Seeking brisket advice from nolaegghead

FarmerTom

nolaegghead , you recently discussed cooking a small brisket and hurrying it along by "ramping up" the temp.  As you know from a thread I recently posted, I intend to load my XL to the max with brisket for my daughters wedding this fall.  Could you please describe in more detail your method of cooking brisket and how you manage the temp throughout?  Other than finishing sooner,  are there other benefits to "ramping up" the temp?  I haven't cooked many briskets and have been trying to keep it in the 250-275 range and pull when meat gets to 205.  For a large brisket, this has been taking me 18-20 hours.  Anything I can do to shorten the cook without negatively affecting the taste will be welcomed.
   Anyone is welcome to pitch in here, but I would would particularly like to get nolaegghead's thoughts on his process.  
   Also, I have a frozen 16 lb. brisket I hope to cook next weekend and would like to experiment with nola's process.  How do you folks go about thawing that big a piece of meat?  And how long will it take?  

buzd504

Not @nolaegghead , but I've done briskets at 300-350 start to finish and they've come out fine.  The main thing to note is that you have a smaller window for when it's done, and you have to manage the carry over cooking a little differently (pull a tad earlier).  I think the same things would apply when doing a ramp up as well.

CTMike

Go to www.bbq-brethren.com and search for Bludawgs turbo brisket method. Seems to work very well. 

Thatgrimguy

BluDawgs Brisket

K.I S.S. some of the best brisket you will ever eat! Total cook time including the rest 8 hrs or less. I promise it will be as moist as mornin dew on the lilly, tender as a mothers love, pure beefy smoky goodness.

1 packer 12-15 lb
Trim off the hard fat on each side of the flat thin the fat cap to 1/4"

Mix your Rub
1 part kosher salt 4 parts Med grind Black peppa by volume( this is a true 50/50 BY weight)
apply a coat of rub you need to be able to see the meat through the rub clearly.

Pre heat the pit to 300 deg
place brisket on the pit Fat Cap Down and point to the firebox unless it is a RF cooker then point to away from FB

Maintain pit between 275-325 if cookin on a stick burner
cook Brisket 4 hrs
remove from pit wrap in a single layer of Butcher paper Return to pit Fat cap up.
after 1 hr probe the thicket part of the Flat only! If it isn't *probe tender it will be within 1 hr.
once it is probe tender remove from the pit keep it wrapped in the paper you cooked it in and allow it to rest on your counter until the Internal temp reaches 150 this will take about two hrs.
Don't ever slice more than you can eat big pieces retain moisture and won't dry up on you like slices will.


*PROBE TENDER>This is the feel that is mimicked by cutting room temperature butter with a knife, there should be no drag

lousubcap

Regarding your 16 lb brisket and a thaw, I would stick it in a fridge in the cryo-vac now.  Depending on how truly frozen it is it will take every bit of 4-5 days to thaw.  FWIW-

nolaegghead

I had a very tight window for the smoke.  The 9 pound brisket needed to be smoked in 4 hours, I started off in the low 200s and bumped the temp up every so often, checked meat temp and tenderness and it was done literally minutes before I walked out the door to the MIL's for lunch.

My normal method for smoking is to start off at a low temp - 225-250F to maximize the time the cool meat spends in the smoke.  When I hit the stall, I ramp up the temp (to 300-340F to minimize the time meat spends evaporating moisture.  I get excellent results this way and it's faster.

The sous vide step was just giving the meat a head start, not necessary unless you have a real short window to do the smoking.