I'm going to do a flat on my pellet popper for the first time tomorrow. About a 3 pounder.
I'm planning on 225 for smoke and bark building until the stall, and then wrap it and kick it up to 275 until done.
Can anyone give me an idea how long to expect that cook to take? Method sound resaonable? Assume I should still hold it for a good 2 hours while watching the temp not to get below 140?
Method sounds right. I had a 3.5 pounder take 15 hrs once. Rule of thumb is 1-1/2 hr per pound, but I'd keep check on temps and pull when probe tender. I'd also give myself an extra couple hours. It can always rest a little longer if it's done early.
I recently cooked a 5 lb flat at 250 and it took about 8 hours plus 2 resting. As Blues1 said always have extra time available and cook till probe tender. Better to be done early than late.
If you wrap at the stall you won't have any bark. I'd run 250-275 and just count on wrapping as a back up plan in case it's plenty dark before it reaches probe tender or 203 internal.
​​If you hold it wrapped well in a small ice chest it'll still be plenty hot after 2 hours. I'd have a little sauce for it. Sometimes the only thing drier than a flat off a cow is the leather off a cow.
Thanks. On my first full packer I didn't wrap and I got too much bark... and cooked it over. I agree on flats. I'm still deep in the make lots of bad BBQ to get good BBQ phase when it comes to brisket. Baby steps. My wife hates the point. I'd stick the point in my vein.
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My rule of thumb is as long or nearly as long as a full packer. I'd say 10-12, ballpark, counting 1-2hrs of hold time after hitting 200+/- IT. It will vary based on if you wrap, when you wrap, and how much fat cap is left on.
1/4 inch fat is good. Cook fat side down. Good luck and look forward to your pictures. I usually dry rub the night before and then put what ever other else I want on, usually just pepper when I pull it out of the frig. Good luck hope you got a good piece of brisket cause without that you can't fix it to come out good.
Just realized I never uploaded the resulting pic. Thanks to everyone for all of the advice. It came out well. I'm with you Jerod Broussard that flats are gonna be flats and there's not a lot to be done about it.
So this "flat" I bought, actually had a sneaky deckle still attached. I wish I had taken a picture of the raw flat. When I bought it at Costco it was labelled as a flat, the flat side was up and it looked exactly like a classic flat. The tri-oval shape. Nice color. Not much marbling. As I mentioned above I turned it over when I bought and there was what looked like around a 1/4 inch of fat on the bottom.
I cooked it. All went as planned per notes above. After the hold I sliced it in half to first see what I ended up with, Lo and behold, look what I've got here...flipped over in this case, but sure enough there was a big plumped up piece of deckle that was under that 1/4" of fat.
Guess I'ms till a rookie at picking briskets . On the bright side, definite improvement on my last cook, and nice and juicy (mostly thanks to that deckle). And as ever, the deckle was delicious and the flat was just okay.
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