I cooked my first brisket.

[Brandon]

This past weekend me and a buddy decided to go camping while the weather was nice, and I thought it would be a great time to try my first brisket. I picked up an 11.5lb packer from wally world and loaded up the WSM in the truck and off we went. I trimmed a lot of fat but left about a 1/4" of fat cap. I injected with beef broth and rubbed it down with some Black Ops brisket rub. I lit my chimney around 9:30pm and had the smoker up to temp and blowing clean smoke around 11pm, thats when I put the brisket on. I have a Party Q so there wasnt much need to get up and check it until the maverick told me when it hit 160. The Brisket hit 160 around 4:30am, so I got out of the tent, it was a brisk 37degrees outside, and foiled the brisket while half asleep. Reset the maverick to go off at 200 degrees. To my surprise the brisket was at 203 by 9:00am, I was expecting it to go until noon. So I took it off and seperated the point and the flat, and the point went back on for burnt ends, the flat got re-wrapped in foil and placed in the cooler for a nice 4 hr rest. The flat turned out nice and juicy, but the bark was not there, it was almost like a paste, I guess that is what happens when you foil, I dont know being this was my first time, but none the less it was delicious. The point smoked for 5 hours and the burnt ends were absolutely amazing. All in all it was a good cook and a lot of fun. Next time I am gonna wait a little longer before I foil to give the bark a better chance to set up, or maybe skip the wrap all together. Any advice on how to get a better bark is much appreciated. Attached are the only two pics I took, my hands were greasy and diddnt feel like pulling out my phone too much.

[_John_]

Glad it worked. I have had paste bark a couple of times, both involved new "wet rubs" so it may be that you used too much binder or not enough rub though it doesn't look that way from the pic. Did you use any wrapping liquid? I would wait until probably 170 when the stall should be finished, if you wrapped at 160 the stall probably hadn't even started. The difference is several hours of drying out of the moisture (water moisture that is) in the outside which helps with the bark. With all that liquid in there you can basically steam the thing which I have done more than once unfortunately.

If people learn from mistakes I should be a brisket genius by now, but I'm not, so there must be a lot of possible mistakes out there!

[Brandon]

Diddnt use a binder the meat seemed pretty wet after the injection, and I diddnt use any wrapping liquid. I think I will wait till 170 to wrap next time and see how that goes. But at least these mistakes still turn out delicious.

[Jerod Broussard]

Don't wrap based on temp, wrap based on bark. Once you get ample bark, check the temp to see how far along you are and wrap.

Most of mine get wrapped, a few don't due to high humidity levels in the cooker.

[Brandon]

thanks for the advice I will keep that in mind on my next one.

[DWCowles]

Pay close attention to Jerod Broussard he is the "Brisket King"

[CandySueQ]

Here's how to re-set your bark! Drain the jus -- leave the foil open and put it back in the cooker for about 10-15 minutes. Bark will set right back up.

[Brandon]

Thanks for the tip. I think my biggest mistake was not letting the bark set up before I wrapped. Guess I got a bit anxious.

[SteveFromLafayette]

Keep a water pan in your smoker. Humidity is your friend. Keep a spray bottle with a liquid of your choice near the smoker. When you open the smoker to check on the meat, hit it with the spray. This removes any clinging smoke to reveal the true color of the meat.

When it's dark enough, (nearly black), wrap it up.

Here's a brisket I cooked Saturday.

[Brandon]

That looks delicious.

[SteveFromLafayette]

Thanks! It was!