That brisket sure took its time getting to the finish line ...

[WillieMac]

Pitmasters: Looking for your thoughts on what seemed like a strange cook overnight Friday into Saturday afternoon. My third stab at a beef brisket, second on this grill. Dry-brined, dusted and refrigerated right up hitting my SnS Kamado, riding right at 225, at 9:15 pm. It was 10.5 lbs. Beautiful early fall evening in N. Delaware, overnight temp was mid-50s, with a light breeze. Babysat it for an hour. Everything looked good and steady - 230ish - so I hit the rack. Walking out back at 6:45 - 9.5 hrs later - I figured I'd be in the stall. It was sitting at 151 internal with a nice bark happening. The grill temp had fallen to 181! I'd never lost more than 10 degrees overnight on the SnS. Figured I'd better look since the meat was probably stalled anyway. So I removed the meat, wrapped it in butcher paper (but not too tightly - maybe a mistake?), took off the grill and deflector plate, and had a look. I'd used one firestarter, in the center, and there was now a perfect circle of ash about 6" wide. Sorta looked like my fire had stalled! So I stirred the coals up a bit, tapped the underside of the plate to free up ash buildup, put everything back and opened the vents wide to bring it back. By now, the meat had dropped to 144. By 9, it was over 150 and rising - grill now at 222 - but VERY slowly. By 10, it was only up to 156. By 12:30, it still hadn't made past 165. I had guests coming for dinner and was starting to wonder. Pondered the wrapping, took it off and switched to a tight aluminum foil wrap. Upped the fire a bit - 250ish. Finally hit 203 - at 3:45! Rested in a faux cambro for 2 more hrs. But 18.5 hours! I'd previously cooked a similar brisket in the same grill in 12.

On the plus side, it turned out juicy and tender and tasted just great - nice and oaky. Made a nice jus out of the drippings while it rested. Our guests loved it. So ... thoughts? Here are mine. Used B&B oak charcoal but I started with the bottom 1/4 of the bag, which was the mostly smaller chunks that fall to the bottom, and added fresh chunks from a new bag. Maybe there wasn't enough air flow? Still, doesn't explain how long it took after the grill regained temperature. Meat wasn't tightly wrapped with the paper? Anyone else use this stuff to beat the stall? And once you're past it, do you take it off for the rest of the cook? Thanks in advance, all.

Re that last pic: No, wasn't cooking at 369 but it sure took off on me when all that air poured in!

[Alan Brice]

WillieMac yer briskie looks amazing! Of all the countless ones I have cooked, no two have eva been the same.
Briskie is an adventure in patience. Enjoy the results. My very first one was in an electric box smoker. 41hrs Yumm

[WillieMac]

Almost 2 days! I've got no room to complain! Fortunately, great results. Had leftovers (including the jus) last night. Yum indeed.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Multiple factors, of course - the low temps overnight (for who knows how long???), then the loose wrap and still only bringing temp up to 225F.

Personally I ALWAYS cook at 250-275, unless I'm doing an experiment to check something out. I've found 15hour cooks are NOT unusual for brisket at those lower temps at all. And I've found no problems at all with 250-275 - no downsides, just shorter timeframes.

Additionally, foil will help cook a lot faster than paper wrap - as you discovered. Also a tight wrap.

I think all these factors combined to give you problems, but luckily everything turned out well in the end!

It's all a learning process, for sure. Take it all as a lesson and the next cook will be even better!

Once in a while, I still have one that gives me fits. But I generally budget 12-14 hours for a brisket. I usually use the foil boat these days.

[WillieMac]

Great advice. I'm definitely going hotter next time. And foil. I'll save that butcher paper for something else.

[Mosca]

Yep, I had this happen in my BGE once. (Once in 15 years, but it did happen.) Your fire cratered. Mine also happened on an overnight cook… in -4°, middle of December! I had a remote thermometer with an alarm set up, and it went off at about 3:30AM, pit temp 180°.

I did pretty much exactly the same thing you did. The fire came back up, and the meat took forever, but it was really good!

You can do these at a higher temp, with no loss of quality, not even a nuance of difference. A lot of folks do them at 275°, I’m comfortable at 265° but really anywhere from 250° to 275°. Wherever the BGE settles in, that’s where I leave it.

The wrapping didn’t do anything really, I don’t think. I’ve done that foil boat thing on my last couple briskets, and it’s both the easiest (short of doing nothing) and has given the best results.

[WillieMac]

Thanks, Mosca! That is definitely cause for alarm! And as my previous reply, def. going hotter.

[Mosca]

The shell was frozen shut, I had to put a heat gun into the lower vent to warm it up; it took about half an hour!

[bbqLuv]

Good things come to those who wait

[WillieMac]

Truth.

[Oak Smoke]

There’s a good write up on building a fire in a kamado in the archives under kamado cookers. Basically the larger pieces need to go on bottom then medium and lastly fine ones. If not air flow becomes an issue at some point. When I first started with a kamado Joe it had a cast iron grate under the charcoal that stopped up every time I turned around. When I finally got a kick ash basket and started building my fires as per the instruction I received here things started getting better immediately. The other thing I would ask you to consider is cooking hotter and faster. My kamado holds so much moisture as it cooks that I can get away with higher temps without drying the brisket at all. I can put a 10 pound brisket on at 300 F and expect to have it in the faux cambro in 5.5 to 6 hours. I only wrap select grade briskets and dino ribs. Wrapping would actually shorten the cook time more. I’m picky about my brisket. People here in Texas know good brisket so I can’t get away with less than is expected. This method will produce very good brisket. There are several paths to good brisket. This is the one I like to take.

[jfmorris]

This sounds like good advice, and you are right - almost every bag of lump I buy has lots of small pieces and dust in the bottom of the bag, that will clog up the fire for sure.

[WillieMac]

I'll scope that out, Oak Smoke. The kamado obviously holds temp beautifully but I'd never considered humidity being trapped. And ... Kick Ash, eh?

Visited Austin in early April and skipped the line at Franklin's in favor of Mickelthwait BBQ. So glad we did. One of the pitmasters gave me a neat tour of their pit. It's like a long steel tube with all the fire - all oak of course - on one end. Fascinating how that heat carries through. Damn good eatin', too.

[WillieMac]

I checked out that old post on kamado fires, Oak Smoke. Useful. And I've put the basket on the Christmas list.

[jfmorris]

I've thankfully not had the fire die totally like that in my SNS Kamado, but that is likely due to using a fan and cheating on fire management. Lately I've been going back to just using the vents, and struggled at times to reach smoking temps. I now just run with vents WIDE open until I get within maybe 50 degrees of where I want to be. Once that meat starts the downward trend on the graph, it takes a LOT of heat and energy to reverse the trend and start it going upwards again. That's what happened here.

I am just thankful the meat was still in the "safe" zone, and turned out good.

What I do for overnight cooks on my SNS Kamado that are for dinner the next day, is just like you, 225 as my target overnight, but I'll leave it alone if it is between 225 and 250. In the morning, I open another bit on the top vent, and shoot for 275. If I am not where I want to be by 1pm, I open it up to about 300 degrees. And I wrap in foil once the brisket crosses 170, just to speed up those last few hours, so that I can get it into faux-cambro until dinner.

Oh - I monitor my cooks with a Thermoworks Smoke, and set the low temp alarm for the grate probe to 200, and the high temp alarm to 300. That way I ONLY wake up if the fire gets totally out of control, in one direction, or the other.

I will also add that as others have said, nothing wrong with running hotter the entire cook (maybe 275). I get more "smoke" flavor on my SNS Kamado that way, in kamado mode, and better bark. And I've held brisket for 6+ hours in a cooler just fine before, and it was still steaming hot when I unwrapped it. I just leave a temp probe in it, with the Smoke sitting on top of the cooler, so I know if I need to move it to a warm oven instead of the cooler. That 6 hour hold I think the meat was down to about 160, having gone into cambro at 203.

[WillieMac]

Thanks, jfmorris. It sure did. But I definitely want to go hotter next time. I sorta like the idea of starting a tad lower and building in the AM. Did you previously try going hotter all through the cook, with the result convincing you to dial it back a bit?

So momentum is a thing, is it? That had occurred to me during that slow climb back. Interesting.

Big camro fan. Mine's a snap-shut cooler and mucho towels.

[jfmorris]

WillieMac yeah - I think momentum is a thing with a hunk of meat. It takes time for the heat to penetrate to the core, and once it starts cooling, takes time to reverse that process. Otherwise - our meat would not take so long to reach the core temp when cooking low and slow.

I ran hotter one time, and the brisket was ready at 9am, a couple hours after I got up, versus being ready more mid-afternoon as I wanted. Not a huge deal though, and it worked out.

[jfmorris]

I may do 250 next overnight cook, but hesitate to push to 275 just in case I have a butt/brisket that gets done in 8 hours instead of the usual 12+.

[Murdy]

I had something similar happen on an overnight cook a few months ago. Started about 8 p.m. and pulled it about 7 a.m. after the temp had dropped into the 170s. Wrapped tight in foil and moved to the oven at 250ish. Came out fine for dinner at 6 p.m. after letting it rest several hours (4 I think).

[WillieMac]

Hadn't even thought of using the oven. But you've got to make the deadline, right? Thanks.

[LA Pork Butt]

I have Ben layering my charcoal as Oak Smoke suggested since I started cooking low and slow on my BGE almost 15 years ago. It is a great way to to control a low and slow fire. I think I might have had one of the burnouts in 15 years. I don’t know if you have electricity, but a $10 hair dryer will get that fire back to cooking temp pronto.

[WillieMac]

I'll remember the hair dryer trick, LA Pork Butt. And I thought I was layering the lump coal so there wouldn't be too much of a gap. Seems like I wasn't leaving enough!

[IdahoJim]

I've seen my brisket cooks slow down when wrapping with paper. I think it has to do with the time it takes to saturate the paper. I wrap with foil now and always get done in a decent amount of time. I usually start before 8:00am at about 250. Some time between 12:00 and 2:00 the meat is 165+ and stalled. I wrap in foil, and, depending on the time frame, meat temp etc. I may bump the temp up to 275 or so. The brisket is usually in a cooler by 3 or 4 o'clock. Regarding fire management, I cheat and use my Memphis pellet grill .

[Mosca]

I don’t want to come right out and say that bark is overrated, but…. How about, bark is really great, but not essential. Tender slices are 95%, and crisp bark is the other 5%. So if you get halfway to the bark you want, your brisket is over 97% there. I’d take that!

[WillieMac]

That makes sense, IdahoJim. I'm going with the foil. Thanks.

[WillieMac]

Thanks so much for all the great input, folks. This site is the greatest!