American KOBE WAGYU 17-20 pound Brisket from Snake River Farms

KJWILD

Going to order this brisket and cook for Thanksgiving lunch. I have never attempted a brisket and would very much like for all who have to offer detailed advice from start to finish on how I should prepare it. It is an expensive piece of meat and I would like not to ruin it if at all possible. I have a large family and thought this would be a great treat for them. Thanks

cazzy

I'm sure some of the brisket pros will chime in...so no worries there.


Question though, do you have any local options to get a brisket at any grade? The SRF is a lil more forgiving because of the fat content, but I still suggest trying one before then. It's an expensive cut and it would help the nerves on a cook for guests. Timing, trimming, seasoning, slicing etc. Those are all things I wouldn't want to do for a first time with guests coming...especially when the brisket is $200.

My 2 cents...good luck!

Spaightlabs

I'm with @cazzy .  Practice run will boost your confidence  and make sure you are good to go with running low and slow for up to 20 hours.

What is your setup?  Do you have a remote thermo so you can let it run without needing to pop the top to check temps?

Search the forum - lots of threads on here, and the Travis method has an awful lot of followers that love the results...

4Runner

My first brisket sucked so I too recommend a trial run. I will say the SRF is close to a Boston Butt. Very easy and just add a good bit of salt and pepper. Nothing else needed...besides heat and smoke. Good luck.

grege345

Just make sure you start it early enough. Last thing you wanna do is rush it. It will hold in FTC so time accordingly

KJWILD

Thank you all for the advice. I am having difficulty finding brisket locally but I will be looking harder.

SGH

I'm not a pro, but I am going to offer a few thoughts here shortly. For better or for worse.

JohnInCarolina

What's the longest cook you've done so far?

Tjcoley

My first brisket (12 hours plus 6 hours FTC) was my best. Better to be lucky than good. I still would agree with a test brisket before a SRF.

SGH

@KJWILD‌
First let me say, if I may, I'm certainly no expert nor a pro. However I have had the good fortune of spending a lot of time cooking the large primals and sub primals. You will find that cooking a Waygu is much simpler than cooking a select by a considerable margin. This is not sentiment but absolute fact my friend. Due to the intense and well dispersed marbling throughout the muscle you have a far larger window of opportunity. However practice is never a bad thing especially if you are not real familiar with cooking brisket. I would like to offer just some "general" advice if I may. You will find the Waygu will be already trimmed much better than the average brisket. Or that has been my experience thus far. You will merely have to touch and square up or perform a minimal trim. If you are not a hot and fast fellow, then 275 degrees is almost ideal to cook at. Things happen a lot slower and are much more controllable at this temp versus 300+ degrees. It in essence buys you more time to make adjustments on the run with no detrimental affects. On the other hand, 275 degrees is hot enough that it doesn't take forever to cook either. Kind of a win win if you will. Due to the natural feel of the Waygu, it's much easier to determine when it's done. Much easier. When it lets "loose" it really lets loose unlike a select which requires a little more probing and feeling to determine doneness. So all the above said, if you season with salt and pepper, perform a minimal trim and cook at 275 degrees until the Waygu turns "loose" you are almost certainly going to have a winner. I would like to stress one thing. Don't bother wrapping until the brisket is done. Now this is a controversial subject for sure, but it is as un necessary as it is controversial. Running 275 degrees, over darkening will not be a issue. Hence no need to wrap. That said, do not wrap it until it is done. Paper, foil or pan, wait until it's done my friend. For the record I prefer paper but that's just me. Does it really matter? Probably not in the least bit. Brother Franklin uses paper and brother Mixon uses foil. I'm not going to argue with either one of them. So just take it slow my friend and above all, enjoy the cook. I will be standing by patiently my friend. Good luck.

KJWILD

@SGH‌, thank you for your i depth response. I find your comment very helpful and thoughtful. I do believe if I can locate a cheaper brisket that I will attempt a test run, although I fully understand that the lower quality brisket will cook and finish differently than the higher quality brisket. The longest cook I have done was around 4 hours and fully understand that this cook will be substantially longer. I assume I would go 275 temp raised indirect with a drip pan? On the WAGYU 17-20 pound how long should I anticipate the cook to be?

grege345

@kjwild did you watch the Franklin videos on you tube? Good stuff!

Hi54putty

KJWILD said:

Thank you all for the advice. I am having difficulty finding brisket locally but I will be looking harder.

Walmart

rosco

Don't do it! your first brisket is going to suck. I am on my 20th and they still need work. Go with pulled pork, your family will be just as impressed and you will nail it on your first try.

JohnInCarolina

Just a couple of thoughts here.  

Definitely try to get a practice run in.  In all likelihood, you'll be fine.  I've done half a dozen or so briskets, and even my worst ones - the guests loved.  The worst thing that can probably happen is that you might cook it too long, and it comes out too dry.  Or maybe your fire goes out, but even there- that sometimes works out (ask CenTex).  Drinking seems to improve things.  No matter what, this forum is a great resource, even last-minute on Thanksgiving day.  

But at least you want to get some experience with a longer cook beforehand.  You'll probably be doing this one overnight.  Do you have a pit controller?  Otherwise you might be looking at close to no sleep the night before Thanksgiving - not a whole lot of fun for you.

The last thing I'll say is that you might also want to consider getting a turkey!  Turkeys are relatively easy to do on the Egg and they come out great!  You could do your brisket and have it finish sometime in the early morning and FTC it, and still have time to throw a turkey on.  

SGH

@KJWILD‌
You are more than welcome my friend. Glad to help when and where I can.
To your questions. I both use and highly recommend the use of a drip pan. A 16x2 or 16x2.5 is near perfect on the large BGE.
As to time. It's very hard to say. To many variables and influencing external factors can and usually will come into play. The few Waygus that I have cooked or witnessed being cooked were very sporatic due to different amounts of marbling. No rhyme or reason at all to their cooking/finish time.