Turbo Brisket

Mark_B_Good

Ok, so 375F?

I have a small one to cook, 9 lbs ... how much time ya'll think to get to 205F?  I'll wrap it with foil at around 160F.

Canugghead

Never done it myself, I think 350 is the common turbo temp.

Photo Egg

I think it depends on the rub as well. If you are using a rub with sugar I would be cautious even at 350.

fishlessman

this was from olddave from the original forum. tastes more like steak with a brisket texture.  rub is garlic salt and coarse cracked pepper. 350 direct raised grid, yes i said direct. lots of smoking wood, i use a smaller piece of chord wood oak from the wood shed, not chunks, the fire is hot and the cook is quick so 8 plus chunks will do. at 175 internal, remove(about 2.5 hours) wrap in foil with 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce and 2 tbsp beef broth, no more or it turns things to pot roast. wrap it up and cook it til the internal is 210.

i wouldnt do this with a nice packer but it works with a choice flat with little fat

Mark_B_Good

fishlessman said:

this was from olddave from the original forum. tastes more like steak with a brisket texture.  rub is garlic salt and coarse cracked pepper. 350 direct raised grid, yes i said direct. lots of smoking wood, i use a smaller piece of chord wood oak from the wood shed, not chunks, the fire is hot and the cook is quick so 8 plus chunks will do. at 175 internal, remove(about 2.5 hours) wrap in foil with 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce and 2 tbsp beef broth, no more or it turns things to pot roast. wrap it up and cook it til the internal is 210.

i wouldnt do this with a nice packer but it works with a choice flat with little fat

Interesting ... so the whole thing took 2.5h to the foil wrap ... then what another 2h to get to target temp (I'd pull it at 205F max) ... then rest for 1h??
So 5h? 

Do you know how many lbs his piece was?

Mark_B_Good

Doing some reading on old "turbo brisket posts", seems many have had success at 325F.  Seems one of the tricks is to load the crap up with wood chips for a super smoke at the beginning, before the meat hits 140F (I assume because smoke penetration diminishes above those temps).m  I'll load with Mesquite chips, and mix in some applewood chunks.

Takes about 3h to hit 160F to 165F and then foil wrap, then another 2h to 3h to get to a good internal temp (200F to 205F).  Then let her sit for 1h towel wrapped.

Those seemed to be for briskets in the 10 lb to 15 lb range ... mine is around 9 lbs.  So I'll plan on a 6h to 7h total cook time (including towel wrap cooling).

Will keep you all posted. 

xfire_ATX

Ive done them at 275-300 a few times.. I can never tell if it was the Cow or the cook that makes it come out Good or perfect.  Ive had fails and successes both ways.  I do think the better the cut the more you can push the temp up.

Anyway at those temps its about 75% of normal cook times.

Mark_B_Good

Alright so the prep has started on this 9 lb baby brisket.

Trimmed fat, injected with beef broth, patted dry, applied mayonnaise as a binder, and then liberally sprinkled with about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of custom seasoning, consisting of:

1 part kosher salt
1 part crushed black pepper
1.5 parts smoked paprika
0.5 parts sage

Looks and smells amazing, can't wait to try this out.

fishlessman

Mark_B_Good said:

fishlessman said:

this was from olddave from the original forum. tastes more like steak with a brisket texture.  rub is garlic salt and coarse cracked pepper. 350 direct raised grid, yes i said direct. lots of smoking wood, i use a smaller piece of chord wood oak from the wood shed, not chunks, the fire is hot and the cook is quick so 8 plus chunks will do. at 175 internal, remove(about 2.5 hours) wrap in foil with 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce and 2 tbsp beef broth, no more or it turns things to pot roast. wrap it up and cook it til the internal is 210.

i wouldnt do this with a nice packer but it works with a choice flat with little fat

Interesting ... so the whole thing took 2.5h to the foil wrap ... then what another 2h to get to target temp (I'd pull it at 205F max) ... then rest for 1h??
So 5h? 

Do you know how many lbs his piece was?

that one posted took me about 3 hours unwrapped and 2 hours in foil.  flats here have zero fat and average 7 pounds.  theres a few wives tales smoking brisket as it takes on smoke the whole time its in the egg, doesnt stop at 140 degrees internal. and then theres that smoke ring which comes from a long low and slow, so why did i get a smoke ring like that. if you use this method direct, you will never see as much smoke coming out of an egg

Mark_B_Good

fishlessman said:

Mark_B_Good said:

fishlessman said:

this was from olddave from the original forum. tastes more like steak with a brisket texture.  rub is garlic salt and coarse cracked pepper. 350 direct raised grid, yes i said direct. lots of smoking wood, i use a smaller piece of chord wood oak from the wood shed, not chunks, the fire is hot and the cook is quick so 8 plus chunks will do. at 175 internal, remove(about 2.5 hours) wrap in foil with 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce and 2 tbsp beef broth, no more or it turns things to pot roast. wrap it up and cook it til the internal is 210.

i wouldnt do this with a nice packer but it works with a choice flat with little fat

Interesting ... so the whole thing took 2.5h to the foil wrap ... then what another 2h to get to target temp (I'd pull it at 205F max) ... then rest for 1h??
So 5h? 

Do you know how many lbs his piece was?

that one posted took me about 3 hours unwrapped and 2 hours in foil.  flats here have zero fat and average 7 pounds.  theres a few wives tales smoking brisket as it takes on smoke the whole time its in the egg, doesnt stop at 140 degrees internal. and then theres that smoke ring which comes from a long low and slow, so why did i get a smoke ring like that. if you use this method direct, you will never see as much smoke coming out of an egg

So you think the direct with large pieces of wood is what gave you that nice smoke ring?  

I'm wondering if I should pre-soak my wood chips to give more smoke?  I'll also mix in some applewood chunks, but the wood chips seem to burn too fast if they aren't soaked.

fishlessman

Mark_B_Good said:

fishlessman said:

Mark_B_Good said:

fishlessman said:

this was from olddave from the original forum. tastes more like steak with a brisket texture.  rub is garlic salt and coarse cracked pepper. 350 direct raised grid, yes i said direct. lots of smoking wood, i use a smaller piece of chord wood oak from the wood shed, not chunks, the fire is hot and the cook is quick so 8 plus chunks will do. at 175 internal, remove(about 2.5 hours) wrap in foil with 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce and 2 tbsp beef broth, no more or it turns things to pot roast. wrap it up and cook it til the internal is 210.

i wouldnt do this with a nice packer but it works with a choice flat with little fat

Interesting ... so the whole thing took 2.5h to the foil wrap ... then what another 2h to get to target temp (I'd pull it at 205F max) ... then rest for 1h??
So 5h? 

Do you know how many lbs his piece was?

that one posted took me about 3 hours unwrapped and 2 hours in foil.  flats here have zero fat and average 7 pounds.  theres a few wives tales smoking brisket as it takes on smoke the whole time its in the egg, doesnt stop at 140 degrees internal. and then theres that smoke ring which comes from a long low and slow, so why did i get a smoke ring like that. if you use this method direct, you will never see as much smoke coming out of an egg

So you think the direct with large pieces of wood is what gave you that nice smoke ring?  

I'm wondering if I should pre-soak my wood chips to give more smoke?  I'll also mix in some applewood chunks, but the wood chips seem to burn too fast if they aren't soaked.

definitely the smoke. for a hot cook i would not use chips and soaking them just stops them from smoking til the water is gone. that water is just barely penetrated into the wood any ways unless its soaked for a week

Slkegger

1 have never tried to do a brisket over 5lbs but I do a 2 to 4lb brisket every weekend, point or flat, some are even frozen first, no thaw.  325-350f, indirect no wrap. Average cook is 3.5 hours but I add potatoes or veggies around or above on second rack half way through (amazing flavor added from brisket grease in pit). It doesn't get much smoke flavor, still tastes like brisket, not steak or roast. An easy afternoon meal for 3-4 people.  With temp prob wires going across gasket, opening for potatoes or wind changes(reggulator wide open), the egg would sometimes climb to 400f, then its a real fast cook but still fine (I run the wires through reggulator now). The bottom sometimes  gets a little crusty but everyone still eats it. The points always come out perfect but we aren't big fans of food that fatty/ greasy(amazingly it can still be greasy at 400f for two hours but a little crusty all the way around) so I mostly do flats now. About 75% of the flats are perfect. Sometimes they need to go as high as 212f to be probe tender, sometimes they are just dry, (dry for a brisket but still better than most roasts). I will have to try adding a lot more wood for smoke as I didn't realize it would burn up, dissipate that quick. I do 2-3 small chunks and wait for smoke to clear. It's still to much for fish or poultry at that temp for me so I didn't think to add more for beef. 

This technique would probably need a wrap on anything over 5lbs to keep the bark from being too dry over 325f. I've gone 5.5 hour on a 4lb brisket at 300f and no wrap with good bark but every YouTube video I see has a wrap at higher Temps or time. 

From frozen, run under cold water to remove ice crystals, rub with evoo, add salt/pepper rub and cook. Only adds 30-45min to cook. Some of my best flats were from frozen, but sometimes the salt/pepper rub isn't as heavy as I want if it doesn't stick and I don't notice. I do ribs and small pork buts from frozen as well with excellent results. 

Foghorn

That's really interesting @Slkegger.  I'm surprised that your flats turn out that well without wrapping or adding extra moisture.  I'm saying that based mostly on what I've read here as I haven't personally tried enough flats (maybe 2 - long before I knew what I was doing with brisket) to have any experience with them.  

lousubcap

I cut my teeth on flats until packers started to surface at Costco many years ago.  Never went that hot (always indirect at around 250-270*F).  Usually they averaged 5-8 lbs.  I would grade the outcome relative to baseball-many more singles than home-runs, a few triples and a mix of doubles. No worries, there were strike-outs as well.  Whenever you nailed one it was a set the hook moment for the next cook.  
A trick I tried and then stayed with- (fat cap down, sorry @Foghorn) was to lay strips of bacon across the non cap side for a good bit of the cook.  Once the bacon was rendered off it came (amazing flavor) and the bark always set up well.  FWIW-

Mark_B_Good

Well, I loaded the BGE with a lot of Mesquite woodchips and big Applewood chunks.

I put the brisket on at around 250F and it took about an hour to stabilize at 325F. Lots of smoke through the first 3 hours of cook.

Took about 2.5h to reach 165F, faster than I thought it would. I was out at that time, picking up some groceries. By the time I got back, about 3.5h into the cook, it was 180F. I wrapped it at that stage, and it took another 1.5h to get to 205F.  So in total 5h. I left it fat side down the entire time, even when wrapped.

Then towel wrapped and jn cooler for 1.5h ... 

Bark was good. Smoke penetration was limited... about 1mm to 2mm pink ring. Taste was really good. Very juicy, nice balance of smoke flavor.

lousubcap

However you got there worked.  Great result right there.  

Mark_B_Good

lousubcap said:

However you got there worked.  Great result right there.  

Thanks boss!

Mark_B_Good

OK, so I'm gonna be doing this again in a few weeks. Have 15 people in total for a party, and plan on doing a 17 lb turbo brisket. 

I'm going to wrap in foil at the stall, and move the brisket to the oven ... want to make sure it stays as juicy as possible.

So, question is ... to maintain max juiciness ... what do you all suggest? I've seen a few suggestions like, put beef broth in the pan when it's in the oven, or some guys pouring the renderings from the egg over the brisket before they wrap.

I have to have it all done by 7 pm ready to eat ... and I'm not gonna stay up all night cooking, so I'll start likely at 8 am  ... probably cook at 300F to 325F.  Other question is ... will it cook fast enough if I lower the temp up to the stall, say 275F ... and then pop into the oven at 325F once wrapped.

Any tips will be much appreciated ... like I said, I want MAX juiciness.

Mr1egg

I did a brisket turbo method a few weeks back, did exactly what ur saying around 300. Mine didn’t even hit a stall because of the higher temp. I wrapped at I believe around 180-190 because I wanted a good bark. But in ur case I would wrap with aluminum foil at 150 and keep the temp at 300 and pour some beef tallow over it that u made from your fat trimmings.

I did a 21lb and started it at 8am and it was done at 4 then I let it rest for two hours and we ate at 6. You might even be able to get away with 275 the entire time according to ur time line.

lousubcap

As noted by @Mr1egg - adding liquid will ensure the juicyness but you will lose the crunchy bark.  A trade-off you are well aware of.  I always aim to finish in the FTC window ( for me 2-6 hrs wide) before slice on demand time.  So, figure you want to have it coolered between 1-5 PM based on the 7 pm eat time.  Odds are you trim off a good 3 lbs+/-.  You can also "hot inject" it just before the wrap to add liquid. 
Enjoy the cook.    

Mark_B_Good

Thanks guys. Yeah, I know I'll have to sacrifice bark for this. But I think the guests will appreciate the juiciness more. 

I'll try and protect the bark though ... I'm wondering ... in the oven, maybe I perforate the foil a bit ... to prevent sweating on the bark ... it's a close oven, that steam isn't escaping .... so now really the question is ... is there any point in actually even wrapping it if it's going into an oven???

fishlessman

i like the late hot injection method, basically some drippings mixed with LOW sodium broth, i lean toward chicken broth as i cant stand boxed or canned beef broth.  havent done a brisket in a long time but even with pork butts ill give it an injection towards the end with a watered down vinegar sauce, adds a whole hog cook flavorwise verse just a pulled pork. keep the salt low in a late injection, you dont want much more added salt at this point

heres a swarm of info

http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/1996/03/brisket.html

Mark_B_Good

Great idea guys ... so a late injection ...like 30 minutes to finish? Maybe when it hits like 197F??

ThrasherIII

Would the Turbo method on a point and simply cut off the flat

fishlessman

Mark_B_Good said:

Great idea guys ... so a late injection ...like 30 minutes to finish? Maybe when it hits like 197F??

more like 175/180,  they will take more liquid than when fresh.

RyanStl

I've never late injected, but do like to pre-inject brisket. It really helps keep things moist. 

I would recommend watching some Henry Soo brisket videos on YouTube. He's good at explaining things 

Mark_B_Good

When you guys inject pre cook, do you do it way before the cook. Like 3 days, or an hour before the cook?

Langner91

I do it less than an hour before putting on the grill.

lousubcap

One tip regarding injection, inject thru a shrink wrap on the protein.  That way any stray shots are contained and simplifies the clean-up.  

lkapigian

lousubcap said:

One tip regarding injection, inject thru a shrink wrap on the protein.  That way any stray shots are contained and simplifies the clean-up.  

Pro Tip Right There, thought I was the only one....straight through the Cryo Vac LoL 

Mark_B_Good

Langner91 said:

I do it less than an hour before putting on the grill.

Yeah, I think this is the right way to go. I used to inject days before, thinking the meat will marinade in that broth ... and perhaps there's truth to that ... but I did find a lot of that liquid had oozed out of the meat and on the bottom of the plan ... so I'm like, no point injecting it that soon, if it all ends up at the bottom of the pan.

Thanks!