Hey all,
Now that I've gotten decently comfortable with my PBC, I'm thinking of trying a brisket. Unfortunately, the price of a full packer brisket is a bit out of the range at the moment. (Need to see what those college football revenues will be in a month or two, then I can splurge on a $60-$100 piece of meat.)
But, I can pick up a brisket flat. ($5 lbs, $13)
I understand that a brisket flat is lean and the one I would get at HEB, the local grocery store, is probably exceptionally so. Steven Raichlen has an interesting way he approaches a brisket flat. He coats it in nearly equal parts of salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. He places it in a 13x9 aluminum pan and covers the top of the brisket with thick-cut bacon. He then smokes it at ~250 for six-eight hours, with a two hour rest.
Clearly, the idea is to keep the flat as moist and protected from the fire as much as possible. I'm thinking of modifying his idea for the PBC:
I'd hang the brisket flat until it reached about 170 degrees, stalled out, or the bark was just right. Then I'd adopt his aluminum pan idea -- although putting a wire rack in first -- and also cover with bacon and power through the stall/continue to cook to ~202 internal.
My idea is that Steven's original idea, to me, impedes smoke absorption. (In fact, if you've seen the Project Fire episode for this technique, the resulting brisket has essentially no smoke ring.) So I'm going to take advantage of the PBC's unusually humid environment and hang it for the first part of the cook.
Thoughts?
Now that I've gotten decently comfortable with my PBC, I'm thinking of trying a brisket. Unfortunately, the price of a full packer brisket is a bit out of the range at the moment. (Need to see what those college football revenues will be in a month or two, then I can splurge on a $60-$100 piece of meat.)
But, I can pick up a brisket flat. ($5 lbs, $13)
I understand that a brisket flat is lean and the one I would get at HEB, the local grocery store, is probably exceptionally so. Steven Raichlen has an interesting way he approaches a brisket flat. He coats it in nearly equal parts of salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. He places it in a 13x9 aluminum pan and covers the top of the brisket with thick-cut bacon. He then smokes it at ~250 for six-eight hours, with a two hour rest.
Clearly, the idea is to keep the flat as moist and protected from the fire as much as possible. I'm thinking of modifying his idea for the PBC:
I'd hang the brisket flat until it reached about 170 degrees, stalled out, or the bark was just right. Then I'd adopt his aluminum pan idea -- although putting a wire rack in first -- and also cover with bacon and power through the stall/continue to cook to ~202 internal.
My idea is that Steven's original idea, to me, impedes smoke absorption. (In fact, if you've seen the Project Fire episode for this technique, the resulting brisket has essentially no smoke ring.) So I'm going to take advantage of the PBC's unusually humid environment and hang it for the first part of the cook.
Thoughts?
Comment