My first brisket and post

Ducci015

Hi Guys, I recently got a LBGE, jumped on this forum and read a bunch of posts about briskets and dove straight in.  I went and got two 3 lb briskets (all I could find in my small town, not much marbling at all unfortunately).  I seasoned with salt, pepper, and a BBQ rub.  Left them in the fridge for 12 hours and pulled them out.  Got the egg going and added mesquite chips.  Smoked the briskets for 6 hours, at which point I pulled one off, cooled it and am currently cooking in sous vide at 149degrees for 72 hours.  The other I left on for a total of 12 hours, Internal temp read 190 so I pulled it off.  I never experienced the "butter probe" like many have talked about.  I FTC it for 2 hours at this point, and when i pulled it out, it sucked.  It was very dry but not crumbly.  There was a small smoke ring, and the flavor was right, but it was SO dry.  Too dry to eat.  So I chunked a bunch of it up and simmered in BBQ sauce for about hour and made a BBQ pizza that was great, the meat was tenderized by the simmering and had a lot more flavor.  I took the rest of the brisket, put into a 250 degree oven half covered by beer and braised for 4 hours, and this also tenderized it, but gave me more of a "pulled brisket" kind of end product, not what we're looking for. Long story short, I made a lot of mistakes.  Heres a list:

I was having a very hard time keeping the temperature below 250, any recommendations for this?

About 5-6 hours in the smoke stopped coming out of the top and the only way to get it to start back up was to give it more oxygen, which pushed temps up to 275-300ish.  I think this is probably too high, right?  

What else could I have done during the smoking process to help yield a tender juicy end product?

I will update with how the sous vide turns out on saturday night, Im hoping for a better result but we will see.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks everyone!  Next time I will make sure to take pictures 

NPHuskerFL

Welcome.  Any pics?

Ducci015

Ducci015

The pic of the briskets was about 2 hours into smoking

theyolksonyou

Without a controller, long cooks are hard to control under 250. I go 270. Only dislodge remove is it's faster. 

You ou don't have to see the smoke. When it's burning clean like that, it's a good thing. 

Sounds like your meat was under cooked. Don't cook to temp with brisket, cook to feel. If you didn't get buttah, it wasn't finished cooking. 

NPHuskerFL

Nice work. I haven't got into the sous vide way you did here. But, if it gave solid results...why not.  I'm more traditional on briskets with minimal seasoning (S&P) and L&S with pit somewhere around 235℉ until buttuh. 

Lmidkiff

I have no problem keeping below 250 but you need to start with a clean egg, no ash. Also, don't worry about no smoke. It's stiill there even when you can see it. I firmly beleive you can over 'smoke' anything. 

blasting

Welcome.  You may not have been happy with the results, but it sounds like you rolled with it.  Pizza looked to be a real winner.