Last weekend I hear a knocking at my back door. It's my dear next door neighbor Brad. It's not unusual for him to knock on the back door, but usually it's because he needs help fixing something. Well, in a manner of speaking he had in hand something he wanted fixed.......................a frozen 17.5 lb. choice packer brisket. He tried to hand it to me spinning some yarn about how he knew I was the only one who could cook it properly 
. I said something like "Yeah, okay, but didn't you get a new pellet pooper last year? Why don't you do it on that?" He was unrelenting so I caved, in part because it's been a couple years since I've done a brisket, and I don't recall if I've ever done one on the LSG Texas Edition offset. So I caved. But I told him to put it in his refrigerator for three days to let it thaw, bring it back on Wednesday for me to do the trim and seasoning.
Right on time he brought it over and the process began. He got it on some kind of sale at a Kroger up North when visiting one of his kids. It wasn't one I would have chosen as it was kind of a wonky looking thing but I was committed. It trimmed up fairly well all things considered though the fat cap was thin to scalped in a couple spots (as we'll see later), and had a large wedge shaped deckle that I only lightly trimmed. Ended up with about a 13 lb. brisket ready for smokin'.
Fired up the offset first thing after getting up Thursday morning preparing for a nice day of fire tending. Put the seasoned brisket on at about 6a.m.
If you look closely you can see the huge wedge of deckle fat.
It cruised along just fine for a couple/three hours and the bark was beginning to set as expected. About 2.5 lb of trimmed fat also getting turned into smoked tallow for future use.
It was a fairly nice day, too hot for some of the Texas wussies you saw in another recent thread, but fine for me. Also got a bit of a rain shower toward the end of the cook in mid afternoon, but didn't seem to matter to the LSG. Brad did come over for moral support, and to drink some beer which was appreciated. Total cook time was right around 10 hours. For logistic reasons I knew it was going to be in the holding oven for almost a full day so I pulled it just a bit early at 195 degrees, though it probed nice and tender even at that temp. Here it is ready to wrap for it's holding oven nap at 147 degrees once it cooled to 150 on the counter.
Here we are at Friday evening and the four of us are ready to eat so out comes the board and knife for the carving.
I was a bit concerned that 23 hours of holding at temp might impact the finished product but that was a waste of concern. I cut very nicely, was plenty juicy, and the only part that approached overdone were a couple spots where the fat cap had been scalped in the butchering process.
Otherwise, a model Central Texas style brisket if I do say so myself. Since I don't do these very often I felt pretty good about it. That weird large wedge of deckle fat can be seen, and because of it's size it didn't render fully as would be desirable, but if I shot to achieve that the meat portion would have been ruined. Such are the tradeoffs, play the hand you're dealt.
. I said something like "Yeah, okay, but didn't you get a new pellet pooper last year? Why don't you do it on that?" He was unrelenting so I caved, in part because it's been a couple years since I've done a brisket, and I don't recall if I've ever done one on the LSG Texas Edition offset. So I caved. But I told him to put it in his refrigerator for three days to let it thaw, bring it back on Wednesday for me to do the trim and seasoning.Right on time he brought it over and the process began. He got it on some kind of sale at a Kroger up North when visiting one of his kids. It wasn't one I would have chosen as it was kind of a wonky looking thing but I was committed. It trimmed up fairly well all things considered though the fat cap was thin to scalped in a couple spots (as we'll see later), and had a large wedge shaped deckle that I only lightly trimmed. Ended up with about a 13 lb. brisket ready for smokin'.
Fired up the offset first thing after getting up Thursday morning preparing for a nice day of fire tending. Put the seasoned brisket on at about 6a.m.
If you look closely you can see the huge wedge of deckle fat.
It cruised along just fine for a couple/three hours and the bark was beginning to set as expected. About 2.5 lb of trimmed fat also getting turned into smoked tallow for future use.
It was a fairly nice day, too hot for some of the Texas wussies you saw in another recent thread, but fine for me. Also got a bit of a rain shower toward the end of the cook in mid afternoon, but didn't seem to matter to the LSG. Brad did come over for moral support, and to drink some beer which was appreciated. Total cook time was right around 10 hours. For logistic reasons I knew it was going to be in the holding oven for almost a full day so I pulled it just a bit early at 195 degrees, though it probed nice and tender even at that temp. Here it is ready to wrap for it's holding oven nap at 147 degrees once it cooled to 150 on the counter.
Here we are at Friday evening and the four of us are ready to eat so out comes the board and knife for the carving.
I was a bit concerned that 23 hours of holding at temp might impact the finished product but that was a waste of concern. I cut very nicely, was plenty juicy, and the only part that approached overdone were a couple spots where the fat cap had been scalped in the butchering process.
Otherwise, a model Central Texas style brisket if I do say so myself. Since I don't do these very often I felt pretty good about it. That weird large wedge of deckle fat can be seen, and because of it's size it didn't render fully as would be desirable, but if I shot to achieve that the meat portion would have been ruined. Such are the tradeoffs, play the hand you're dealt.
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