger version



Yes sir, 124 pounds of Beefy Goodness. $3.89 a pound.


Is it well-marbled, you ask?


And here are Sam and Colin, who have totally gotten the BBQ bug from me, working their trimming skills:


I just lit the fire for the pit. The Injection needle is busy putting the the Butchers Prime Injection. Big Bad Beef Rub is ready to go on there, and they are going on the pit about 1-2 am!

My first big brisket cook!

DR,

Good point.

I want to do a side by side test, where I cut a brisket in half, inject one side, into the other, cook and taste.

Then do the same with a 24+ hour dry brine, half with, half without.

Nothing like a live taste test to see what you like, what's not worth the trouble.

The results were great! I am having to learn the different airflow and cooking on this big beast. Bark formation is slower than the stick burner. On several of the briskets, the middle of them stayed much lighter and not set far into the cook.


Here's the view a little before we started pulling the smallest ones off


The 2 cases I bought were great, but the sizes varied from around 9 pounds to 18, so that made the cook a little more work, checking and pulling for about half the time. (When I open the stand and cook more frequently, I'm thinking that having a larger raw inventory and sorting and cooking the same size briskets on the same day will make it easier.)

The bark did firm up nicely a the end, but had a different look that I've had from the WSM or stickburner




Our honored guests LOVED the Food!


The Mayor did too


We set up 2 cutting stations, with my chief apprentice Sam and I getting to work


My new Wusthof Brisket Sword is phenomenal!


While we were waiting for 2nd's to be gobbled up, I played with the chunks and took Pic's


The largest brisket, i'm guessing 18+ pounds, was not as rendered as the rest, so the fat was good but far from best. It was still tender and delicious.


Well, I learned about my cooker with the 10 Brisket cook.

1.) Bark formation does happen, but it takes longer. Sometimes, It's easier to put the ones where the bark is soft on the warmed up stickburner to get that bark finished off.
2.) I can't just leave the house if the briskets are all different sizes...I'll have to tend to them along the way more often.
3.) I can't wait to have at automatic pit temp control devices actually working! The one that some with it sort of works, and the CyberQ Wifi's 25 cfm fan is too small to get this big pit hot enough. I'm ordering a 2nd fan. Until then, I use the chinease one and have to hand adjust fan speed and use the ball valve.
4.) I've come up with more mods to tune the pit involving the charcoal chute and firebox insulation (more on that in a different post.
5.) I LOVE these 1855 Angus Upper-End Choice Briskets! There is so much "Wabble" in them. They definately cooked better than the Excel Texan Choice (which cost $1-1.50 less).
6.) Cooking great food is great for bringing people together and/or increasing their joy when they are together.
7.) Identifying when 10 different briskets are done, with varying sizes, in varying placements in a new cooker (where I'm not sure where the hotter/colder spots are) is not easy. We did it pretty well, but not perfect. A couple of them were overcooked (one wanted to fall apart when sliced, the other was over a hotter spot and the bottom got too dry and crispy on the end).

Cooking for 60 Teachers each on Mon and Tue next week, should be fun!

Injection Test

DR said:

Hey my man did you notice any difference with the ones you injected vs the ones you didn't?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I did an experiment last Saturday, slicing a brisket in half longwise, injecting one half and not the other, and cooking at the same time. But we ended up not paying enough attention/left the house and it was overcooked, so it wasn't a good test.

I am going to do that same test again and see on the same brisket what the injection difference is.

Should be fun!

paul