Hi Everybody!
So I decided to try my hand at making a whole packer this weekend. The last time I tried brisket, it was using my WSM (and stoker which malfunctioned so I wound up fighting temps all cook long). I had bought some local grass-fed brisket, but it was frozen and the point and flat were seperated. It didn't turn out well at all. The flat was very dry and tough. The point was pretty good though.
So now that I have a pellet smoker and can rely a bit more on stable temps, and wanting to branch out from pulled pork and ribs, I decided to try brisket, this time a whole packer. I read meathead's article that brisket is garbage-in garbage-out so I looked for the best meat I could find and was able to find a Prime, CAB Brisket at a local butcher. It was expensive (5.99 a lb), but Costco only had choice flats and I don't have a sam's club membership (they had angus choice packers for 2.50 a lb).
Anyway, wanting to 1) do justice to the meat and 2) do a good job, I wanted to ask for any best practices and input based on y'all's great wealth of knowledge.
I plan to follow Meathead's recipe, except a neighbor who is a competition cook suggested using peach paper (I think meathead foils).
I plan on starting the brisket saturday so I can eat it sunday and not having to deal with cleanup on a "school night". I'm going to trim and dry brine it with salt tonight. For the trim, I was going to try and get the fat cap down to like 1/8" and try to remove most of the solid fat between the point and the flat so that it cooks more evenly
Saturday I plan to inject it with beef broth and rub it with Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub before throwing it on the smoker. I'm thinking around 8pm. The first two hours I'll run the Rec Tec on extreme smoke and spritz it with beef broth (~200 degrees) to maximize smoke flavor (I don't have an A-Maze-N tube yet) and then cook it on 225 overnight. I'll check the temps when I get up around 6 and wrap it when it hits ~150(?). If it's already past 150 at that point, would you wrap or just continue nekkid? If I wrap, do I then leave the meat wrapped with a food temp probe in it until it hits ~200 or do I take it out after it passes 180? Once the meat is probe-tender, cut the point off to make burnt ends per meathead's recipe, and wrap the flat to hold for a few hours. Then cook the burnt ends per Meathead's recipe and then hold them with the flat until eating-time.
I know she''ll be done when she wants, but I'm figuring if I throw it on at 8, allow for a slower smoke in the beginning but accelerated from wrapping, it should be done cooking around noon or so, allowing for either a late lunch or early dinner.
I'm sure I've gotten something wrong in this plan, so feedback and corrections are appreciated. I'd rather correct a mistake upfront rather than ruin a nice piece of meat! Thank you so much!
So I decided to try my hand at making a whole packer this weekend. The last time I tried brisket, it was using my WSM (and stoker which malfunctioned so I wound up fighting temps all cook long). I had bought some local grass-fed brisket, but it was frozen and the point and flat were seperated. It didn't turn out well at all. The flat was very dry and tough. The point was pretty good though.
So now that I have a pellet smoker and can rely a bit more on stable temps, and wanting to branch out from pulled pork and ribs, I decided to try brisket, this time a whole packer. I read meathead's article that brisket is garbage-in garbage-out so I looked for the best meat I could find and was able to find a Prime, CAB Brisket at a local butcher. It was expensive (5.99 a lb), but Costco only had choice flats and I don't have a sam's club membership (they had angus choice packers for 2.50 a lb).
Anyway, wanting to 1) do justice to the meat and 2) do a good job, I wanted to ask for any best practices and input based on y'all's great wealth of knowledge.
I plan to follow Meathead's recipe, except a neighbor who is a competition cook suggested using peach paper (I think meathead foils).
I plan on starting the brisket saturday so I can eat it sunday and not having to deal with cleanup on a "school night". I'm going to trim and dry brine it with salt tonight. For the trim, I was going to try and get the fat cap down to like 1/8" and try to remove most of the solid fat between the point and the flat so that it cooks more evenly
Saturday I plan to inject it with beef broth and rub it with Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub before throwing it on the smoker. I'm thinking around 8pm. The first two hours I'll run the Rec Tec on extreme smoke and spritz it with beef broth (~200 degrees) to maximize smoke flavor (I don't have an A-Maze-N tube yet) and then cook it on 225 overnight. I'll check the temps when I get up around 6 and wrap it when it hits ~150(?). If it's already past 150 at that point, would you wrap or just continue nekkid? If I wrap, do I then leave the meat wrapped with a food temp probe in it until it hits ~200 or do I take it out after it passes 180? Once the meat is probe-tender, cut the point off to make burnt ends per meathead's recipe, and wrap the flat to hold for a few hours. Then cook the burnt ends per Meathead's recipe and then hold them with the flat until eating-time.
I know she''ll be done when she wants, but I'm figuring if I throw it on at 8, allow for a slower smoke in the beginning but accelerated from wrapping, it should be done cooking around noon or so, allowing for either a late lunch or early dinner.
I'm sure I've gotten something wrong in this plan, so feedback and corrections are appreciated. I'd rather correct a mistake upfront rather than ruin a nice piece of meat! Thank you so much!
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