Planning / Smoking Time for Brisket & Butt

biggreenrookie

Evening and Happy New Year!  Have a birthday party that I am hosting this coming weekend for about 25-30 folks.  Wanting to do a Brisket and Butt for lunch around 1pm and am trying to figure out the best way to manage the timing and making sure the meal is fresh with only a large Egg to smoke on.   Any suggestions on how to attack this? I am smoking a 9lb flat Brisket and an 10lb butt.  Thanks for advice! 

lousubcap

I'm guessing you are able to cook both at the same time (two level cook).  With that, I always run with brisket over butt as it will likely need more attention than the butt and you preserve the brisket bark.  Fire up your calibrated dome thermo LBGE around 8 PM (fully loaded with lump well into the fire ring) to around 260-280*F and let it get stable (no vent movement for at least 45-60 minutes).  Load the butt around 10 PM and the brisket around 11 PM.  See where you are in the early AM ( 6 or so) and adjust from there.  The goal is to get the flat to finish (probe like buttah) around 2-4 hours before ready to slice on demand (to enable FTC) and the butt to finish just before ready to pull and serve.  (You can FTC the butt but not needed to complete the cook).  
At the early am point you can dial up the temp to drive 'em home or slow it down to get there.  There is no "one size fits all" with any protein cook.  Adapt as you run and above all, have fun.
P.S.  The cow/pig drive the cook.
BTW- welcome aboard and enjoy the journey.  

biggreenrookie

Appreciate the advice!  Hadn’t gotten a raised cooking grid yet but I am picking one up this week.  Will I still be able to preserve the bark on the Brisket with it raised?  Do you have any suggestions on wrapping the brisket and placing it back on? 

lousubcap

I will send you some brisket info via PM. 

biggreenrookie

Sounds like a plan!  Appreciate it! 

blind99

Are you set on brisket flat? Have you nailed that cook on its own? If so, center your cook on that and let the butt ride along, wrapping as needed.

biggreenrookie

@blind99. Not necessarily set on Brisket yet.  May do two butts but would like some variety.  

blind99

if you're not set on the brisket, may I suggest a pork butt and a chuckie?  you'd then have pulled pork and pulled beef, in two different styles.  pulled beef is really delicious, and easy to cook.

biggreenrookie

@blind99.  Never tried chuck before.    May be interesting.   May have to give that a shot.   Thanks!

blind99

if you search the site you'll find lots of posts.  i season it, smoke it for awhile, then throw it in a pan with beer and sliced up peppers and onion and foil it tightly and cook until falling apart.  shred it all up and serve on rolls.  you'll see recipes for things like "pepper stout beef" and "pit beef" and such.  good luck and post pix!