My First Brisket Adventure or Saga, depending on how you look at it.................

morganpsmith

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Armed with hours of blog and board reading, coupled with days of watching YouTube videos on grilling the perfect Brisket, I set out this weekend to throw my hat in the ring. I thought I'd share my trial and tribulations with the group.

I started with a 9.7trimmed Brisket and worked off a bit of the fat from both sides, being careful to leave the 1/8 wherever possible.

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I scored against the grain after trimming the backside to know which way to slice- per multiple suggestions on this board:

 

My marinade plan was as follows-- using Whataburger yellow mustard (my fav sold now at HEB) I coated liberally both sides and then rubbed a brisket rub purchased online from Texas Daddy BBQ ( another board suggestion heavily on both sides of the brisket. I wrapped in saran wrap and placed in the fridge for 24 hours.

 24 hours later I pulled from the fridge, unwrapped the Brisket onto cutting board. I made a beef broth mix  with worsh sauce, beef broth and garlic. I injected this into every square inch of the brisket:

My fire plan was larger lump coal on the bottom, smaller pieces on top. I cleaned out the grill completely and began stacking the lump coal. I also placed four big chunks of apple wood along with some cherry chips scattered throughout grill. I lit the fire and watched it burn for a bit, closed the lid and went back inside for roughly ten minutes to do a final prep on the brisket.

On my return, I saw large flames but the tem reading only said 200. it took me several minutes to realize the gauge had gone all the way around-- resulting in a ~1,000 degree fire. This was problem one i would later realize, as much of my fire was ashes before my long cook ever started.

I quickly work to get the temperature down to 300. Once I’m in that range, I place the place setter in and a drip pan (which turns out to be larger than the plate setter so I have to make bends to get it to conform to the space........ which created further issue with air restriction.

 

Grill on top, brisket placed on the grill, settings set and I watch 250 degrees hit and steady for an hour.

Wow- three days of work and I begin to think I'm going to pull this off!

To bed I go. It's probably 9 PM ish.

Around 6 AM I stumble outside, and to my nightmare the temperature gauge reads 0. I open the grill and realize the lump copal, wood and chips all burned through. I checked with my thermpen and got a reading of 140 degrees. okay-- that's salvageable. I turn the over on at 210, wrap in foil and proceed to build a new fire.

14 hours of total cook time later, my finished product is as follows:

 

The broth made the brisket amazingly tender-- the taste was a bit too salty for me. i think the combination of too much rub along with the flawed cook time resulted in the outside not crisping up in parts. Either way, huge lesson for me this round--

Always check the fire and have the right mix of coal and wood.

 

TexanOfTheNorth

Glad that all came out okay for you in the end!