I neglected to take pictures, unfortunately, so this will be more difficult but I'd like some feedback. I am very happy where I am with chicken, ribs, and pulled pork but I continue to struggle a bit with brisket. A neighbour asked if I'd cook their brisket for them, which I happily agreed. It tasted quite good but I was disappointed with the texture/tenderness. I'll outline things a bit below but I am particularly interested in feedback on my wrapping process.
My setup:
18.5 Weber Smokey mountain.
Temp stayed pretty consistently around the 260 mark
Meat was a flat-only brisket. it was on the smaller but came trimmed up pretty well.
Process:
Friday early evening. Salted meat at 1/2 teaspoon per lbs and put back in fridge until Saturday am
Early Saturday am - took meat out and rubbed it and back in the fridge for a bit
Started the cook around 9:30am (much later than I wanted unfortunately).
The plan was to follow an idea I found in a recipe to wrap brisket through the stall, take out just before the finish temperature, and glaze and return to the smoker to finish.
This is how things went. The temp started to level off around 155 or 160 so I wrapped it in two layers of foil and back on the smoker.
Around 188 (I believe), I took it off, unwrapped in a pan to save all the juices, glazed, and returned to the smoker. I did notice that some of the bark seemed to have washed off a bit (maybe the wrong description) which I thought was a bit odd.
Anyway, back it went on the smoker but now the temp had dipped way down back into the 160's. And it stayed there quite a while. I tried increasing the temperature a bit, but it hadn't moved a whole lot and it was getting close to 4pm, I wanted to take it off, wrap it, and let it rest for a few hours before dinner time.
I did do a probe test (previously, I had gone strictly on temperature) and it was decent on the narrower parts of the flat, but still a bit stiff on the thicker part.
As a backup, I took that au jus from earlier, mixed it with some leftover rub, a bit of butter, and a little bit of bbq sauce to thicken it and heated that up right before serving things. I think that helped and, as I said, people were complimentary but I was pretty disappointed with it (other than the sauce). I had also threw on a bunch of chicken thighs while the brisket was resting so at least the brisket didnt need to be the carry the meal.
I'm interested in others opinions but my self-analysis led me to 2 main problems:
1 - worrying about dinner time instead of just letting it cook until it is ready but the temperature drop really threw me off. (Starting late didnt help either, obviously)
2 - I may have wrapped it too early (and not let the bark from well enough) which was likely me adhering to a temperature read out instead of my own eyeballs.
Anyway, input appreciated.
My setup:
18.5 Weber Smokey mountain.
Temp stayed pretty consistently around the 260 mark
Meat was a flat-only brisket. it was on the smaller but came trimmed up pretty well.
Process:
Friday early evening. Salted meat at 1/2 teaspoon per lbs and put back in fridge until Saturday am
Early Saturday am - took meat out and rubbed it and back in the fridge for a bit
Started the cook around 9:30am (much later than I wanted unfortunately).
The plan was to follow an idea I found in a recipe to wrap brisket through the stall, take out just before the finish temperature, and glaze and return to the smoker to finish.
This is how things went. The temp started to level off around 155 or 160 so I wrapped it in two layers of foil and back on the smoker.
Around 188 (I believe), I took it off, unwrapped in a pan to save all the juices, glazed, and returned to the smoker. I did notice that some of the bark seemed to have washed off a bit (maybe the wrong description) which I thought was a bit odd.
Anyway, back it went on the smoker but now the temp had dipped way down back into the 160's. And it stayed there quite a while. I tried increasing the temperature a bit, but it hadn't moved a whole lot and it was getting close to 4pm, I wanted to take it off, wrap it, and let it rest for a few hours before dinner time.
I did do a probe test (previously, I had gone strictly on temperature) and it was decent on the narrower parts of the flat, but still a bit stiff on the thicker part.
As a backup, I took that au jus from earlier, mixed it with some leftover rub, a bit of butter, and a little bit of bbq sauce to thicken it and heated that up right before serving things. I think that helped and, as I said, people were complimentary but I was pretty disappointed with it (other than the sauce). I had also threw on a bunch of chicken thighs while the brisket was resting so at least the brisket didnt need to be the carry the meal.
I'm interested in others opinions but my self-analysis led me to 2 main problems:
1 - worrying about dinner time instead of just letting it cook until it is ready but the temperature drop really threw me off. (Starting late didnt help either, obviously)
2 - I may have wrapped it too early (and not let the bark from well enough) which was likely me adhering to a temperature read out instead of my own eyeballs.
Anyway, input appreciated.
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