Well, I've corned them for corned beef and for pastrami, both super winners,. But Super Bowl Sunday I stepped up to the plate and did my first packet brisket. I found a beauty of a prime packer at Costco that weighed in at 14 pounds and cost 2.99 per pound. I simply couldn't resist it when I found it two weeks prior to Super Bowl. I threw it in the bottom of my fridge to let it wet age the 10 days prior to cook prep.
Side Note: Costco is a funny place. Months ago I went into my local store and asked if they carried packer briskets. "Oh sure" the meat guy said and pointed out the flats sitting in the case. "No, not flats" i said, "do you carry the whole brisket in cyro"? He didn't have a CLUE to what I was talking about. Fast forward to me finding the prime packets in the same store. I asked a meat guy, "do you carry these all the time"? The answer, "Oh sure, they aren't always out but we always have them". The lesson here? Just because the guy is wearing an apron and is behind the glass at the meat counter doesn't mean he knows diddly about what they carry!
So, back to the story. On Friday I took the packer out of the cyro and trimmed it up real nice. Probably lost about 2 pounds of the original weight. I took the "good fat" and tossed it into a cast iron pan and rendered the fat out. Poured that off into a container and put it away into the fridge for later use. Dry brinned for 48 hours prior to cook, and used BBBR as my rub. I used three hooks in series and loaded up the charcoal basket OCD style to see how long I could keep a good fire. The hooking and basket loading I did the night before as I was gonna be up at 04:30 to start the cook.
Here's how things looked before the cook started:
On the day of the cook I was up at 04:30 and started the coals - 40 in the chimney from the bag, not removed from the OCD stacked basket. Once they ashed over they got poured into the middle and a few chunks of hickory we added. It went into the barrel for about 10 minutes before I added rods and meat. Stuck a probe into the thickest part and hung my pit temp probe. The brisket dang near touched the charcoal and I hung it away from the side with the vent. As the cook progressed I noted that the fire burned towards the vent and not so much away from the vent. This caused the brisket to drip onto coals that were not ignited. I was concerned that this might cause a problem later in the cook. More on that later.
Timeline
So by 05:00 the meat was hung. Meat temp 37, pit temp 263. I'm in LA and it was cool during the cook - starting out at 58 with humidity in the 77% range. An hour later the pit temp as 261 and the meat temp was 81. Fell out on the couch for a nap and was up at 09:00 to check things out. Pit temp had fallen to 237 and the meat temp was already reading 157. I cracked the lid to try and get the temps back up to the 260 range. This worked, but not long term. At 09:30 i moved the brisket to the other rebar over towards the vent since the fire had burned this section first. I was then able to remove the other rebar to help keep temps up in the 260 range. Temps actually rose into the 270's after a while so I slipped the rebar back in place at 10:00. At 10:30 I had to replay the rebar game - out for 30 minutes then back in.
I had a very short "stall" at 158 internal temp. Only lasted an hour, and that was from 08:30 - 09:30. I let it go until the internal temp was 180 and then, around 11:30, I pulled it, wrapped it in butcher paper and returned to the grill. Pit temp spiked to 300 during this activity (I kept the lid in place as much as possible), but fell back nicely once the brisket was back in the barrel. Here's a pic at wrap time:
End Result
I'd read here that prime can become probe tender at 195, so I started checking at that temp. When I pulled it the Maverick probe was reading about 201, and with my thermapen I was getting readings from 201 to 5 degrees or so lower depending on where I stuck the probe. When the brisket came out of the barrel it went into a preheated cambro and was covered with foil to protect the towels from the greasy butcher paper. It stayed there for 3 and a half hours until we pulled it out to serve it, and it was still 160 at that time. When I took it out I separated the point from the flat and made burnt ends out of some of the point. Holy cow. The point pieces held together, but pulled apart with a gentle tug, and once turned into burnt ends simply MELTED in your mouth. I was astonished. One of my friends said, "hell, I don't even need teeth for this!" I cut about 2 inches off of the end of the point as I figured this was going to be the driest part, and then cut the rest of the flat across the grain about pencil width as folks presented their plates. I chopped up the first two inch cut and tossed it with "Texas Tee". Darn good and not nearly as dry as I had expected. The slices were super juicy and pulled apart with slightly more effort that the point slices had. I judged it pretty well cooked. The folks I invited over, under the pretense of watching the game but in reality to help me eat all of this meat, simply raved about it. Even my wife said the burnt ends were to die for, and she isn't a smoked meat person. Made me feel real good (thanks to all of the wonderful PIT members and this amazing site). When I made the burnt ends I used some of the rendered beef fat, threw in some "Texas Tea" after crisping up, and then a small amount of BBQ sauce. Heaven. Burnt ends and brisket slices:
Lessons learned
The OCD method gave me usable heat for 11+ hours. Well, probably more than that. When I removed the brisket I replaced the lid and continued to monitor barrel temps. At the 11 hour mark I had 256 and I gave up tracking at that point. This is a good two to three hours longer than a simple full basket gives me. I mentioned earlier that the basket burned towards the vent and not really away from the vent at the onset. As I mentioned this caused the unlit coals to be bathed in dripping fat. When this section did start to burn I got some "normal fat dripping on hot coals" smoke, and by then I had moved the brisket to the other rod and near the vent where the fire had somewhat burned out. I was worried that I was going to have fire problems but i really didn't. As for the brisket, it is as Meathead preaches - get the best meat you can afford. I will never cook anything but prime grade brisket when I do brisket. The results simply speak for themselves. The other thing I learned is that I probably could have slept in until 5:30 or 6. 3.5 hours in the cambro could have been shortened a bit. I like 2 hours rest prior to serving typically. The PBC does cook things considerable faster than other cookers, and I don't notice any detrimental effects of that. Any more tender and juicy and it would have started falling apart.
Final lesson is that this site, and the wonderful folks who make up the Pit, especially all of you PBC fanatics, is fantastic. Love the ambiance here and the accepting nature of all of you. You've helped up my game to a level I am damn proud of. Thank you!
Side Note: Costco is a funny place. Months ago I went into my local store and asked if they carried packer briskets. "Oh sure" the meat guy said and pointed out the flats sitting in the case. "No, not flats" i said, "do you carry the whole brisket in cyro"? He didn't have a CLUE to what I was talking about. Fast forward to me finding the prime packets in the same store. I asked a meat guy, "do you carry these all the time"? The answer, "Oh sure, they aren't always out but we always have them". The lesson here? Just because the guy is wearing an apron and is behind the glass at the meat counter doesn't mean he knows diddly about what they carry!
So, back to the story. On Friday I took the packer out of the cyro and trimmed it up real nice. Probably lost about 2 pounds of the original weight. I took the "good fat" and tossed it into a cast iron pan and rendered the fat out. Poured that off into a container and put it away into the fridge for later use. Dry brinned for 48 hours prior to cook, and used BBBR as my rub. I used three hooks in series and loaded up the charcoal basket OCD style to see how long I could keep a good fire. The hooking and basket loading I did the night before as I was gonna be up at 04:30 to start the cook.
Here's how things looked before the cook started:
On the day of the cook I was up at 04:30 and started the coals - 40 in the chimney from the bag, not removed from the OCD stacked basket. Once they ashed over they got poured into the middle and a few chunks of hickory we added. It went into the barrel for about 10 minutes before I added rods and meat. Stuck a probe into the thickest part and hung my pit temp probe. The brisket dang near touched the charcoal and I hung it away from the side with the vent. As the cook progressed I noted that the fire burned towards the vent and not so much away from the vent. This caused the brisket to drip onto coals that were not ignited. I was concerned that this might cause a problem later in the cook. More on that later.
Timeline
So by 05:00 the meat was hung. Meat temp 37, pit temp 263. I'm in LA and it was cool during the cook - starting out at 58 with humidity in the 77% range. An hour later the pit temp as 261 and the meat temp was 81. Fell out on the couch for a nap and was up at 09:00 to check things out. Pit temp had fallen to 237 and the meat temp was already reading 157. I cracked the lid to try and get the temps back up to the 260 range. This worked, but not long term. At 09:30 i moved the brisket to the other rebar over towards the vent since the fire had burned this section first. I was then able to remove the other rebar to help keep temps up in the 260 range. Temps actually rose into the 270's after a while so I slipped the rebar back in place at 10:00. At 10:30 I had to replay the rebar game - out for 30 minutes then back in.
I had a very short "stall" at 158 internal temp. Only lasted an hour, and that was from 08:30 - 09:30. I let it go until the internal temp was 180 and then, around 11:30, I pulled it, wrapped it in butcher paper and returned to the grill. Pit temp spiked to 300 during this activity (I kept the lid in place as much as possible), but fell back nicely once the brisket was back in the barrel. Here's a pic at wrap time:
End Result
I'd read here that prime can become probe tender at 195, so I started checking at that temp. When I pulled it the Maverick probe was reading about 201, and with my thermapen I was getting readings from 201 to 5 degrees or so lower depending on where I stuck the probe. When the brisket came out of the barrel it went into a preheated cambro and was covered with foil to protect the towels from the greasy butcher paper. It stayed there for 3 and a half hours until we pulled it out to serve it, and it was still 160 at that time. When I took it out I separated the point from the flat and made burnt ends out of some of the point. Holy cow. The point pieces held together, but pulled apart with a gentle tug, and once turned into burnt ends simply MELTED in your mouth. I was astonished. One of my friends said, "hell, I don't even need teeth for this!" I cut about 2 inches off of the end of the point as I figured this was going to be the driest part, and then cut the rest of the flat across the grain about pencil width as folks presented their plates. I chopped up the first two inch cut and tossed it with "Texas Tee". Darn good and not nearly as dry as I had expected. The slices were super juicy and pulled apart with slightly more effort that the point slices had. I judged it pretty well cooked. The folks I invited over, under the pretense of watching the game but in reality to help me eat all of this meat, simply raved about it. Even my wife said the burnt ends were to die for, and she isn't a smoked meat person. Made me feel real good (thanks to all of the wonderful PIT members and this amazing site). When I made the burnt ends I used some of the rendered beef fat, threw in some "Texas Tea" after crisping up, and then a small amount of BBQ sauce. Heaven. Burnt ends and brisket slices:
Lessons learned
The OCD method gave me usable heat for 11+ hours. Well, probably more than that. When I removed the brisket I replaced the lid and continued to monitor barrel temps. At the 11 hour mark I had 256 and I gave up tracking at that point. This is a good two to three hours longer than a simple full basket gives me. I mentioned earlier that the basket burned towards the vent and not really away from the vent at the onset. As I mentioned this caused the unlit coals to be bathed in dripping fat. When this section did start to burn I got some "normal fat dripping on hot coals" smoke, and by then I had moved the brisket to the other rod and near the vent where the fire had somewhat burned out. I was worried that I was going to have fire problems but i really didn't. As for the brisket, it is as Meathead preaches - get the best meat you can afford. I will never cook anything but prime grade brisket when I do brisket. The results simply speak for themselves. The other thing I learned is that I probably could have slept in until 5:30 or 6. 3.5 hours in the cambro could have been shortened a bit. I like 2 hours rest prior to serving typically. The PBC does cook things considerable faster than other cookers, and I don't notice any detrimental effects of that. Any more tender and juicy and it would have started falling apart.
Final lesson is that this site, and the wonderful folks who make up the Pit, especially all of you PBC fanatics, is fantastic. Love the ambiance here and the accepting nature of all of you. You've helped up my game to a level I am damn proud of. Thank you!
Attached Files
Sehr kühl!!!
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