brisket entertainment

Hungry Celeste

I started a (small, 3.5lb ish) brisket this morning; figured it would give my better half the proper motivation to clean up the backyard before our Good Friday crawfish boil. Anyway, can someone out there give me the pros & cons of foiling this baby once it comes off the grill? Can't I just tent it on a platter for a nice long rest?

thirdeye

I'm thinking you should consider using foil a lot earlier than you asked about. You might want to consider a foil finish..... I'm assuming you have a flat and not a point right??

A 3.5 brisket flat is pretty small, it doesn't have much mass, and probably not much surface fat either. It's hard to keep ones like that from drying out under typical barbecue conditions.

I would recommend keeping it on the pit until it gets to be 165° internal. Then lightly re-season it and put into a double thick foil pouch with the fat up. Make about 4 or 5 ounces of jazzed up beef broth and add a couple of ounces to the pouch before foiling. Reserve the rest.

Cook this pouch at 275° until the brisket is tender, which will take 2 or 3 hours. Check after 90 minutes to see where it's at. While you're in the pouch anyway, inject the rest of the broth into it.... re-seal and finish it. When it has cooked tender, rest for at least 30 minutes in the foil.

If you want to crisp up the fat, do that over a direct bed of coals, just be careful... it won't take long.

Hungry Celeste

Many thanks for your timely advice on such a small piece of beef. I just wrapped it in foil and added half a bottle of Mexican coke to the packet. Will let it chug along at 275 for another 2 hours or so. Never tried a piece this small before--I usually braise small pieces like this one, but I thought I'd try it on the Egg.

thirdeye

Right, and it will braise in the foil. The neat thing for you is that you were able to get some color and smoke flavor on it before going to the foil. In general, the basic braised briskets look pretty bland, but they do eat pretty good....

Hungry Celeste

Thought you might like to see the results of your sage advice. No smoke ring, but good color and excellent flavor. I cooked it indirect for ~3 hours @ 250, then foiled it w/Mexican coke as mentioned above. It went another 2.5 hrs & was done just in time for a late lunch (and the garage, carport & driveway are now all powerwashed, so it fulfilled the "higher purpose").

thirdeye

That looks like it came together just fine and just in time too. I'm hungry just looking at the photo.

Say, don't worry about the smoke ring. They can be deceiving. Go back and look at the photo I posted of an oven brisket, it was cooked the entire time in the oven... but I doctored it with Tenderquick to prove a point about smoke ring formation.

Hungry Celeste

Interesting about the smoke ring...I wrapped the remaining unsliced brisket in foil & stashed it in the fridge. About a hour later, I cut off a few slices for my neighbor (I'd borrowed his power washer). Imagine my surprise: voila! A nice pink ring. Never saw one develop after the fact, but then again, I'm not well schooled in the chemistry behind its formation.

Misippi Egger

I thought that looked a little like a Tenderquick smoke ring.