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SRF Black Label (16.4 Lbs) Massive Fail

SmoothBoarBBQ

SmoothBoarBBQ

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Hey All,

So I just went to my 2nd KCBS competition at the Smoke on the Harbor BBQ Throwdown in Mt. Pleasant, SC. I decided to "up my game" so to speak and pick up a SRF wagyu brisket. It was my first time cooking wagyu so I brought along a CAB Choice as a backup. I read a lot of threads in here and everything seemed to suggest that wagyu cooks much faster.

So I did my normal cooking method for a competition : good trim, injection, rub, and smoked it at 250-275F for about 10 hours. I started doing the probe test once it hit 190F and the flat really didn't get tender until about 198F. So I pulled it, gave it about a 3 hour rest, and was super excited to start slicing it for the turn-in box. Problem : it was nothing but un-rendered, disgusting, fat. I tried getting 6 good slices from the flat but the entire thing was just nothing but fat and the mouth feel made me nauseous.

Luckily I had my CAB as a back up and that came out perfect and I took 6th in brisket.

Just wondering if anybody has any ideas as to what I could have done differently. I wish I had taken some pictures to show but the entire flat was just nothing but fat. On a wagyu do you need to do the probe test differently ? I just was so mad... $180 straight into the trash because none of it was edible at all. The point was very much the same and it was nothing but a mess of fat. I actually trimmed all of the fat cap off of the point and I'm just lost as to why that brisket came out so poorly. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks!
 
I cooked my first Waygu this past weekend and found it took longer to get till the entire thing felt tender. Was well past 205°. Did you probed it for tenderness in several places?
 
Bigbass300 said:
I cooked my first Waygu this past weekend and found it took longer to get till the entire thing felt tender. Was well past 205°. Did you probed it for tenderness in several places?
Click to expand...

Yeah, probed all over the flat and it was perfectly tender as far as I could tell. I read quite a few threads on here about cooking wagyu and the big takeaway was that fat renders before lean muscle tissue, so compared to a choice / prime the wagyu should be tender at a lower finishing temp. Either way I started checking at 190 and it was tight, but once it got to 198 it felt perfect.

I ended up taking my CAB Choice to 203 before it was perfectly tender.
 
Copied from BBQbeat.com

Larry

I've attended a few competition BBQ classes, and without giving away specifics – each and every one has used both rubs and injections when cooking Wagyu brisket. The one thing I’ve heard and read in a few of the various online BBQ forums is that Wagyu briskets tend to cook a little bit longer than their less marbled counterparts, as you want to be sure and get the extra fat rendered. Some have reported finishing temperatures as high as 213 to 217 F!
 
CptKaos said:
Copied from BBQbeat.com

Larry

I've attended a few competition BBQ classes, and without giving away specifics – each and every one has used both rubs and injections when cooking Wagyu brisket. The one thing I’ve heard and read in a few of the various online BBQ forums is that Wagyu briskets tend to cook a little bit longer than their less marbled counterparts, as you want to be sure and get the extra fat rendered. Some have reported finishing temperatures as high as 213 to 217 F!
Click to expand...

Sounds like I didn't do enough research and this is likely why I still had so much un-rendered fat. It probed perfectly at about 198 though and about 11 hours at 250-275. OK, thanks, maybe down the road I'll give it another try and see what happens. Just glad I brought a CAB as back up.
 
I'm no comp cook but I've done SRF and other Wagyu briskets. In my experience they cooked slightly faster but not significantly. I overcooked my first ever Wagyu but did fine on the rest. It sounds like it was undercooked. It needed to go on longer and sounds like you were probing into unrendered fats since Wagyu is super fatty and the fat is a lot more tender than a regular brisket. So it felt probe tender because it was hot enough but not quite ready. It needed to render out more fat and boy wagyu sure leak a ton of fat. You should've tossed it back in to finish or perhaps saved it to use it for something else.
 
Who ever started the "Wagyu cooks faster" might have had a point, but it has been so dilluted that all people do is hear "wagyu cooks faster" and just regurgitate it with zero context :-D. I don't mean that in a bad way here, just using it to say..............don't believe it.

Not saying it isn't true perhaps under certain circumstances (which even then I don't know what they are), but I haven't found it to be true at all.

I cook them the same as other briskets. The only difference I really see and note for others that ask advice (which isn't often for me :becky:) is a lot of times the burt ends can be fattier and possibly need additional cooking depending upon how you trim.

190 seems way to early to start checking. I do subscribe to higher cooking temps mean higher finishing temps so my checking temp might not be for everyone, but I don't even start looking at the brisket till it hits 204. It hasn't failed me or been overshot in the last 3yrs.

Simply sounds like it was undercooked.
 
I wont probe for tender until I see 207. and I tell you what, more often than not, my brisket still ends up on the tight side after the rest. I don't think I over cooked a single SRF this season. If I competed more often, Id bump that temp up even higher just to keep me from making a poor decision in probing
 
IMO w/out a pic is hard to say because probe tender is probe tender. Maybe it was a just poor cut of brisket, overly fatty with very little usable meat?
 
This past weekend I cooked my first wagyu brisket anticipating a very long cook, and was shocked to have no stall whatsoever. Butcher paper wrap at 165 and was probe tender at 198. Cooked in less than ten hours at 250 and was a decent sized packer. Came out perfect!!! Was shocked at the speed it cooked. Was very nervous with it in cooler for 6 hours before meal but was incredible.
 
I do not even look at any wagyu I cook until it is pushing 205. most seem to end up in the 207-213 area, although I never pull because of temperature. I always look at the temp when I am ready to pull just for a reference in my mind, and it helps satisfy a bit of my OCD.

The point goes at least another hour or longer depending on how heavy the marbling is.

They are a learning curve. One thing I stopped doing is cooking any back-up meats. If you have nothing to fall back on you will figure out how to do it right much faster.

Once you figure out Wagyu go buy an A9 and start learning again :boxing:
 
Call Kevin at the butcher shoppe in Pensacola, fl! He is shipping grade 9 wagyu briskets to competitors all over the country! It makes regular wagyu look like choice! Though it ain't cheap!
 
Beentown said:
If your used to probing Choice, an undercooked, much more marbled brisket can feel the same. Warm fat that hasn't rendered can feel like a well cooked CAB.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain this is exactly what happened. Good call and thanks for the input. Still not sure I'm going to invest in a wagyu brisket again though.
 
Did you ever give wagyu another try?

I'm trying my first one in a couple of weeks (ships from SRF soon). I cook Prime by feel, but am thinking I need to consider internal temp a little more for my first wagyu cook as I keep reading that the feel is a little different.

If it both feels done AND temps at 205*, I was going to pull and rest. Decent starting point for wagyu?
 
It may cook faster from a time perspective (my limited experience is that it's almost the same), but at the temp you were cooking at, I would guess the actual finishing temp would be 210* or maybe more to render all that fat properly. I undercooked my first wagyu and I think they're just so tender and well marbled to begin with, the feel good to a probe at a lower temp, but they're not done.

Sorry....just realized this was an old thread and my suggestion had already been pointed out. :thumb:
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
Hey All,

So I just went to my 2nd KCBS competition at the Smoke on the Harbor BBQ Throwdown in Mt. Pleasant, SC. I decided to "up my game" so to speak and pick up a SRF wagyu brisket. It was my first time cooking wagyu so I brought along a CAB Choice as a backup. I read a lot of threads in here and everything seemed to suggest that wagyu cooks much faster.

So I did my normal cooking method for a competition : good trim, injection, rub, and smoked it at 250-275F for about 10 hours. I started doing the probe test once it hit 190F and the flat really didn't get tender until about 198F. So I pulled it, gave it about a 3 hour rest, and was super excited to start slicing it for the turn-in box. Problem : it was nothing but un-rendered, disgusting, fat. I tried getting 6 good slices from the flat but the entire thing was just nothing but fat and the mouth feel made me nauseous.

Luckily I had my CAB as a back up and that came out perfect and I took 6th in brisket.

Just wondering if anybody has any ideas as to what I could have done differently. I wish I had taken some pictures to show but the entire flat was just nothing but fat. On a wagyu do you need to do the probe test differently ? I just was so mad... $180 straight into the trash because none of it was edible at all. The point was very much the same and it was nothing but a mess of fat. I actually trimmed all of the fat cap off of the point and I'm just lost as to why that brisket came out so poorly. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

My first waygu, I too cooked a Creekstone prime with it. I too wasn't able to turn in the Waygu, but I did get a 5th place finish.:thumb:

That was the last time that the waygu was left out of the box. When you think it's ready, it prolly needs another 20-30 minutes of cooking,IMHO.
 
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