Central Texas Brisket on the PBC

[BBQPaddy]

Beautiful!! Getting ready to smoke one tomorrow. 15 pounds. First time doing the whole thing. Usually just do the flat. Looking forward to it. A lot more prep work.

[Thomassen]

13.5 pound prime brisket from Costco trimmed to 8.5 pounds (Five pounds of trimmed fat).
50/50 Dallmatian Rub (Morton’s Kosher salt and 16 mesh black pepper
Applied a thin coat of olive oil before applying rub
Brisket taken out of fridge and applied rub one hour before cook. (Although Franklin does this, I don’t see it as necessary as the meat when hung registered 41 degrees on my temp probe. My fridge is set for 38 degrees.

The Cook

Total cook time: 9 ½ hours.
Rested, wrapped, for 1 hour 15 minutes

I was going to use the 10-10-10 lighting method, but pit was raring to go after 10-10. Barrel started at 375 degrees when I hung the meat. It had only dropped to 369 degrees an hour and 15 minutes later. I took one rebar out and plugged two holes with foil. It took and hour for the pit to drop to 275 degrees. Had to play with the rebar holes to maintain 250-275 degree temp cook. Hit the stall after 3 hours cook time at 173 degrees.

8:00 Hung brisket
11:14 Stall reached at 173 degrees
3:35 Brisket temp at 180 degrees, wrapped brisket and placed on the rack
5:35 Internal temp at 196 degrees. Removed brisket and let it rest, wrapped for 1 hour 15 minutes.
6:00 Guests arrive
6:45 Sliced and served

Holy Shamoly! The is the first packer brisket that I’ve cooked. I’m calling it a ‘stand up triple’ instead of a home run, as there are always things to improve. The bark was phenomenal and the meat, both point and flat, was ‘pull tender’. I had a smoke ring of about 1/16^thof an inch (thought there’d be more). The burnt ends were argued over. My son-in-law told me that he now has a new favorite cooked in the PBC. It fed 7 hungry people along with sides of Franklin’s beans, coleslaw and my wife’s corn bread.

Thank you all for helping this ‘nervous Nellie’ with his first packer brisket cook. Rave reviews from all who ate.

[gabulldog]

Looks awesome to me! I know Meathead calls pork ribs the "holy grail" of bbq, but when you do a brisket right, it feels pretty damn good! Love that you did Franklin's beans and slaw--I love both, especially the slaw. Super tangy. What would you want to improve for the next brisket?

[Thomassen]

I think I'd want to improve my trimming. I also want to work on ambient temperature control. It ran really hot for over an hour yesterday and took a while to settle at 275. I had to plug rebar holes and open them up a few times over the cook to have the temps I wanted. Does anyone here work at monitoring and controlling temps while cooking a brisket or do you just let the PBC run?

[Santamarina]

Well done!

[jecucolo]

You probably have an air leak around the lid. I would seal it with lavalock product. Weber KETTLE GASKET Kit One Touch... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RZSCW6U?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

Over time the lid does seal better with carbon and oil build up but the gasket really changed the performance of my PBC. I waited several years before I put it on and wished I would have done it sooner. It is really easy to apply. Once you put it on you will really not have any problem getting and staying in the 275 range.

[smn1285]

The gasket certainly helped me too, highly recommended. There are no less than a dozen variables during the lighting process that can tweak the outcome of the PBC temp. But, what I have found useful, is to not let all of the coals in the chimney ash over, that seems to be too hot. Once all coals except for the top layer in my chimney are ashed, I dump them and throw the lid on, Go retrieve the product I’m cooking, and throw it in the PBC. I like to let my temp work it’s way up, as opposed to starting high and coming down.

[New2Cue]

Looks really awesome, nice job! I've done a few briskets on the PBC, and my last one was the best. The difference from the earlier briskets was that I let the meat rest in the cambro for much longer (I believe 2-3 hours), whereas the others were sliced and served an hour or less after reaching temp - had too many hungry people waiting. The meat was very moist, which I think was from the extra rest so try that out.

[Thomassen]

My fifth brisket since discovering this post back in September/October.
Costco prime brisket, 16.76 pounds trimmed to 12.5 pounds. This is the largest brisket that I've attempted. I got up early (4:00am) to make sure it would be done for dinner (5:30pm). In the PBC at 5:15am. Wrapped in pink butcher paper at 1:50, and pulled to rest at 4:45pm. Rested until 6:00.
A l-o-n-g cook. Coals started dying at the 3:00 mark (barrel was at 204 degrees) so I used my chimney, lit, then added about 15 more coals. Brought temps back up to 260 eventually. My best brisket yet.
Had chopped left overs this morning added to scrambled eggs served with four tortillas. Delish!

[RonB]

Great job on the cook and the write up. My only suggestion would be to wet age it longer - maybe 30 day. Some here even go longer. It would help if you could get the pack date from the store. That's when your timing should start.

[HawkerXP]

I "wrap" in a disposable foil pan after it comes out of the stall with a little BB.

When I start to have fire issues I move the meat indoors.

When it gets probe tender I lower the oven to 170* to hold. This works for me.

[steve_woolston]

Very good article! At the risk of being labelled a heretic, when I've done brisket in my PBC, I cut the brisket into two pieces about where the flat and point meet to keep the size manageable and a consistent distance from the coals when hung. I double wrap with butcher paper and finish in the oven if the coals are dwindling. Everyone loves the results - admittedly not having Franklin's as a point of comparison! Kudos on a job well done!