First brisket - lessons, data, and a graph!

dgaddis1

So I did my first brisket cook over the weekend for a NYE party, and it turned out pretty good, despite a "I have no idea what's happening" cook.  I had a 13.5lbs full packer I smoked on a Large BGE - it *barely* fit before it started shrinking a bit.  I also started a Google Sheets page for keeping a log of my cooks.  It's easy to use and even makes a graph showing Temp vs Time for both the grill and meat.  It does require manual input, I'm just using a Maverick style remote thermometer, but it's easy to use.  Accounts for all variables, I think.  I like data.

So here's what happened and some lessons learned:

• I went to bed around 11:30 Friday night, and then got up at 2:30am to start the cook.  Filled a chimney half full and got all of those coals red hot.  While the chimney was getting lit/hot I applied the rub to the brisket (which I had trimmed the day before).  Once all the lump in the chimney was red hot I set it aside, filled up the Egg with lump, nearly to the top of the fire ring.  Big chunks of lump on the bottom, medium size on top of that, and then dumped the lit coals and top and spread them out.  
• Wood chunks were distributed throughout the lump, I had 4 pieces of oak, one cherry, all about golf ball size.
• After adding the hot lump I put the plate setter in legs up, a few balls of aluminum foil on it and then a drip pan, and finally the cast iron grate.
• I wanted to get back to bed ASAP since I knew I'd be up past 1am the next morning (New Years), so I put the meat on immediately and set the vents where I thought they needed to be, aiming for a 250* grate temp.
• I initially had my grill temp probe near the front of the grate, which I never do...not sure why I did it that was this time.  Temp was taking forever to come up despite having the vents more open than needed.  My dome temp was quite a bit higher, so I flipped the probe around so it was near the back and realized my temp was about 120* higher than expected - whoops!  
• So I choked it down, a bit too much, I think I nearly put the fire out, temps dropped as low as 180*F, then I finally got it back up and stabilized, and I went back to bed.  It was now almost 7am.  UGH.  On the plus side, I played a lot of Mario haha.
• I got about an hour of sleep then got up - I had an alarm set for 158* meat temp - I wanted to catch it when it went into the stall to wrap it in butcher paper.  The stall was supposed to be around 165* or so.  Well...this thing went right past 165* and kept climbing. 
• It held in the low 180's for about 45mins, "here's the stall" I thought, so I wrapped it in butcher paper.  I poked the probe through the paper into another spot in the flat, and it was reading 193*F, 10degrees higher than previous.
• The next four hours and change the temp slowly climbed to 201*F internal temp.  It never really held the stall like I'm used to seeing pork butts do.
• At this point I wasn't sure what to do.  I wasn't sure if I just had a weird piece of meat, or my probe was showing a higher temp than it should, or what.  It was now 2pm, and I needed to leave at 4pm.  I upped the temp of the grill a bit to push it along and hurry things up....if my probe was showing the wrong temp I was worried it may not finish in time.
• When it hit 207*F I got nervous and pulled it off the grill, thinking it was probably over done.  Or under done if the probe was wrong, I had no idea haha.  I brought it inside and did some probing to see how it felt, looking for the 'buttah' feeling.  With the butcher paper that proved difficult - am I feeling the meat or the paper?...but after a few minutes I decided it was wasn't ready yet, there was too much resistance, so back on it went.
• It was off the grill about 15mins.  Put the probe in a new spot, and it was showing 198*F.
• At 4:05pm with an internal temp showing 208*F, I was out of time and pulled it off.  I had convinced myself the probe was wrong - it was showing a temperature higher than actual...though I wasn't sure how much.  I was worried it wasn't quite done yet, but I was out of time, so I immediately wrapped it in foil and put it in a cooler with some beach towels thinking some carry-over cook would be good for it, and we hit the road to the party.
• About 6:30pm - moment of truth, time to get it out and slice and serve.  I had no idea what to expect.  Thankfully, it turned out pretty dang good!  The bark looked perfect, the flavor was great, had a pretty smoke ring, and the consistency was on point, and it was a big hit, but it was just a little dry.  Not much, but a littlek...I can do better next time.  I'd give it an A-.  

The party was a ton of fun, it was with some of my best friends since about 5th grade and our families, some of my favorite people basically.  I didn't get in bed till about 2am, and I felt pretty much exhausted the whole next day haha.

Only got one picture of the finished product because there was about 20 people in line to get some, so once it came out of the cooler it got sliced and served immediately.

Looking forward to doing another one, but it'll be a while.  It's a large and expensive piece of meat, so I'll only be cooking them when we'll be serving a big crowd.

Okay, pics.

The day I picked it up.



About 5hrs in, waiting on the bark to get where I want it.


Finished product.  It was a little dry, but not nearly as dry as it looks in the pic haha


And the graph.

Spaightlabs

Data is dandy, but every piece of meat is different...

Where did you get your packer and what was the cut graded at?

Foghorn

Great post.  And that brisket looks great.  Thanks for the data.

dgaddis1

I got it from a local(ish) butcher shop...no idea what grade, it didn't say.  The shop had a meat counter, no briskets out, so I asked if they had any and this is the one they brought out.  The guy wasn't in a great mood and the place was slammed so I took it.  It was expensive at $6.19/lbs, but this was the only place in town I knew that any.  I'm going to shop around more next time.  I need to check the local Sams Club, we don't have a costco and the local grocery stores only have flats and can't get a full packer, even the 'high end' Fresh Market.

Killit_and_Grillit

THIS is how you do a review. Bullet points. Lessons learned. Great pics. Well done 

lousubcap

Great cook and documentation.  As long as it was enjoyed by the guests, it turned out great.