Brisket without drip pan?

Rubmyrock

Is this acceptable?

dlk7

All of the briskets I've done have needed a drip pan - a lot of drippings that would put out the lump.  I low and slow at 220 so there is too big of a chance that the drippings would kill the fire.  Others on the forum can talk to the smoke caused by the drippings.

lousubcap

A few thoughts in the FWIW category-working back from the end-result anything that gets you great tasting food works for me.  For me the drip pan serves as the heat deflector, separating the lump temp (quite hot-regardless of fire volume) from the food, thus indirect.  Low&slow works on the meat being exposed to low temps for long periods. So, if you can get decent food to lump separation you could go direct but I'm thinking the renderings into the fire would cause flare-ups.  Now if you mean cooking indirect just without the drip pan-then your platesetter or whetever deflector will get a fair amount of crud on it and some flare-ups may occur but that's about it-never tried it though-

DIXIEDOG

I have skipped the pan before while using the platesetter and it wasn't a problem.

Rubmyrock

I found mine. It was inside my gas grill. Using plate setter and drip pan

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Not recommended. It's a freaking mess. If you do it to often, the grease will get in the pores of your egg and sweat out when it gets hot. It's nasty.

BYS1981

I can't remember what the posters handle was, but a guy cooked 4-6 butts without a drip pan on here. As CTS suggested, it was rather nasty.. grease seeping out looking like vomit infused with baby poop. After that post I have always used a drip pan. Lol. It isn't required, but saves sone trouble in end if you do use one.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

BYS1981 said:

I can't remember what the posters handle was, but a guy cooked 4-6 butts without a drip pan on here. As CTS suggested, it was rather nasty.. grease seeping out looking like vomit infused with baby poop. After that post I have always used a drip pan. Lol. It isn't required, but saves sone trouble in end if you do use one.

I think It was @duganboy but it's been a while. Not 100% sure. That was nasty though.

JWBurns

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Not recommended. It's a freaking mess. If you do it to often, the grease will get in the pores of your egg and sweat out when it gets hot. It's nasty.

A freaking mess is right. You should have seen the crud in the pans when I pulled mine this morning. Couldn't imagine all that on my PS or running down into my coals.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I usually collect a gallon of drippings and charred goo when I do a brisket. It would be like pouring a gallon of bacon grease in your egg. That's a lot of goo

MrCookingNurse

There's a pic somewhere on here were someone's egg looked like it had the plague cause grease was seeping out of it. Keep the drip pan if for nothing but cleanliness sake! I didn't wanna fool with it on some rib cooks and made a huge mess. Do it now, not always with water, just for sake of being neat.