Brisket: pics, questions, comments

CrazyHarry

I woke up at 5:30 on Sunday and fired up the Egg to cook a 9 pound whole brisket. It was a fairly long piece of beef so I lopped a piece off the flat so it would fit in my medium sized Egg.

I stabilized the temperature at 250 then added some hickory chips and put on the meat. The dome temperature dropped to about 200 but I left it alone. An hour or so later it was only about 210 so I adjusted the vents and quickly had it stabilized at 250.

QUESTION: After four or five hours of VERY stable temperatures I went out to check on things and the thermometer read nearly 350! What could cause the temp to jump up like that all of a sudden?

I was debating about whether to foil the brisket but the temp increase made up my mind for me. Wrapped it in foil with some beer and put it back on for another 90 minutes or so.

At about 8 hours into the cook I decided to check the meat temperature for the first time and it was nearly 195!! (Much earlier than I thought.) I removed the foil and put it back on for about 30 minutes to firm up the bark.

I let it rest for about an hour and then took this picture:



When I sliced into the brisket it was VERY moist:



COMMENT: Next time I'll listen to the advice about trimming the brisket. I had to use the back of my knife to scrape the melting fat off. (On the plus side, I couldn't believe how moist this thing was!)

QUESTIONS: Taking off the fat removed a lot of the bark, as well. So while the brisket was juicy I felt the meat lacked a bit on the flavor side. (I used a liberal amount of rub 24 hours before the cook.) How do you all season your briskets, *after* cooking? (Other than BBQ sauce). Is there a way to get more flavor into the meat during the cook? More smoke? Maybe using an injector?

bubba tim

Want more flavor and texture? Don't foil. When you wrapped it in foil, you braised the meat and sweated the rub and the flavor off the surface. Don't smoke brisket for more than 3 hours. You WILL make the meat bitter. I would also not trim the fat cap and cook it fat side down. It is BS to think that fat will run down the side of brisket and keep the meat moist. The fat cap protects the meat from the heat being applied from the bottom of your brisket. You may also want to look at my brisket page and use the trick of cutting the end off so you know whick way the grain runs. You pics looks like your cut with the grain instead of against the grain. However, your beast does look good.

asianflava

bubba tim wrote:

I would also not trim the fat cap and cook it fat side down. It is BS to think that fat will run down the side of brisket and keep the meat moist. The fat cap protects the meat from the heat being applied from the bottom of your brisket.

I think the fat rendering and basting the brisket is a bunch of BS too. I did a lot of experimenting and fat down comes out so much better. The plate setter isn't exactly indirect heat, you need the fast to protect the meat.

BTW: I do trim the fat off mine, but not all of it. I leave 1/8-1/4in of fat on the brisket.