Baby Briskets- to Wrap or Not to Wrap

[J-Melt]

Tonight I am smoking the two briskets from the steer me and my friend split. The briskets are super tiny, the bigger of the two is just over 4 pounds after trimming. I’m smoking them on my Oklahoma Joe bronco since they actually fit side-by-side on the grate. Trying to decide if I should wrap them or not, I don’t usually on my Backwoods Party smoker, but I’m wondering if I should since this is a different smoker and these things are super tiny. Let me know if y’all have any strong thoughts either way!

[Jerod Broussard]

Smoke like normal and wrap or boat once barked up enough. I dried the crap out of my first brisket and it was wrapped at the stall. It was a small Prime flat. Over cooking will do that.

[J-Melt]

So far the smaller one is cooking crazy fast. Already at 171 per the leave in probe. In going to check it with the instant read and hope we are not actually that far yet, but who knows with such a small piece of meat.

[Jerod Broussard]

I like those but make sure you hit all parts of the flat. Ignore the point.

[J-Melt]

After using my thermopen, it is abundantly clear that my probe was in a bad spot. It is in the 150’s all over, so I moved to a different spot after much trial and error and now have a better read coming from my probe.

[HawkerXP]

Yes.

[Huskee]

I say do what you normally do. L x W dimensions and weight mean very little, it's the thickness the heat has to travel inward to do its thing that dictates cook time and such.

[STEbbq]

I wouldn’t wrap for such small pieces. Just monitor closely as you are doing because they will cook very differently than larger pieces of meat.

[J-Melt]

The results are in! The bigger of the two was actually the one that cooked way faster. Both were on at about 7:20pm last night. I went out at around 11pm to wrap when that one hit above 180 degrees, but I really did not like the bark on it, so I left it nekkid. That one flew to the finish line at about 1am. The second one hit 180 around 4am and I went ahead and wrapped it. The second one was pulled around 6:45am at about 195 degrees.

This confirmed my bias against wrapping. The one I wrapped had a very different feel that I did not like as much.

Pictured is the one that cooked nekkid straight through and a few of the leftover slices.


They ultimately cooked like tiny little briskets that just got done way quicker and still turned out pretty good!