The Boy Goes Back to College on Monday

[ecowper]

So that means we need a brisket and Mac n cheese to send him off right! Had an almost 12 pound brisket in the freezer that I picked up on a whim at Costco a while back. Let it defrost and sit in the garage fridge for a week, or so. Trimmed it today. It's on the smaller side, I think it's only going to need 12 hours, at most. Maybe less.

Before trimming - 11.7 lbs
Trim style - aggressive ... I get rid of almost all fat cap and a lot of the fat between the point and flat.
After trimming - 8.1 lbs

I figure that might only need 10 hours, but I'm going to plan for 12. If it comes off at 10, I'll hold it longer in the ol' faux cambro. My wife will make her world famous 5 cheese (plus some beer) Mac n cheese. And probably a green salad and some good, crusty bread. There will be six of us, so there might even be some leftovers. If I'm lucky.

Here's the pics of trimming the brisket. I'll post cooking and slicing and plating pics tomorrow.


Still in the cryovac


Looking at the top of the brisket after trimming ..... nice pile o' fat and crud


Looking at the bottom of the brisket, pretty close to done trimming


Salted for some dry brining and ready to go in the fridge overnight.

[Butchman]

Looks great! Our costco here is now selling whole packer choice briskets for 2.79 a pound.

[ecowper]

Sheesh, you should yell at your Costco .... I'm getting Prime Packers for $2.99 to $3.29, depending on the time of year.

[PBCDad]

ecowper I was in Costco in Woodinville the other week and they were selling the packers for $3.99/lb!!! Word must be spreading

[ecowper]

PBCDad holy f********** and other expletives .... $3.99/lb .... are they gonna trim it for me?

[tbob4]

Looks like you Vandalized that for him!

[ecowper]

Well, the boy has a girlfriend now ... she's in a sorority .... with her living in the sorority house and him in the dorms, I think that may have been a bit awkward EdF

[tbob4]

The PM is messing up - I received a blank message from you and responded. When I hit send my responses telling you it was blank was blank as well.

[ecowper]

tbob4 .... 1. modern IPA is awful. 2. Sierra Nevada is fantastic stuff. 3. Shoot me a note at my pit master handle at gmail dot com

[ecowper]

Got up at 4 AM and fired up the WSM .... brisket went on about 4:45 .... it's well into the stall now and the bark is nicely set, so I just wrapped it. I am expecting to pull it somewhere around 4 PM. Smallish brisket, won't even take 12 hours.

Charcoal chimney at 4:10


Dumped the briquettes in the WSM ... Purty flames


Brisket all nice and ready ..... I use the same "secret" rub as Aaron Franklin


And the brisket at an internal temp of about 160

[Mr. Bones]

Lookin' wonderful!!!
Hope ya' can post more pics...

[Spinaker]

I can't think of a better way to send him off!

[ecowper]

Okay, this brisket is crazy ..... I thought I was in the stall. Nope. It never actually stalled. It is going to be done in 7 hours. Will be holding in a faux cambro for 5 hours! Holy Schnikey

Each large dip in the grate temp is the lid being opened. Each small bump in the brisket temp is me repositioning the probe. The really big grate temp dip is when I wrapped the brisket.



The detail view on the Fireboard is also pretty slick.

[ecowper]

In spite of having to hold the brisket for over 5 hours, dinner was pretty darn good.

[DWCowles]

Looks good

[ecowper]

Brisket was overdone and falling apart. :-(