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All Things Brisket


kevwun

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Hi all, I love brisket, but have never smoked or "cooked" it and am fairly inexperienced with grilling in general. Unfortunately I only have a propane grill right now. Is it worth using the brisket on the grill, or are there reasonable substitutes to a smoker/BGE? (I have a crock pot, FWIW). 

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Well, results were inconclusive at best, disappointing at worst. It was a good brisket, but not among my best and certainly not anything close to what we ate at la BBQ. However, between pulling it when I pulled it, and it being kind of a weird shaped stubborn brisket (the point was very small), I can't be sure that those variables didn't affect the end product and off set the benefits of the extended rest. 

I felt like the flat was good off the knife - as good as usual. Five minutes later it still had a decent amount of moisture. 7-10 minutes later it started to look like horse hide and really dry out. That's pretty typical in terms of what I'm used to. It was not my experience eating at la BBQ. 

Overall still good and we were just snacking on it as my buddies left, 3+ hours later and still good. Not great, though. Not the holy grail. 

TL;DR - brisket pulled at 12:40, reading ~ 206 and not quite probing done. Rested to 170 internal. Into 170 degree oven triple wrapped in butcher paper for 7+ hours, internal temps held steady @ 158. Improvements in moisture quality were negligible at best. 

8:07

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8:10 

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8:12

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8:22

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8:33

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What year was it that John an Aaron cooked a half cow for us and everyone pitched in sides.  I took a few pictures, and they are on my Google photos, but I can't find them.  That was a great time with great food.

 

 

 

BNB

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14 hours ago, KYHorn said:

Hi all, I love brisket, but have never smoked or "cooked" it and am fairly inexperienced with grilling in general. Unfortunately I only have a propane grill right now. Is it worth using the brisket on the grill, or are there reasonable substitutes to a smoker/BGE? (I have a crock pot, FWIW). 

Check your local Craigslist for a used Weber Smokey Mountain for sale.  I think it would be next to impossible to get decently cooked brisket from a propane grill setup.

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I’ve got an 11 pound choice packer. Plan is to trim fat cap tonight, give it a 15 minute tenderquick rub, thoroughly rinse and then cover with 50:50 coarse pepper and sea salt. Cover and fridge for the night. Throw on the uds tomorrow at 9 at around 300 degrees.

If it’s done by mid afternoon (just over 200 internal? And probes like butter?) then pull, wrap, and cooler for a few more hours.

Do I have this more or less right?

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I’ve got an 11 pound choice packer. Plan is to trim fat cap tonight, give it a 15 minute tenderquick rub, thoroughly rinse and then cover with 50:50 coarse pepper and sea salt. Cover and fridge for the night. Throw on the uds tomorrow at 9 at around 300 degrees.

If it’s done by mid afternoon (just over 200 internal? And probes like butter?) then pull, wrap, and cooler for a few more hours.

Do I have this more or less right?
Put it in a garbage bag with all the air you can get out on the fridge to prevent moisture loss.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

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What year was it that John and Aaron Luke Duke cooked a half cow for us and everyone pitched in sides.  I took a few pictures, and they are on my Google photos, but I can't find them.  That was a great time with great food.  

 

 

BNB

 

 

If by Aaron you mean Luke Duke, then it was 2012.

 

 

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3 hours ago, deft said:

I’ve got an 11 pound choice packer. Plan is to trim fat cap tonight, give it a 15 minute tenderquick rub, thoroughly rinse and then cover with 50:50 coarse pepper and sea salt. Cover and fridge for the night. Throw on the uds tomorrow at 9 at around 300 degrees.

If it’s done by mid afternoon (just over 200 internal? And probes like butter?) then pull, wrap, and cooler for a few more hours.

Do I have this more or less right?

You can trim it tonight, but don't really need to. I'd suggest lighting the fire about 7 or 7:30ish. While it warms up and gets to temp, that's when you get the brisket out, trim it up, and rub it down w/ dalmatian, or even a hair more pepper than salt.

Monitor your pit and meat temps. Put meat probe in thickest part of the flat and insert from the side.

When the meat temp gets to around 140*, check how it looks. If it has that nice mahogany color, wrap it in foil or butcher paper. If it's not quite ready, let it go to 150* and check again, then wrap.

Sail through the stall, which would be minimal with a 300* pit anyway.

Once the meat gets to about 200*, probe it. Check every 3* from there until it probes like warm butter.

Pull from pit when it probes like warm butter, let it rest at least 30 minutes on the counter, loosely wrapped. 45min would be better, or even an hour.

 

ONLY THEN do you wrap it tight in foil and put it in the cooler wrapped in towels. This rest period before the cooler is crucial. If you fuck it up, the meat will be too warm and keep cooking in the cooler. Then you end up with mushy shit, and people will laugh at you.

 

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Ok so I have never tried to do the extended rest before the extended extended cooler wrap thing before my last couple of experiments. In the past when I needed to cooler rest I would pull it slightly before done and wrap and always got pretty good results. 

However, I don't really think it's food safe to pull a ~ 205 degree brisket and let it sit for 45 minutes and then wrap it and let it rest for hours is it? My brisket yesterday got down to 170 in ~ 20 minutes after I pulled it and I put it wrapped into a 170 degree oven, and it valley'd at 158. I would have to think it's going to get down to 140 pretty quickly after you put it into a cooler wrapped at ?155? after 30-45 minutes of rest. I'm not necessarily scared of a few bacteria but if serving others and you have a piece of meat that's been theoretically 125-140 for many hours? The FSIS would not approve. 

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Quote

BluDawgs Brisket 

K.I S.S. some of the best brisket you will ever eat! Total cook time including the rest 8 hrs or less. I promise it will be as moist as mornin dew on the lilly, tender as a mothers love, pure beefy smoky goodness. 

1 packer 12-15 lb 
Trim off the hard fat on each side of the flat thin the fat cap to 1/4" 

Mix your Rub 
1 part kosher salt 4 parts Med grind Black peppa by volume( this is a true 50/50 BY weight) 
apply a coat of rub you need to be able to see the meat through the rub clearly. 

Pre heat the pit to 300 deg 
place brisket on the pit Fat Cap Down and point to the firebox unless it is a RF cooker then point to away from the FB 

Maintain pit between 275-325 if cookin on a stick burner 
cook Brisket 4 hrs 
remove from pit wrap in a single layer of Butcher paper Return to pit Fat cap up. 
after 1 hr probe the thicket part of the Flat only! If it isn't *probe tender it should be within 1 hr. 
once it is probe tender remove from the pit keep it wrapped in the paper you cooked it in and allow it to rest on your counter until the Internal temp reaches 150 this will take about two hrs. 
Don't ever slice more than you can eat big pieces retain moisture and won't dry up on you like slices will. 
*PROBE TENDER> This is the feel that is mimicked by cutting room temperature butter with a hot knife, there should be no drag 

I've used the above method for hot-n-fast brisket on my UDS twice with very good results. It's posted on about every BBQ forum out there, and seems to produce consistent results for people. It's about as simple as it gets. I recommend ordering some pink butcher paper on Amazon prior as I hear it can be a pain to find. 

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On 4/20/2018 at 2:28 PM, luke duke said:

 

If by Aaron you mean Luke Duke, then it was 2012.

 

 

Fuck, sorry,,  It may take me a few days.  If one looks in Best Buy Coupons.  I have to figure out how to delete 1,000s of photos.

BNB

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20 hours ago, ChampKind said:

See the meat clearly through the rub? Mmmmk. 1:1 salt to pepper? Sure thing

Not sure I follow your meaning. But I've had a lot of brisket that tastes too salty. The 1:1 salt:pepper by weight (1:4 by volume) worked well for me and wasn't too salty. 

As for seeing the meat through the rub, Franklin does it this way too, so it's not a totally crazy notion. 

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Best method for reheating?

I’ve got the leftovers wrapped tightly in fresh foil and then that is place in a large ziploc to avoid drying out.


There’s probably a Franklin video that addresses this. I’m just spitballing here, but maybe leave it in the foil and stick it in the oven at 250* until it hits 140* internal
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  • 3 weeks later...

Cross posted from the WSM thread.

This is last Saturday's dinner.  14 hours on the smoke (charcoal, hickory, pecan).  Rested, and kept warm for around 6 hours in the oven (cycling temp since there's no warm or slow cook function).  Good stuff.

axkzgm.jpg

 

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Cross posted from the WSM thread.
This is last Saturday's dinner.  14 hours on the smoke (charcoal, hickory, pecan).  Rested, and kept warm for around 6 hours in the oven (cycling temp since there's no warm or slow cook function).  Good stuff.
axkzgm.jpg
 
Looks pretty damn good.
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Dry run for my school picnic cook in 3 weeks. Putting the brisket on the trailer at exactly midnight est. My pit will run somewhere around 300 for 6 hours and then hold above 200 for the next hour. Let's see where we are at 7 am. 12 lber trimmed up slightly. 

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11 hours ago, dcbc said:

Cross posted from the WSM thread.

This is last Saturday's dinner.  14 hours on the smoke (charcoal, hickory, pecan).  Rested, and kept warm for around 6 hours in the oven (cycling temp since there's no warm or slow cook function).  Good stuff.

axkzgm.jpg

 

Looks moist as fuck.

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What I learned... I'm going to be up all night cooking for this thing. Sitting at 160/230 and out of fuel when I woke up. Went to wrap and it's burgundy. I tucked it into the near corner by the firebox with the damper closed as an experiment. I will need to start earlier, refuel once and rotate. 

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56 minutes ago, utee94 said:

When are you serving?  Do you want/need the pit to serve?  If you started at 6 PM, pulled and wrapped at midnight, you could just finish in the oven until morning.

Lots of moving parts. The picnic runs 5:30-8:30 on Friday. I need to mobilize my pit to the school to finish anything, cook some smaller stuff and potentially to keep food warm. When I do that depends on how done the food is. I don't want to go earlier than noon but if the food is mostly done at home I could wait longer. I have to cook 6 butts and 5 or 6 briskets. I am going to run the butts in 2 WSMs, not worried about those and I can easily finish them onsite. The key is getting the briskets done so I can wrap them before I mobilize while also letting the fuel run out so that I'm not driving through the neighborhood with a mobile grease fire. 

I'm just going to have to start the briskets earlier and refuel in the middle of the night. I'm a little surprised with the pit running at or just above 300 for most of the night it was only 160 by 7 AM. 

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16 hours ago, dcbc said:

Cross posted from the WSM thread.

This is last Saturday's dinner.  14 hours on the smoke (charcoal, hickory, pecan).  Rested, and kept warm for around 6 hours in the oven (cycling temp since there's no warm or slow cook function).  Good stuff.

axkzgm.jpg

 

That looks phenomenal

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Finally up over 200. Not quite done yet. 

I know some people on the old thread had some mixed results with it but fwiw Lowes has the Royal Oak briquettes on sale right now for $4/bag for a 15.4 lb bag. I had to run up there earlier to refuel and I bought a few bags and it's burning just fine for me. I've been holding 375+ for about 4 hours on half a basket which is a full bag. 

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Done around 3:45. I pulled it and let it rest until it got down to about 175. I heated a cooler upside down over a vent in my house (yes the heat is still on here, it's 50 and rainy today) and then wrapped the brisket tighter in more butcher paper and then 2 towels that had been in the dryer. I'm going to see how long I can keep it above 140. If this doesn't work I'm going to try fire bricks next. 

Note - for personal consumption or among friends I normally wouldn't care about keeping it >140 but I'm really paranoid that I'm going to make a 200+ people sick. 

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2 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

Done around 3:45. I pulled it and let it rest until it got down to about 175. I heated a cooler upside down over a vent in my house (yes the heat is still on here, it's 50 and rainy today) and then wrapped the brisket tighter in more butcher paper and then 2 towels that had been in the dryer. I'm going to see how long I can keep it above 140. If this doesn't work I'm going to try fire bricks next. 

Note - for personal consumption or among friends I normally wouldn't care about keeping it >140 but I'm really paranoid that I'm going to make a 200+ people sick. 

Long as you don't get down to 100* then you'll be fine

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The key is getting the briskets done so I can wrap them before I mobilize while also letting the fuel run out so that I'm not driving through the neighborhood with a mobile grease fire. 



Chicken!
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