Brisket using chimney starter method

DainW

Picked up a CAB choice brisket from my local supermarket on Thursday when I was doomsday prepping. I wanted to try the chimney starter method discussed last week burying wood at the bottom and covering with hot lump. Went on about 10:30 last night and I just pulled it off. Think it turned out great but I’ll know for sure in about 3 hours. Will check back with more pics. 

  

Foghorn

Standing by. 

lousubcap

Way to give it a go.  Sweet bark.  If it probed right then you are "home-free."  Worst that can happen is great eats!

DainW

Might be the best brisket I’ve had come off the egg. Definitely a better smoke ring and the smoke flavor is almost sweeter, and a little more subtle compared to what I normally do. 

loco_engr

sure looks yummy, what did you season it with?

DainW

loco_engr said:

sure looks yummy, what did you season it with?

Thank you. Just seasoned with salt and a lot of coarse ground black pepper. 

lousubcap

Pepper for the enhancement here along with some cayenne.  That is every bit the outcome that bark deserved.  Congratulations.  Enjoy as I know you will.

Foghorn

O h heck yeah.  I'm guessing that you're a convert to the charcoal chimney technique at this point...?

DainW

Yeah I think so. With my old method (just mixing wood chunks with the lump), you would get a lot of smoke early in the cook, but one the fire stabilized, you wouldn’t really get much smoke because the fire kind of dies out and everything just smolders. This method seemed to produce smoke the entire cook. I also was almost completely out of fuel by the time the cook was over, compared to previous brisket cooks where I’d have half the lump or more still left. That would make me think it was a cleaner fire. 

stlcharcoal

Not to rain on the parade, but the smoke ring has little to do with the smoke intensity.   It's a chemical reaction that you can create with burning stuff with a lower pH.  Thats why briquettes produce a better smoke ring than lump, or cherry over hickory.  It's  also why all the BBQ comp societies stopped judging based off the smoke ring....because it can be artificially manipulated with hay and other stuff that isn't the flavor smoke.

As far as the usage goes, you probably burned more lump because it's so freakin cold out.  BTUs are BTUs, so unless you ran a higher temp, there's no way to get rid of them any faster.  So you either had less to start with, radiated heat off the egg faster due to low temps and wind, or you ran a higher pit temp.

In a low and slow BGE cook, so little of the charcoal is burning at any given time.....the fire moves around.  Don't get hung up too much on the internet lore.  In other faster burning smokers, a lot of this stuff does work, but kamados are completely different animals because they are so well insulated and sealed, thus using very little O2 to maintain temp.

In any case, awesome looking brisket!!!

DainW

stlcharcoal said:

Not to rain on the parade, but the smoke ring has little to do with the smoke intensity.   It's a chemical reaction that you can create with burning stuff with a lower pH.  Thats why briquettes produce a better smoke ring than lump, or cherry over hickory.  It's  also why all the BBQ comp societies stopped judging based off the smoke ring....because it can be artificially manipulated with hay and other stuff that isn't the flavor smoke.

As far as the usage goes, you probably burned more lump because it's so freakin cold out.  BTUs are BTUs, so unless you ran a higher temp, there's no way to get rid of them any faster.  So you either had less to start with, radiated heat off the egg faster due to low temps and wind, or you ran a higher pit temp.

In a low and slow BGE cook, so little of the charcoal is burning at any given time.....the fire moves around.  Don't get hung up too much on the internet lore.  In other faster burning smokers, a lot of this stuff does work, but kamados are completely different animals because they are so well insulated and sealed, thus using very little O2 to maintain temp.

In any case, awesome looking brisket!!!

Man hitting us with the science on this one. All of that makes sense. Are you saying that you don’t really buy into the chimney starter method would really produce a cleaner smoke than just randomly mixing in the wood chunks with the lump because the fire will move around anyway due to the low amount of oxygen needed to maintain temps? I can also see that making sense if so. 

Ideally, we would be able to do the Pepsi challenge with two briskets cooked on two separate kamados using different starter methods to see which has a better smoke flavor, but since I only have one egg, not going to happen. That being said, the smoke flavor was really good on this one, it’s even coming through on this second bowl of chili I made with the point, but I’m not sure if it’s that much better than briskets I’ve done in the past or if it’s just placebo affect because I’m conscious of it. 

nolaegghead

I pretty much agree with Johnathan except I don't anything about the pH argument.  The myoglobin in muscle turns red when it's oxidized by nitrites, NOx, CO (nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide) and a host of other by-products of combustion.  What you see as actual "smoke" is water vapor and particulates such as soot.

A hot, oxygen rich fire will produce less visible smoke and less carbon monoxide, but also less of the unwanted compounds like creosote.

You can get a smoke ring from your rub also if it has nitrites in it, which occur naturally in vegetables.

The chimney method gives you a head start on a stable fire, and it's hotter and cleaner at the start of the cook when you typically get most of your "dirty" smoke, but after a while, there's really no difference.  If you have the time to wait you can get the same result starting it by lighting the top of the lump bed.

lkapigian

My take is the smoke ring was already there and is the  remnant of the myoglobin as a result of the CO and NO......keeping the red in and the brown out   

stlcharcoal

DainW said:

Man hitting us with the science on this one. All of that makes sense. Are you saying that you don’t really buy into the chimney starter method would really produce a cleaner smoke than just randomly mixing in the wood chunks with the lump because the fire will move around anyway due to the low amount of oxygen needed to maintain temps? I can also see that making sense if so. 

Ideally, we would be able to do the Pepsi challenge with two briskets cooked 

I don't get the whole "clean smoke" argument in a kamado when it comes to low and slow.  It's not gonna happen at that low of a temp.  If takes a very small amount of BTU's to maintain temp.  We have all opened our BGE's after a 20+ hr smoke and seen unburned wood and charcoal because it fire never reached that point.  If you light from the bottom, of the firebox you risk the fire getting away from you because the heat ignites the other charcoal on it's way up.

Ultimately you are metering the O2, so there can only be so much wood or charcoal burning somewhere.  That's why the whole "huge chunks" of charcoal or wood chunk size arguments mean nothing in a <250F kamado.  I run chips in mine, and even the end of a 20hr smoke, some are not burned.  Nothing burns faster or slower without a subsequent temp change.

You could do a side by side, but you forgot the main thing that can throw all of it off every single time......the brisket.  That's the screwiest piece of meat in the cow.  They are never the same.  Pork and chicken are easy to replicate once you have them down, but brisket is what makes or breaks you on the comp circuit.

DainW

Man y’all are some real nerds when it comes to this lol. Just kidding. It was a fun experiment and definitely learned a lot. Appreciate everyone’s input and what you’re saying makes a lot of sense to me, 

That being said, I was pleased with the result on this cook so I will probably stick with it because I’m superstitious like that. What I’ve found about smoking briskets, like a lot of things in life, is that half the battle is just being confident in your process and executing it.