Daddio's Easy Tender Brisket

I did this recipe about 2 months ago and got rave reviews. Going at it again for tomorrow night. Heading off to the farmer's market now to buy brisket from the butcher.

I'm not sure how important the room temperature is. With a steak, cooked on high heat, you don't want the outside cooked before the inside, so room temp is key. With a brisket cooked at 240, I suspect you can skip that step.

I've always coated my brisket with yellow mustard, mostly to make the rub stick. I don't believe it changes the flavor at all, and you certainly can not taste mustard. H

Have you ever tried a mustard coat?

A couple questions - did you cook it direct, or indirect? 

Also, have you calibrated your thermometer?  If not, I'd say DEFINITELY do that.  Look up your altitude - here are some places you can do that: 

http://veloroutes.org/elevation/

http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm

Then, after that, if you want to be REALLY accurate, you need to find the barometric pressure of your area.  You can do that by going to www.weather.com and typing in your city, then clicking on the "Expand Weather Details" section listed right below the first set of weather information. 

Once you have your altitude (in feet), and your barometric pressure (in inches of mercury - don't worry, it's given to you that way by weather.com), then go here:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2oboilcalc.html

Also, you can check out the Naked Whiz's website, which gives a LOT of useful information:

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/ceramicfaq.htm#calibrate

Once you find your boiling point of water, then you need to remove your dome thermometer (there will be a clip on the inside of your dome holding the thermometer in place).  Then, get a pot of water & boil it.  Place the thermometer in there & take note of the temp it reads. 

If it doesn't match what you just calculated, you need to adjust it - there is a nut on the back you can hold & then twist (rotate) the outer edge (dial) of the thermometer.  You may need to rotate it left or right, depending on if you need to adjust the temp up or down.  Once you've adjusted, stick it back in the water to verify you've adjusted correctly.  You may need to do this more than once until you reach the proper calibration. 

Also, if you do need to adjust, keep in mind that your newly adjusted thermometer might NOT read "0" when the Egg is cooled down (actually, it shouldn't read 0, it should read whatever temp the ambient air temp is) - but the point is that it, after calibration, it may not read what you think it should when the Egg is off.  But that's OK, because you just calibrated it to read the CORRECT temp for boiling water. 

HTH,
Rob

Tommy,

You said how long you cooked it and the temp range of the cook, but you never mentioned the temp of the meat. Cook by meat temp not time. With brisket you have to give it lots of time to break down the colligen in the meat to make it tender. Were you cooking a flat or a whole packer?
I did a 10+ lbs brisket this weekend and it was on for 18 hours till it hit 195. Then I took it off double wrapped in foil and a couple of towels and stored in the cooler for a couple of hours. That does two things, give it some carryover cook time and the temp comes down slowly and let's the juices redistribute back into the meat. when I pulled it it was easy to slice and pretty tender. There are a a bunch of different methods to try on brisket, see what works for you. I got my info from Bubba Tim and Thirdeye's websites. Try again and good luck

Hey there Spoon.   Well most of the recipes here use time.  But I solved the problem with the Hillbillys help.  He made me think about the temperature calibration.   So after reading his post about calibration I became suspicious.  And decided to check that Egg Thermometer again.
I have a digital temperature transmitter which I haven't used in a while.   So I stuck that in the top of the egg and guess what? 

 

I'm not sure where this information comes from but everything I've ever
seen on cooking brisket says to cook to an internal temperature of 190
to 200 degrees. Try this and skip the bath in the oven next time. You
also could try wrapping it in foil for a portion of the cook.

Thanks for the post., 

've been cooking on eggs for over twenty years and have just recently had an issue with ribs and butts on for long periods of time and still not up to my standards for Eggseptional food. Just bought an internal thermomiter and guess what? 159 degrees internal on a 4lb briskett after 8 hours at ???240 degrees???

 

Thanks for the advice.