So past Sunday I turned 37 and decided to tackle my dreaded nemesis -
The Brisket! First one I ever cooked turned out like jerky on the
bottom. So with a little more experience under my belt and a better
understanding of how my PoS pit works (drafty, blanket wearing, wood
sucking, .... you get the idea)... I gave it a go.
Went down to Restaurant Depot and picked up a 12.6lb Angus Choice. Came
home and trimmed it up leaving about 1/4" fat cap and then injected with a little bit of beef
broth/mix.
Got a good pick of it trimmed, forgot to take one after injection.
Anyways, injected and covered for 6 hours in the fridge. At around hour 8pm I took it out of the fridge and then I went and fired up
the pit; um I want to say I got the fire started around 8:30pm.
Came inside, pulled the brisket from the pan and marinade, patted it down, and then applied my own dry rub.
Brisket tasted smoke at 9:30pm.
Took this shot after about 1 hour had to fix something so decided to
snap a shot - right before a HUGE freaking storm hit that caused me to
drape the cooking chamber with a wool blanket. I fought for temp for
almost 3 hours. Had to keep the damper full open and could barely keep
around 190-200. Was not fun! Learned from it but NOT FUN!
I wrapped the brisket at about with 2 layers of heavy foil and added some broth about 6 hours into the smoke. Depending on temps and conditions this will very and might wrap sooner next time. Again, its a matter of practice and experience.
Kept it on the smoker til the internal temp on the point end hit around
200-205. Brought it in, wrapped it to rest. This is after around 2 and
1/2 hours of rest. NEXT TIME I will only keep it on the pit until the internal temp is around 170-175 then remove and wrap to rest.
Was really taken back when I cut into it. Was a really hard and
pronounced smoke ring ... thicker than I liked. I smoked it fat cap up
for 5 hours and 3 hours fat cap down before wrapping it to finish its
cook. Only thing I can think of is the wind coming through the wide
open damper and a lower cook temp than I liked. Should hard winds and rain happen again I do believe I will wrap sooner. Cooler temps really play hard on Brisket. It wasn't dry and wasn't crispy tough bark. It was in my book solid flavor and good moisture. I need more practice though to get the technique down.
While I was happy, over joyed that it was moist and tender I was a
little disappointed that it was a bit over cooked. I'd go to slice it
and it would fall apart in some spots. So I decided to just do a chop.
Several people sampled it - a few heavy BBQ consumers and the consensus
was that it was solid tasting, good flavor that was all the way through
the meat. To me I liked it and I liked the flavor but found it lacking
that wow factor to the taste. Guess I'll keep tweaking the rubs and
stuff 'til I get it the way I think it needs to be. MORE PRACTICE!
