Oh, the brisket! It's so great. It's the hardest barbecue meat to get just right. The distance (time) between tough and dry is hard to learn, hard to execute in different conditions. Here are a few thoughts to go along with the many good ones above:
1.) The more intramuscular fat in the flat, the better. You know this already, but it's hard to get a flat with no fat to feel wet to the tongue. Primes are better than Choice.
2.) Moisture retention techniques, like dry-brining or injecting, help. We trim hard (1/4 inch of exterior fat, trim down the fat between the flat and point), salt, and vacuum seal for a day or so. Dry brining helps. However, I still have side-by-side testing to do on how different length dry brines differ.
3.) Cooking the same quality of meat every week helps you know the feel of "just probe tender enough" so you can pull it before it gets too dry. With all this restaurant development activity to do, I'm not on the pit every week, like my #1 man Sam is. So I'm just not getting the reps to know exactly what the right "probe tender" is on our pits for our meat to be dead solid perfect every time. And throw into that if we get a different meat packer shipped to us, it gets a little different still.
The Point Is that If you cook on the same pit, same temp, same type/quality of brisket, same wrap technique, you get better at knowing the feel of when to pull your brisket to have it wonderfully tender and not-yet dry. It is achievable if you have an upper-choice brisket or better. But it's easy to miss. Repetition really lets you dial it in. And make more friends.
4.) At our place, we love a nice, dark, rich bark. So I prefer to not wrap/pan/etc until about 180 degrees or so. Dark bark! Mrs. Brown action. I know in the competition world, they end up saucing and such, even the brisket, so it's ok to wrap at 160 and braze the brisket to done. That may help with moisture retention some, I'd have to do some more side-by-side's to test that guess. However, I want that bark, so I'm going to wrap later.
5.) Cook more rep's and invite friends over to enjoy. It's a great motivator to get more rounds of brisket cooking in and find the little detail learnings that are so satisfying!
I can't say that our brisket flat is always this perfect in the tender-to-moist ratio, but is was on this day! #BrisketSword
This is a more typical brisket pic. It was delicious, but maybe a bit more typical on the dryness-ometer. Notice the dark bark! (And that rib sneaking in over on the left.)
And, of course, the Live Wood Fire!
1.) The more intramuscular fat in the flat, the better. You know this already, but it's hard to get a flat with no fat to feel wet to the tongue. Primes are better than Choice.
2.) Moisture retention techniques, like dry-brining or injecting, help. We trim hard (1/4 inch of exterior fat, trim down the fat between the flat and point), salt, and vacuum seal for a day or so. Dry brining helps. However, I still have side-by-side testing to do on how different length dry brines differ.
3.) Cooking the same quality of meat every week helps you know the feel of "just probe tender enough" so you can pull it before it gets too dry. With all this restaurant development activity to do, I'm not on the pit every week, like my #1 man Sam is. So I'm just not getting the reps to know exactly what the right "probe tender" is on our pits for our meat to be dead solid perfect every time. And throw into that if we get a different meat packer shipped to us, it gets a little different still.
The Point Is that If you cook on the same pit, same temp, same type/quality of brisket, same wrap technique, you get better at knowing the feel of when to pull your brisket to have it wonderfully tender and not-yet dry. It is achievable if you have an upper-choice brisket or better. But it's easy to miss. Repetition really lets you dial it in. And make more friends.
4.) At our place, we love a nice, dark, rich bark. So I prefer to not wrap/pan/etc until about 180 degrees or so. Dark bark! Mrs. Brown action. I know in the competition world, they end up saucing and such, even the brisket, so it's ok to wrap at 160 and braze the brisket to done. That may help with moisture retention some, I'd have to do some more side-by-side's to test that guess. However, I want that bark, so I'm going to wrap later.
5.) Cook more rep's and invite friends over to enjoy. It's a great motivator to get more rounds of brisket cooking in and find the little detail learnings that are so satisfying!
I can't say that our brisket flat is always this perfect in the tender-to-moist ratio, but is was on this day! #BrisketSword
This is a more typical brisket pic. It was delicious, but maybe a bit more typical on the dryness-ometer. Notice the dark bark! (And that rib sneaking in over on the left.)
And, of course, the Live Wood Fire!
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