Help with brisket please!

[CandySueQ]

Looks yummy and it plumped up very nicely!

[Dewesq55]

Looks like plenty of smoke ring to me. If you watch Doc Blonder's seminar on smoke, wood and the smoker ring, it doesn't have much or anything to do with how much wood you use. Cold, moist meat with a neutral or alkaline PH and nitrous oxide from combustion, which you should get from charcoal, should produce a smoke ring.

[bennyo]

Here's a quick shot of one of the pieces. I got a little caught up with breakfast etc and didn't use as much wood as I had intended to, so there wasn't much of a smoke ring. I am looking forward to doing a whole packer, if this is anything to go by it's a wonderful part of the cow

[The Burn]

Forget the pics, I want samples

[Huskee]

Great! Good job. No pics?

[bennyo]

Well, I am pleased to say that it actually turned out rather well. The beef was on from 4am until 11am when it hit 203f. It stalled around 140f for a couple of hours, and with the deadline approaching I wrapped it at 9am in the 150s. I also cranked the heat up from 225 to 275 to try to speed up the process. After that the internal temperature rose fairly steadily, but the last few degrees seemed to take forever. I put it in the faux cambro for a little over 2 hours and when it came out, it was still smoking hot.

It turned out delicious. My guests were very impressed. I can't wait to actually try out these techniques on a whole packer.

Thanks for the assistance along the way.

[tomtel84]

Sounds like a good plan to me.....I'm looking forward to the report as to how this worked.

[David Parrish]

I agree with Huskee on this one... low and slow.

[fracmeister]

If you don't normally inject, this might be the time to do so. I still think you want low and slow. You might just have to have some chopped sandwiches with the thinnest bits, but there is no eternal punishment reserved for that in my particular religious faith.

[Huskee]

Gotcha. It's hard to say on the thin brisket flat, ribs have bones which behave differently than solid muscle. But as long as you're going to be attentive to it in case it varies from the game plan you should be able to adjust things to make it happen, should it be necessary to.

Please report back your findings, as this will help other members who search this type of thing!

[bennyo]

Yeah the smokenator has had no issues with 8ish hours before at 225. I normally put in 45 unlit briquettes and 15 lit. This will be my first unattended cook, so I will put a few extra unlit in there this time. Sorry for the confusion, I am doing the brisket, but I based the estimated time on the 1" thick beef rib cook time, as thats the closest thing I could find. Im really in unknown territory with my slice of flat

[Huskee]

Are you planning on a 7hr run from one load in the smokenator? Also I'm confused, are you cooking brisket or beef ribs?

[bennyo]

Ok, I have a plan. Please tell me what you think. My hardware is a 22.5" Weber kettle, smokenator and auber 1615. We are serving Christmas lunch between 12 and 1pm. I will put the pork on tonight at 8pm, then go to bed. At 3am I will get up and put the beef on, cut in half, but separate. I may stay up from then, to keep a close eye on things. Estimating the cook time from the beef ribs recipe, I'm expecting to pull it off sometime between 8 and 10am. With any luck the pork will be at 203f around the same time. Then it's into the faux cambro for both. If worse comes to worse and the beef is ready too far ahead of time, i will wrap it and stick it in the oven at 175. Then I'll take it up to 325 and the turkey will go in. Thoughts? Any holes in my plan that you can see?

[bennyo]

Thanks for the helpful replies.

Any guesses on how long this might take to cook at 225?

I was thinking to myself that I could cut it in half, then sit the two halves on top of each other. Theoretically this should make it cook like a single piece. Then when it's up toward 203 I could separate them and get the bark going on the two sides that had been in the middle. Thoughts?

I had originally ordered a 6.5lb brisket and 6.5lb butt and expected to be able to cook them overnight at 225. Seems like it's going to take a bit more thinking than that

[Huskee]

Yeah it might not if it's abnormally thin, it may be a quick stall. I've done flats that had a definite stall, and I've done a full 16lb packer that had zero stall and was ready for the cambro at the 4hr mark cooked at 240! You just never know.