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Conquering My Personal BBQ Everest: Perfect Brisket On Weber 22" Kettle

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    Conquering My Personal BBQ Everest: Perfect Brisket On Weber 22" Kettle

    Hey guys,

    I'm new to The Pit and thought this would be a good story to kick off with some lessons learned with a lot of help from this website. I know a lot of us on here and grinding away with our Weber 22" kettles and hopefully my experience can help you avoid some mistakes I've learned the hard way! As noted in the title, perfect Texas-style brisket has always been incredibly intimidating and something I thought was unapproachable with my limited equipment. Last year, I jumped in and went for it. To stick with the Mt. Everest theme, this first attempt left me lying under an avalanche left for dead! It wasn't pretty. The meat was dry, bitter and tough. No bueno!

    After some self reflection and a lot of learning, I think I made a few catastrophic errors:
    1) I bought the wrong meat: I picked up a low grade "Hunk o' Flat" that was on sale at the grocery store
    2) I didn't critically monitor my heat: I hadn't invested in a good digital thermometer and thought I could cook by feel. Big mistake.
    3) I didn't inject the meat
    4) I killed it with smoke: Texas brisket, Texas wood right? Mesquite wood must be awesome for brisket! Incorrect. I am sure in proper proportions mesquite would have been fine, but I kept hitting it with smoke through out the cook and it left a nasty, strong bitter taste to the meat that was unpalatable.

    Needless to say, after this failed attempt I was dejected and felt convinced my intuition was correct. Brisket on my grill just wasn't in the cards. Flash forward a year and my skills and confidence have come a long way. I added a digital thermometer to my tool kit and have had some very successful long cooks on ribs, tri tips, pork butts, etc. where I was able to manage my temps, albeit with a lot of baby sitting. After reading Meathead's article "Brisket Texas Style, The Ultimate Technique and Recipe", I started to think maybe I could take another run at this behemoth....screw it, I decided to give it another shot!

    First things first, I went to my local butcher shop and selected the highest grade brisket they offered. Knowing that cooking space is somewhat limited and I wasn't feeding 20 people, I asked the butcher to trim it down to a ~9lbs piece that was a combination of the point and flat with fat cap intact. Once home, I trimmed off the fat cap down to 1/4 thick and reserved the fat for later use (rendered drippings for use in pinto beans and the mop sauce, and crispy chunks for dog treats). After that, I liberally salted with coarse sea salt and set it in the fridge on a rack for an overnight dry brine.
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    Fully committed, I set the alarm for 2 am and added my dry rub to and injected the brisket with ~1.5 cups of beef broth. I set up my fire for traditional indirect heat but with one manipulation. I recently purchased the rotisserie attachment from Weber and it comes with a metal ring that sits on top of your standard grill. I thought this may be an opportunity to give myself a little extra space from the fire to the meat and help with controlling low temps, so I busted out my extra grate and set them on top of some bricks sitting on the original grate. This raised the meat approximately 6" higher than your standard set up and the water pan was situated directly below.
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    Once the fire stabilized at 235, I added some chunks of local South Georgia Water Oak we cut at my father in laws house to get close to the traditional Post Oak used in Texas brisket. With probes in place, I decided to monitor just the grill for the first few hours knowing the meat wouldn't rise fast if my fire was under control. By the grace of god and with a LOT of messing with the dampers, adding coals, I was able to maintain a steady temp in the 225-235 range. One other new trick I used was to borrow the battery powered fan we bought to clip to our newborn's stroller as an aid to stoke the fires and wood chunks as I added them each time I basted the meat, every ~45 minutes or so to keep any dips or spikes in the cooking temp.

    After 5 hours, the brisket hit 148 and I decided to wrap. After some debate, I decided to give the Aaron Franklin method a try, which was to wrap the meat in untreated butcher paper. The theory is that the butcher paper keeps the integrity of your bark better than the traditional Texas Crutch method of wrapping in foil.

    Time to wrap
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ID:	522609Once in the wrap, I put one probe in the meat and the other stayed on the grate to monitor cooking temp. Ultimately, I found that the butcher paper didn't help me much with pushing through the stall. We hit 170ish and stayed there....for a LONG time. I decided to add an external foil wrap around the butcher paper and that helped push on through to my target temp of 203. Once we hit 203, I kept the probe in the meat and moved it into the faux cambro (towel lined plastic cooler) for 2 hours to further tenderize the meat. Once out of the cooler, I unwrapped the meat and let it cool to 140 degrees before slicing.

    I used Meathead's tutorial and sliced in the "Sorkin Method". The moment of truth had arrived.....
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ID:	522612 Success!!!! Each piece from the center cut was absolutely moist and delicious. The integrity of the bark held up better than expected and the brine/injecting method helped keep the meat nice and juicy. I finally overcame my arch nemesis with a lot of educating myself, patience and attention to detail. I was incredibly pleased with the results and thankful for all the information on this site to guide my path. Anything within reason is achievable on the kettle if you're willing to dedicate the time and attention to maintain low n' slow temps. A good thermometer and some redneck ingenuity will go a long way towards your success. Next challenge will be beef ribs this weekend!

    #2
    Congrats! Keep up the good work.

    Comment


      #3
      Conquering Everest without leaving the backyard, now that is something even I could aspire to! Congratulations on the first of many.

      Comment


        #4
        I shared a very similar story a year ago here (search for "central Texas brisket on the PBC") also with great results! It's a great feeling when you nail your first brisket! Looks awesome!

        Comment


          #5
          Persistence too! Congrats!

          Comment


            #6
            Nicely done!

            Comment


              #7
              Congrats!

              Comment


                #8
                Great job now your next big accomplishment should be a elephant brisket or elephant ribs 😁

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                  #9
                  Haha thanks guys! Going after beef ribs this weekend. Also, after reading overwhelmingly positive reviews on here, I broke down and bought the Slow n' Sear 2.0 to hopefully alleviate some of the baby sitting I experienced with this cook. Look forward to sharing more soon!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The SnS will be a game changer. The work you did was mighty fine! The 2nd & 3rd pic startled me, wow! Now, there is nothin that you can’t do.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Awesome!! Looks great!! I use a balloon animal pump to stoke the fire. A battery fan also works! I have had 2 BBQ Dragon fans which broke. Back to balloon pump!

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                      • customtrim
                        customtrim commented
                        Editing a comment
                        $2.00 hair dryer from goodwill thru the bottom vent is what I use

                      • EdF
                        EdF commented
                        Editing a comment
                        I like that customtrim !

                      #12
                      Very Nice!

                      Comment


                        #13
                        Great job, yer gonna jus love havin a Slow n Sear!

                        Comment


                          #14
                          Super fun!! Keep 'em cooking

                          Comment


                            #15
                            Great cook! Smoke on...

                            Comment

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