Dad’s Birthday - Brisket Cook

mickstephen

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I thought I’d share some photos and notes from today’s cook. (Note: this is also a bit long, as I wanted to share my overall process, along with some successes and failures so that others can learn.)

Today is my pop’s birthday, so I thought I’d do a little something special for him: brisket on the egg. 

I picked up a Prime Packer at Costco the other day. I was shocked it was the ONLY one they had, and it was just over 17 pounds. That’s a bit bigger than I normally like, but sometimes you’ve got to roll with what you find. This was a good and floppy brisket, so the weight didn’t really matter that much. 

After trimming, it came out to be around 14.5 pounds. To be honest, I probably over-trimmed the hard fat between the point and flat. I usually err on the side of under-trimming, but this cow seemed to have more hard fat than normal. I trimmed the fat cap a bit and moved on to the rub. 

For rub, I go with what’s on hand. First, I rubbed the whole beast down with a mixture of mustard (dijon, since I was out of the yellow stuff), and mayo. I’ve been using mayo as a binder on pork for a while, and love what it does for flavor, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. Then, I mixed up the rub with roughly two parts kosher salt, two parts black pepper, and a mix of garlic powder, Dizzy Dust, and ancho chile powder. Once that was on, I let it rest at room temperature for just over an hour. 

This was my first low-and-slow since replacing the gasket, and my rusted-out-and-warping band/hinge assembly. I shop-vac’ed out the leftover ash from previous cooks, and loaded my lump (John Henry), with some post oak chunks scattered throughout for smoke. The lump came almost to the top of the fire ring, so it was a full load. I used a Rutland fire-starter placed towards the back to get things burning. 

Once the smoke looked less white and more grey/blue, I put in the foil-covered plate-setter (upside down, with one foot towards the egg hinge), and my drip pan, raised off the PS with a foil snake. 

At this point, I actually put food on the egg, but not brisket. I had a package of cow face (beef cheek), that I had cooked in the sous vide at 180d for 10 hours. I tossed them in some spices and let them absorb a bit of smoke while the egg settled. After about an hour, the egg was comfortably around 225 at the grate, so I took off the cow face and put on the brisket (fat side down, draped over a roasting rack so it would fit on the egg). This was about 9PM last night. 

So far so good. Then I had to start thinking, which is never good. 

Around midnight, the wife and I headed to bed. I checked the egg, and the temp was up to around 235. I worried a bit about it getting too hot overnight, so I tweaked the vents closed just a hair. At this point, the brisket temp was around 145. 

When I woke up with the dog at around 7AM, the meat was at 138 and the grate was at 185. The fire wasn’t out, but I had closed down the vents too much, when I should have just trusted the egg to do what it do. But it wasn’t a catastrophe. I just opened up the vents, and got the fire back to where I wanted it, without ever having to open the lid. 

Once the temp was back around 230-240 at the grate, the cook sailed along…a bit too quickly for my taste. The bark was looking good, so I wrapped it around 175 with butcher paper. 

By 230PM, it was ready to come off the egg. It probed like butter and temps were a consistent 200-204 throughout the flat. I pulled it and put it on a cooling rack to rest for around 25-30 minutes. When I’ve made briskets before, especially when they were done too early (like this one), I’ve put them straight into the FTC setup, and haven’t been thrilled with the end result. I’m hoping letting this one rest first will help prevent too much carry-over cooking in the FTC. We’re due to eat at 6:30PM, so it’ll be in the cooler for a bit. 

So, while we haven’t eaten it yet (officially), I did sample a bit of the flat. Wow. If the point is as good as the flat, this will be a home run. Usually the flats on my briskets get absolutely charred. Why the difference this time? I think for two reasons. One, I used a circular pizza pan as my drip pan, and placed it so that none of the flat was exposed to direct heat coming through the gaps in the plate-setter. And two, I think cooking fat side down may also have helped (a little bit). 

Here are a couple of pics from the end of the cook… (I’ll add some more later once we’ve actually cut into it.)

booksw

Home run!  THanks for sharing- I think I can even smell it- yum!

smbishop

Thanks for sharing the step by step, you have the brisket process nailed!

mickstephen

smbishop said:

Thanks for sharing the step by step, you have the brisket process nailed!

I wouldn’t say I’ve got it nailed yet. But I feel like I’m getting more and more consistent with my cooks. Cheers!

mickstephen

A quick update…

The wife and I (and dog) headed out to my parents’ house for my dad’s birthday, and the brisket was a HUGE hit. Even after sitting in the FTC for four hours, it was easily the best brisket I’ve cooked. And I’d say it was among the top five I’ve ever eaten. 

In fact, my sister offered up a great compliment. Her husband is part of a competition BBQ team that does a lot of rodeos and events around Texas. She said he’s a huge brisket snob, and that he would have loved tonight’s meat. 

And my niece said it was better than any brisket she’s had. I’m just glad her dad wasn’t there to hear that. 

Thanks to all of you here at the forum. I know what I know because y’all shared your knowledge. Here are a couple of slice pics…

YukonRon

Great cook and presentation. The results of your work speaks for itself. Very nicely done.

thetrim

Yea man, great job on this one!  You killed it!

johnmitchell

Great post and really good looking brisket..

lousubcap

Great write-up and documentation for what works, especially as measured by that result.  Way to bring it home.  Congrats on the whole deal.  You nailed it. 

Canugghead

Looks killer and thanks for sharing the step by step.

mlc2013

thanks for sharing looks great