Father's Day Waygu Brisket & Kurobuta Pork

My wife & kids really spoiled me this weekend.  She got me a waygu brisket & kurobuta pork shoulder!

First Saturday morning we headed over the Smoky Mountains to be judges at the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival in Tryon, NC.



Saw Sweetdaddy's Smokehouse using a pair of home made kamados, first time I've seen that in a competition. 



Mike Peters was there doing demo cooks on the Big Green Egg with The Great American Cookout.



Then we came back and got ready to cook the brisket and pork shoulder overnight.  My neighbor and BBQ teammate @B&BKnox was cooking the pork shoulder.  It was a nice deep red color with nice marbling.  It was too long for his Large BGE so we had to cook that on another kamado with a slightly larger diameter.  Being quality meat, we went simple on flavoring.  No injections, just Memphis Dust and a few spritzes of fruit juice/cider during the cook.



We cooked the brisket on one of my Large BGE.  Again, quality meat, so no injections and just my basic beef rub (smoked salt, black peppercorns, green peppercorns, dried onion flake, dried garlic flake, dehydrated red/green bell pepper, and oregano - all ground up fresh).  Mopped it twice during the cook with beef stock, Albukirky's Duke City Sweet, and worcestershire sauce.



Both ended up cooking a bit longer than I'm used to - right at 16 1/2 hours each.  Ran the brisket at 250F dome temp for the first bit and 270F for the last 6 or so hours.  John will have to chime in about the shoulder cook temps, I didn't pay attention to those as much.  It's fun having an Egghead as a neighbor and tag teaming an overnight cook.



Because the cooks ran long, neither cut got to rest for long in the Cambro, but they were both still excellent.  John was using the bear claws here, not for processing but because the dang thing was still hot as fire.  We could barely handle it.



Not sure what the pre-cook weight was, it wasn't on the package, but I'd guess it was17+ lbs and the yield was a full steam pan of pulled pork.  The pork was flavorful, good, and everyone liked it.  But I think I'll switch back to butts, because they are just easier to obtain locally and easier to cook evenly.



The brisket was excellent.  John and I were in heaven eating it right off of the cutting board.  The marbling made it a luscious brisket and our mad cooking skills made it perfectly tender (of course it's our skills, not the meat, right? )  No sauce or au jus required. The only downside was the lack of a smoke ring compared to what we get from the stick burner but they still had a good smoke flavor, I just like the appearance of a smoke ring too. 



We got the cheaper brisket from Snake River (not the gold) and I will definitely be buying these again.  I'll need to try one or two in our competition pit before our next comp in August.

Hope you all had a great Father's Day too!