My Brisket Stream of Consciousness

[SenatorShriv]

I've successfully fumbled my way through 3 or 4 briskets on my Weber and Smoke Hollow in the past. All products were edible and enjoyed by the masses but none of them came close to the standards I was really hoping to achieve. On a bit of whim yesterday i picked up a big 17 lbs whole packer. It was a little large for my weber to really get an indirect cooking going and I didn't want to separate the point and the flat to get it to fit in my Smoke Hallow. Luckily I also have a Char-Broil Infrared grill that will handle the whole thing just fine.

This is my stream of consciousness of the day. My intent is to hopefully have folks jumping in with some suggestions / answers to my questions throughout the day but also track some of the things that run through an amateurs head to help guide additional content for the sight in the future.

Here we go:
- The two probes of my digital thermometer have pretty different temps. The one siting on the grill grate is at 234 and the one on the rack above the grates is at 184. I obviously expected a differential, but this was higher than I expected. Dialing it in to 225 before I put the meat on but do I go with the temperature of the chamber or the temperature at the grill grate?
- Dang - just started raining... that's going to throw off my game.
- Is it too early for a beer? Do I care?
- If someone asks me to explain how the infrared works can I get away with just saying "science"?

[smarkley]

hey SenatorShriv ... I see this is your first post.... Welcome Aboard.

Never too early for a beer (It is noon somewhere!)

Measure your temp at the grill grate... that is where the meat is.

[SenatorShriv]

Roger that. Thank Smarkley!

- Rain stopped now having trouble keeping the grill at a low enough temperature.
- Tossed a pan with some beer and garlic in there just for the heck of it. I used this an excuse to crack a few cold ones for myself.
- Ended up having to trim a lot of fat from the beast the other night (because the ONLY butcher shop in Anchorage Alaska has no idea what they're doing!) Now I've got a ton of fat trimmings. Guess I'll play around with turning it into some sort of mop sauce. Suggestions are welcome. My thought is that dosing it in its own rendered fat every once in a while isn't going to hurt it.
- Found some beef broth at the house I didn't know we had. I was originally going to skip the injection because I forgot to get the broth at the store and didn't want to go back to the grocery store last night. Now I'm contemplating injecting it mid cook. Thoughts, comments, concerns?

[smarkley]

I would be leery of injecting now... you should be good, just keep that pan of water/beer in the cooker going.

[PaulstheRibList]

SenatorShriv great to hear from you. The brisket fat makes great Beef Love, as Meathead calls it, for using when doing the Reverse Sear on steaks. I've never thought about using that as the oil for lubing the brisket when applying the rub, so that could be great. Since I've never heard of any competition guys or otherwise using oil to lube the brisket during the cook, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Adding more oil during the cook may invite a burn? Injecting mid cook, haven't heard of that either.
Why don't you post a pic of the cook right now so we can all take a look at it.

[smarkley]

I was thinking, since he lives in Alaska and may have access to moose or elk... maybe save that fat and grind it up with some elk or moose for awesome burger... just an idea

[SenatorShriv]

smarkley nailed it, what I don't use for a mop I will use for some of the leaner caribou and moose.

I'm going to try a little bit of beef love to start hitting it later in the cook just to see what happens

[SenatorShriv]

[smarkley]

Picture looks good... you should have a good cook.

Is it staying light up there, all night now?

[SenatorShriv]

Basically. In Anchorage we technically have a sunset but its at 11:30 and it rises again at 4:30 am or something like that. It never really gets dark but hangs in a kind of twilight phase. The extra sunlight makes people a little manic so we probably won't bust into this guy until 8:30 or 9:00 tonight and that will be fine, even on a school night.

[SenatorShriv]

Whelp... fell asleep and woke up to the grill being up waaaay over what it had been holding at for a couple of hours. Not sure why it would suddenly jump like that. popped lid open for a while to cool it down and turned down the burners, we'll see if I can keep it low enough.

Also not sure why my thermometer didn't alert me. I thought I had it programmed so that I would get an alarm above 260. lost the instruction manual for my thermometer so I'll have to rock the googles to figure out whats up with that.

My dog has been circling the grill like a wolf circles an injured animal. I think that this is a good sign.

[SenatorShriv]

Got distracted while cooking down the fat for the beef love. Think I burned it. Will make another attempt in a few minutes. Perhaps I don't have the attention span for this...

starting to get anxious about the finishing process. I'm going to wait for another 45 minutes and then crutch it to get it up to 200ish and then throw it in a cooler to bring it back down to 170 - 180. I've never used the crutch or the cooler method before so I'm a little nervous.

Read someplace (probably here) about wrapping it in a towel before sticking it in the cooler. I'm guessing that I'm not supposed to use my wife's linens but am not clear on what the point of this is so I may just skip it.

Also struggling to resist the urge to cut a few sample slices off the ends just to see where I'm at. This may be the toughest part of all!

[SenatorShriv]

Friends came over. Got drunk. No longer stressed about the crutch or the cooler. Amazing what beer can do.

Moving into crutch now. Should be interesting.

[_John_]

That's part of the fun! Once you get good at it this will be second nature. Don't pull it early, too many people make that mistake. What temp are you at?

[PaulstheRibList]

Well, how did it turn out?

[Buster99]

I am in the same boat as you, I'm 1-2 on the brisket ( me losing) let me know how yours turned out

[smarkley]

Must A Been a H3##a Party... hahahaha