First brisket on the Lone Star Grillz Adjustable Charcoal Grill & Smoker

[AZ Fogey]

I put up a couple of long posts about my decision to buy the LSG Adjustable and provided quite a few pictures of the pit. Those posts are on another Channel - https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...harcoal-grills with the title "Our new pride & joy." I wanted to post some pics of how it cooks, and when I asked Huskee where he thought they should go, he suggested here.

Anyway, I'd been dying to do a brisket on our new pit and when I happened to see a Darian Kosmo video on hot & fast brisket, I wanted to give it a try. It was the most stress-free brisket I've ever cooked.

The meat was a 13.5 lb. prime full packer. I injected it, rubbed it with a combination of Meat Church's Holy Cow and Holy Gospel, and put the meat on the upper shelf of the cooker, directly over the Fogo Premium Lump charcoal and two chunks of apple wood, using the pit as a vertical smoker with temp set to 350°. The pit stayed rock steady at that temp. After about an hour and a half, I tossed in a small chunk of cherry, just for fun, and that was it for smokewood. Total fire burn time was right at 5 1/2 hours and total cook time was just over 4 1/2 hours, including the time it took to pull and wrap it when it hit 170°. I took it off for good when it hit 205° and probed very tender. It got done so fast that I ended up wrapping it in a towel and putting it in our cooler for almost 3 hours til it was time for dinner. The brisket was tender, juicy and delicious. Even my Thai wife, who rarely eats beef, was enthusiastic about it.

If you've never done brisket hot & fast, and are maybe a little tired of tending your offset for 10 or 12 or 16 hours, give this a try sometime and see if it's to your liking.



The flat...





The point...



And, for the numbers folks, the cook chart...

[Oakgrovebacon]

Looks delicious! Enjoy that new smoker!

[Jim White]

Wow. That's perfect brisket. Love how rock steady the temperature was.

[pknj]

Stop posting - I can’t afford a new smoker and I am getting dangerously close to financial ruin with every post you do with your new toy!

[Steve B]

Hahahahaha.
If I read into your pit name you’re in New Jersey. If so you’re more than welcome to come see my LSG offset. I’m right over the boarder in NY. 😁

[pknj]

Steve B, when this is all over and I can go outside without holding my breath, you have a deal! (I’m 12 miles due west of NYC, so nice and close)

[Steve B]

Looks great AZ.
That’s awesome how rock steady your pit held it’s temps. 👊👊

[Greygoose]

Nice

[ofelles]

Wow nice and juicy.

[HouseHomey]

Another week or two with this and Ahumadora will be sponsoring one side of your pit like NASCAR

[Ahumadora]

Had my days of racecars. And certainly not into sponsoring one.

[Uncle Bob]

That looks great Michael, you and the beast make a good team. Do you plan to do another in offset fashion for comparison?

[AZ Fogey]

Uncle Bob - As much as I believe in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Yes, I plan to do one next month, hot and fast again, but with the meat on the cooler side of the pit. Across that top shelf, there's not that much temp difference, maybe 25°, whereas from grill grate to top shelf on the cool side can be as much as 75° difference, but the temps get a lot closer when the pit is fully up to temperature.

[jfmorris]

AZ Fogey that is a phenomenal cook, and so happy for you and your new toy!

Can you tell us - did the pit maintain those stable temps on its own, or were you using a fan with your Fireboard? I saw the Fireboard Drive notation on the temperature graph...

[lostclusters]

AZ Fogey what method did you use to arrange and light your coals? Did you put the wood on top of the coals or underneath?

[AZ Fogey]

jfmorris - Here's the chart showing how much fan use there was. I've used the CyberQ a lot and it's been very reliable and its fan logic is fairly transparent to me. With the Fireboard, which I also like a lot, I haven't quite figured out why it sometimes does what it does. At first, that was because I had a hard time finding necessary setting in the UI. The phone/tablet based app has more settings than the web app and that confused me a lot. Now, I just set up the cook on the tablet and open the web app to monitor the cook, but I still don't completely understand its fan logic. More and more now, I don't use either one, and just monitor the cook with a Smoke, because temps based on intake and exhaust vent settings are so repeatable.

[jfmorris]

Interesting. Your temps are pretty darn stable in that one section with no fan use, so it seems this cooker is pretty controllable even without the fan.

[AZ Fogey]

Yes, the pit doesn't really need a fan. I'm just somewhat of a control freak. What the fan really does is allow the pit to get up to temp a good deal faster than without, maybe take 25-30 minutes instead of 45 minutes plus.

[AZ Fogey]

lostclusters - Neither the charcoal grate nor the charcoal basket on my pit is at all finicky about coal placement. I use mostly Fogo or Jealous Devil for everyday 2-zone cooks without the basket, and Fogo Super Premium or Kamado Joe Big Block for long cooks with the basket in place to hold more fuel. The amount of charcoal I first light depends on the target temp of the cook. I use this torch that I found on Amazon to light the coals,




because it gives me precise control over the amount of area to be lit. For 225° I usually light an area about 4" square, for 350° maybe 6" square. The longest it's ever taken me to get the charcoal lit is 2 minutes, it's just that fast. The little propane bottle has lasted me a month and a half so far. Because the vast majority of my cooks are under one hour, I place one smokewood chunk onto what looks like the hottest part of the fire, about 10 minutes before I put the meat on. As much as I admire Harry Soo and John Setzler, they're the only pitmasters I've seen that bury their smokewood chunks, so I've actually never done it.