BGE vs other Smokers for SRF

GoooDawgs · December 2018

As I prepare for my SRF black grade brisket cook tomorrow evening, it's good to have such a wealth of knowledge from this forum. It's interesting when I check other sites just how different the advice is for wagyu briskets, and I'm curious why that is.

https://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=264641
https://bbqbeat.com/wagyu-brisket/

Most of these guys - perhaps because it's competition - don't even check until internal temp is 205+. That bbqbeat site says they might even go up to 217 internal temp! Other thread says to probe for tenderness, and once it's done, wait another 30 minutes.

I know the friggin cow drives the cook, but is it our cookers that cause such a big difference in this advice? Most on here have their SRFs come off in low 190s.

Any thoughts?

DoubleEgger · December 2018

217F SRF brisket = Shoe leather

Stoogie · December 2018

2 years ago I had a SRF brisket that cooked WAY faster than any of the others I've had and I took it off at 205*, FTC'd it for almost 7 hours and it was fine. I did not think it was as good as the ones I've taken off when they've hit the low 190's.

I'm going to take a stab at this and say the reasons for the differences on this site versus the other sites is because they're cooking for competition, where (by and large) we cook for family & friends.

Personally, I think as long as you go by the "buttah" feel, you will be just fine, but I'm sure others can chime in and give their takes, which are probably just as good as well.

lousubcap · December 2018

I have only had one SRF "finish" in the mid 190's. All the others have been in the low 200's. The competition teams are looking for the one-shot wow taste test. I don't know how an injection impacts the cook as I have not gone down that road. I will offer that the lower you cook any brisket the more fat you will render by the time you cross the finish-line but beyond that...
The quality of the SRF is such that it is more forgiving regarding the width of the finish-line window. So, you have more latitude to nail it. That said, I see in the above where they all trust the feel as the determinator as to how to wrap up the cook. FWIW-

SonVolt · December 2018

Stoogie said:

I'm going to take a stab at this and say the reasons for the differences on this site versus the other sites is because they're cooking for competition, where (by and large) we cook for family & friends.

This is what drives me crazy about taking brisket advice from YouTube. 99% of the videos on prep and cook are geared towards competition and it's not always obvious. That inadvertently leads to Joe Noby that's cooking for his friends or family throwing most of the precious fat cap in the trash and cutting off big sections of good meat, b/c that's what all the videos are telling him. There's surprisingly little instructional videos on cooking for "yield", or whatever it's called considering most of the audience is competing.

stevez · December 2018

Wow! competition or not, can't imagine brisket at 217 or even close. I've always pulled at 195 ish and do not believe cooking higher could make it better. I've been wrong before, just doesn't seem logical to me and I was an avid Weber Smoky Mountain cooker before my Egg.

R2Egg2Q · December 2018

I wouldn’t consider those temps as necessarily competition guidelines. We cooked competitions for years and always checked temps and tenderness below 200. They may not have been ready that low but I recall one wagyu probed like butter in the low 180s. Surprised the heck out of us but it was a good thing we probed early.

BGE vs other Smokers for SRF

Comments

Categories