Brisket Question

Zilm-disabled

Quick question - I have a BBQ planned for this Saturday that starts around 6-7 p.m.. I have a 10.50 lb brisket to cook along with butts and ribs. How long do you think it will take to cook the brisket. had originally planned on putting the brisket and butts on Friday night around 6-8 p.m. but after talking with people wonder if I should start the brisket earlier. Any thoughts?

dhuffjr

Zilm,
I don't think I'd put it on much earlier...4-5 at the earliest. The brisket/pork can be put into a cooler when done and as often mentioned they are good for a good 4 hours plus. You can always foil them in the morning to speed up the cook to get the brisket/pork done. I've foiled and then removed the foil and reseasoned a bit and let them go another hour or so to help the bark reset. [p]You should have plenty of time for the ribs. You can also pull the meat and finish the cook in an oven if you really need to.

Braddog

Zilm,[p]24 hours seems like plenty of time to me. If use 2 hrs./lb. as a guideline to figure out start time. If I'm done early, I can hold it in a cooler for quite awhile. I'd rather do that than try and hurry one up. [p]Remember that each cut you put on the egg will cook by it's own weight/time as long as you leave good air flow between them.[p]Either way, cook by temp not time. It's done when it's done.[p]Bye-bye and buy bonds,
Braddog[p]

Fidel

Zilm,[p]I find that briskets usually cook faster than butts on a per pound basis.

Wise One

dhuffjr, you bring up a very good point. The real benefit of wood cooking comes in the first 30 minutes or so of cooking. If you leave them on for about two hours with your smoking wood you've got the real smoke flavor in it. You could load up your grill with butts/brisket and cook for two hours and then pull it and put it in an oven to finish. You could then load up more meat to smoke for the next two hours and place that in the oven to finish. If you have enough ovens you could probably do 100 pounds or so off a single EGG in 24 hours.[p]Now I see a taste test coming on to see if you can tell the difference between pork cooked the entire time on the EGG versus pork cooked for two hours on the EGG and then finished in an oven.

Grate Expectations

Zilm,
I think there has been some recent posts on the board about "short cutting" the time for briskets. If memory serves: start by cooking for several hours like for a long cook, then double wrap the brisket and ramp up the temperature to?? for a time until the brisket hits 200 internal. Then stow it away in the cooler (wrapped, towels, etc.) until it's dinner time. I can't locate the references to that but it's something I've thought about trying soon. Maybe someone else can come up with the thread.

Unknown

Wise One,
Bark is the main thing you'll lose I'm thinking. I've never actually tried doing it though.[p]I do foil things quite often to get them done quicker. I like to remove the foil and allow the reformation of the bark when I can. Sometimes I have time for it to work others not.[p]H