Brisket Over & Under Cooked?

[LA Pork Butt]

I am no brisket expert, since I do maybe 2 a year. I cook on a BGE and I assume your heat source is below the meat just like on my BGE. Because of space issues I separate the flat from the point and I would suggest you try doing the same. I started a thread which includes a video from thermoworks that details the process of separating the flat from the point and doing a 6 hour brisket. https://youtu.be/Wf4fiJDbMcs?si=jkEjDcxyEYrJd-Z7
It might help if you decide to try separating the two.

[Alan Brice]

I never saw that you had done a toast test on your cooker. As Draznnl mentioned this will tell you where the hot spots are. Lastly, nearly as important as all the other steps combined, find some time to rest the meat.
I have pulled one at 1am then wrapped and into the kitchen oven (most will drop to 170*- 160*) til first thing in the morning. The difference is simply amazing. Well done Sir! You have the keys to the kingdom! Enjoy the journey, PitMaster.

[realdocBBQ]

Yes, fat cap and point towards your hottest part, honestly. They can take the heat - so in a pellet smoker, heat is coming from the bottom - the fat on the bottom will keep it from getting overcooked, hard, crunchy and undesirable. However, this does compress your fat cap as it cooks, and you lose some of the ability to really render that fat and keep it juicy, moist, soft, caramel-like - what they call "sugar cookie" fat cap.

Really, to get this, you've got to cook fat cap up - uncompressed by the weight of the brisket pressing the fat cap down into the grate surface.

This is why offsets rule! lol j/k, but not really.

An offset allows you to cook top-down, with the fat cap up, render that fat, develop the sugar cookie fat with crispy bark, but protect the flat from overcooking because it's on the down side. Most other cookers cook from the bottom up, whether radiant or direct heat, whatever. All kinds of methods out there to try to protect that bottom side, so you CAN cook fat cap up, but protect the bottom - heat shields, water pans and deflectors, turning, flipping, rotating, etc., But think about it - drum/barrel cookers, pellet cookers, kamodos, reverse flows, etc. Most all of 'em are cooking from the bottom up - there's a reason a traditional flow offset is generally considered the holy grail for brisket cooking. Not that you CANNOT get good brisket any other way - but this is the best way to achieve those specific goals. Hell, you can cook a brisket in a toaster oven, a conventional oven (Jewish style?) or however you want - but achieving that beautiful, deep dark bark, caramelized layer of 'sugar cookie' yellowed/browned fat cap, keeping the meat moist and tender, rendering all the intramuscular collagen into glycerin, etc... this is pretty much best achieved all at once in a traditional flow offset. Everything else is kind of a compromise - because that's a big, heavy, wood-hungry cooker, and she's an attention whore as well, you have to keep tending that fire and know how to stoke it, manage it and maintain it - think of a super hot but high-maintenance Puerto Rican girlfriend! lol Or owning a Ferrari or Lambo - fun, attention-grabbing and performance like you wouldn't believe - but comes with a pricetag, in a lot of ways. lol

That's just my opinion. So yes, in a pellet cooker, fat cap down is the safest. Using some heat shields and going fat cap up is a reasonable compromise, though... but...

DO NOT COOK A BRISKET IN A PELLET COOKER HOT AND FAST (300+) WITH A WATER PAN DIRECTLY UNDER IT!

Don't ask. <sigh>

[J-Melt]

Hmm, I wonder if my Backwoods Party 2 would work cooking fat cap up since it’s a reverse flow and had the heat come from the top.