Brisket- please help trouble shoot

SwAustinegg

First of all, I would like to thank everyone on this forum. I purchased my egg 1 year ago and although this is my first post, I have used this forum as my primary resource during that time while trying to learn how to use it. Your experience and insight has been greatly appreciated. Now to my question. I cooked my 3rd brisket this weekend. The first two I cooked using "The Travis Method", and they both turned out fantastic. This time, I wanted to attempt a more traditional "low and slow" method and was disappointed with the results. The flavor and tenderness were very good but it turned out a little dry. Here is what I did, so please let me know where I went wrong. I started with a 9 lbs brisket from Costco. The same as the 2 prior Travis briskets. At 10 pm the night before, I trimmed the fat down to 1/4 inch, seasoned with Dizzy Pig - Cow Lick, wrapped in plastic and returned to the fridge. The final trimmed brisket was 7 lbs. At 2 am, I lit and stabilized the egg at 225 deg dome temp, and put the brisket on at 3 am. The fist 6 hours I smoked at 225 deg dome temp, then kicked up to 250 for the remainder of the cook. I stared probing for doneness when the internal temp of the flat was 190. When I finally was able to get the probe to move tike it was going through butter, the internal temp as 200 deg and cook time was 12.5 hours. Then FTC for 2.5 hrs. The temp was well controlled throughout the cook. I never used foil during the cook. Please tell me where I went wrong. It really aggregates me that I could have slept in, used Travis' method and ended up with a better product in @8 hrs instead of 12+ hrs. Thanks in advance.

travisstrick

Cook it hotter next time. The small brisket a do better when they are hot and fast. I do 280 for 10 plus lb and 300 for the small stuff.

SwAustinegg

Thanks for the tip. Will adjust next time.

Parcival

Have a question as well as a tip for you.  First the question . . . how did you get dome temp as low as 225?  I have had my egg for 2 months now and can't get even close to that low without snuffing out the fire.

And now, a very novice tip . . . I pulled a recipe from a BGE user in a cooking magazine.  Calls for 225 cooking for ~15 hours for a 7-9 piece of brisket.  Also calls for a 36 hour brine.  It was a huge time commitment, but I followed the recipe to the letter.  The only thing I couldn't pull off was keeping the temp so low.  My brisket cooked at ~290 for 10 hours.  I called my wife at work to baste the brine  during the last few hours of cooking with a vinegar sauce.  When she did she didn't realize that she had accidentally opened the top vent.  2 hours later I got home and realized that the brisket's last 2 hours of "life" were spent at 550 degrees.  Surprisingly, other than a tough 1/4 inch outer crust on the bottom of the brisket, this was incredibly moist inside even though internal temp was at ~240.  I'm guessing the brining helped preserve the moistness of this meat.  Will send you this recipe if you like

Cowdogs

My Costco sells flats.  At 9lbs, I assume your was just a flat.  Flats are harder to cook.  Cooking at 225 dome just makes it worse.  Low n' slow is fine, but you are not trying to make beef jerky, so try keep it between 250 and 275.  The "Travis Method", which I think is a braise, is an ideal way to keep that small flat moist.  If I every cook a flat again I would try this method.  It may yield something more like a BBQ pot roast, but it still sounds good.

However if you get a nice big ole packer brisket, and you don't go nuts trimming the fat, then you can do a 20 hour+ cook at 250 dome and get super moist tender brisket without any foil, pans, liquids, etc.

Little Steven

I think we should just learn to enjoy tough brisket. Travis's head is big enough already.

Eggcelsior

Little Steven said:

I think we should just learn to enjoy tough brisket. Travis's head is big enough already.

TWSS

SwAustinegg

Thanks for the tips. It was a packer brisket, just real small. He been using my egg for about a year now. I can control my egg temp much better, especially low temp, when it is clean. So whenever I want to do something slow I clean it to make sure nothing is obstructing air flow.