Brisket help

[Bob's BBQ]

Cooking for my niece's wedding rehearsal dinner. Dinner is 6:00PM Friday. (2) 15# briskets and (6) 8# butts. All oak cook at 250 degrees. Going to start cooking at 3:00AM. Wasn't planning on crutching anything. Hoping on an hour or two hold in a cambro. Does this sound like enough time?

[Huskee]

Not for me. Butts seem to take roughly 16 hrs for me unwrapped, and you're allowing 15 total. But, my personal experience is that by the time it's been 16hrs, and the butts are at 195*, they don't need much cambro time.

My advice, purely for 'better safe than sorry', is give it another 1-2hrs, or consider wrapping after the stall.

Brisket, no clue, I never do nekkid briskets. Did one once and didn't care for it personally.

[Scout789]

I would start no later than midnight. The briskets will need to be at least 195 deg if not 200. If they finish early, you can always cambro a little longer. I'm a very nervous cooker when cooking for others. Good luck!

[CaptainMike]

My limited experience is the brisket will be fine in that timeframe, but wrap the butts at 160-170.

[smn1285]

I would definitely put them on at midnight. You don’t wanna be rushed/stressed/sweating as 6pm quickly approaches. Get those things done and cambro them for several hours. They are safe in the cambro just don’tet them get below 140 the danger zone.

[Bob's BBQ]

Thanks for the feedback folks. I'll add a couple of hours.

[dahcopilot]

having to keep them warm a few hours is easy and stressless

[ecowper]

For that amount of food, and good sized butts and briskets, I would give the meat 15-16 hours to cook, figure your hour of prep time before hand (getting rubs on, bringing smoker up to temp, etc), plus 2 hours cushion at the end (cambro hold, an hour of just in case, pulling, slicing, etc) .... I would say this is a 19 hour effort .... which means start at 11 PM, maybe even 10 PM ... don't want to have hungry guests drinking champagne wondering where the food is

[JoeSousa]

I have held briskets and pork butts for 6 hours wrapped in towels in a cooler. So definitely err on the side of being done early. A 10 PM-Midnight start should be fine. Much better to be done 4 hours early than 10 minutes late.

[texastweeter]

I always plan on 22-24 hours. that gives me 3-4 hours cambrio and a couple house wiggle room. on big cooks I figure 16-18 hours on brisket and butt. Lots of thermal mass in that cooker.

[Bob's BBQ]

Thanks all! Had a great time with this cook. Started the fire at 1:00AM. Meat went on at 1:30. Did a nice job holding temp at 250 for the length of the cook. The briskets came off about 3:00PM and the shoulders between 2:00PM and 3:30PM. Held all in the cooler until 5:00. Also did some St. Louis cut ribs on the PK for a snack at noon. Unfortunately, I was so busy when the meat started to come off that I got no pictures of the finished product! One picture before the cook to see if everything would fit, and one of smoker in action. All came out great, fed 80 people, no brisket left, some left over pulled pork. Many smiles. My niece and her new husband were very happy and their wedding on Saturday was beautiful. I appreciate all the advice from the great folks in the Pit!!

[Donw]

Congratulations for the successful cook, and to the new couple. You added a good memory to their special day.

[klflowers]

Congrats on a successful day.

[Bob's BBQ]

Forgot to mention - made some of Huskee 's BBQ sauce. It was one of the most complimented items on the menu. I really liked it on the pulled pork. Going to make another batch to sizzle on some ribs. Thanks Huskee for sharing the recipe!!

[Henrik]

Congrats on a successful cook! I love that chubby smoker, looks really cool!