My first packer brisket

Foghorn said:

Agreed.

You have a PM that you may or may not find helpful.

Thanks, and thanks for the heads-up about it.  My biggest concerns with smoking it are the length of time it might require in the egg, or how fast it might go as a very small packer.  I don't think I've ever done an overnight cook. 

I suppose it could be done in time for dinner if I start very early...or I could start it after dark, likely have it done early morning, and FTC it til we want to eat.

Foghorn said:

With one that size, I'd probably get up early and cook it about 275-290.  On one occasion I lit the egg the night before and set it so it would settle in at about that temp and rubbed the brisket - and went to bed.  The egg uses very little charcoal at that temp.  Then I set the alarm for 6 AM and just rolled out of bed and dropped the brisket on the egg.  

That sounds like a pretty good plan.  There may be a complication though.  I mentioned all this to my wife, and the first thing she said is, "I don't like BBQ brisket, lets braise it in the oven my way."

I told her she needs to do some googling and see if her way, which works very well on flats, is suitable for cooking a small whole packer.

I think part of her problem with BBQ brisket is the ones I've tried previously in the BGE were all just flats, and to be honest, they do come out a little dry.  But she's tried brisket from places like Rudy's BBQ, and still wasn't impressed. 

It's still in the cryopak in the fridge.  I assume I have some time to figure this out.

Wife gave up on the idea of braising it...she's too busy to tackle a brisket.  I decided the Travis way seemed kind of complicated, so I just finished trimming 1lb off it, and hit it with dalmation rub.  It's back in the fridge, and will go on the egg first thing in the morning.

Pack date was 9/20/18.  I guess I could have waited another couple of weeks for a longer wet aging...but we were getting tired of working around it in the fridge.  Funny thing is, I was in Costco this evening, and they had more prime full packers, mediums, and smalls...some even smaller than this one.  I was seriously tempted to buy another, but figured I should see how this turns out first, and there's only so much fridge space.

So...this morning, I took the brisket out of the fridge, and let it sit out on the stove top while I got the BGE lit and setup for indirect cooking.  I'd arranged the lump and a bacon fat paper towel starter last night.  I didn't get the brisket into the egg til about 8am. 

I am using the Carbon Lite.  When I stuck the probe into the flat from the top, IT was 47F.

1h in, IT was 100.4F
1.5 in, IT is up to 120.9F

The probe ambient reading and my dome thermo don't quite agree.  I'm not sure if that's a calibration issue on the dome thermo or if it really is slightly cooler inches above the flat (evaporative cooling?).  Carbon Lite says the ambient is 237F.  Dome says I'm at 275F.

2.5h, IT 144F, probe 235F, dome 270F.

Incidentally, just in case Lavatools is still watching the board...some comments on their iPhone app for the Carbon Lite:

The stopwatch seems buggy.  I know I didn't start that clock immediately upon setting up the probe, which went into the meat a few minutes after it was on the BGE...but as time passes, the stopwatch time seems to be falling increasingly behind actual time.  i.e. I've been cooking about 4 hours now.  The stopwatch has only counted up to 02:55:40, so it's more than an hour behind.  It's possible I accidentally reset it while fooling around with the app.  I suppose time will tell (if it continues falling behind).

The temperature graph...I know someone recently asked about getting both the internal and ambient temps on the graph, and that'd certainly be appreciated here...but another issue with the graph is on my iPhone 7, it only displays about 25min of X axis.  It won't rotate and go landscape to take advantage of more screen width, and there doesn't appear to be any way to "zoom out" and see a longer time scale.  Panning across the X axis seems kind of sluggish.

6:15h, IT 179F, probe 284F, dome 290F.  I guess I'm going to reduce air flow.  Where's the stall?