Brisket and Harry Potter

sdbelt

There were two big plans for today. Do a brisket and go see Harry Potter after the kids got out of school. It's a nearly 3 hour movie, so I wanted to start the brisket late enough to be sure it wouldn't finish before we got home, but early enough so that it finishes before midnight.[p]I decided to start it at 1pm. My cooks commonly go faster than those posted here, so this seemed safe. Left for the movie at 2:30pm, with the dome temp at 215, and the internal meat temp at 88. Came home just now, and at 7:30pm dome temp is 225, and meat temp is 170. Seems like it's moving along perfectly. I've yet to open the lid, but I probably will in about 2 hours, to spritz with some apple juice.[p]This is only my second attempt at brisket. The first one, though others liked it, I thought wasn't that great. And for the effort, it only yielded about 6 servings. It all seemed to be fat, with no meat. Looking at the raw product this time around, it would appear that I've got a better piece of meat to start with, so I'm anxious to get a better result.[p]I should not this is my lowest dome temp, this late in a cook ever. Temps in Phoenix dropped 10 degrees during the week, and I'm looking forward to more truly low and slow cooks.[p]--sdb

sdbelt

My second attempt at brisket seems to really have turned out well. My concerns about it completing during the movie were unnecessary, as it didn’t complete until 6:30am this morning. Meat temp was 204 when I took it off. That’s a 17.5 hour cook, my personal best, if you will, for low and slow. Dome temp hit a max of only 250 the entire cook, even when I attempted to coax it higher at about 4am this morning. The cooler weather really changes my approach to vent settings, and makes it much easier to achieve a good low and slow cook.[p]Lunch anyone?[p]--sdb