Unless you foil, I'd keep it ~275 tops. How is it feeling?

Arrgh, it had already run up to 320+ when I saw this. It's still not at tender. I just shut all the vents and temp is dropping as we speak.

Cooker has dropped to 300, internal is 191, still not tender.

How much time do you have?

30 mins till I pull it a cooler it.

Just pulled it off at 202,shy of tender but the finish line seems in sight. Double wrapped HD, in cooler, will let you know how it turned out. Thanks!!

Wellll??? Dying to know!

Sorry David, couldn't reply until now, and I owe a debt of gratitude to you and Kevin Kruger. Here's the after-action report:

1. When I pulled the brisket off the cooker, internal temp read 200, but it was still shy of tender. I double wrapped in foil, but before I closed it up I took all of the accumulated liquid from the foil pan I had put below the grate (on the foil-wrapped clay saucer) and dumped it in with the meat. I have no idea if this helped or hindered, I just went with the (literal) flow. There was a huge amount of liquid that came out of this packer and from the looks of it I'm guessing most of it was melted/rendered fat.

2. Sucker sat in a cooler for over four hours. I was somewhat worried about the temp dropping into the danger zone, but there was nothing to worry about. When I finally took it out of the cooler it was at 173 internal.

3. Overall, the brisket turned out phenomenally well, never mind all the drama leading up until I put it foiled in the cooler. It was tender and insanely juicy, with almost a silky texture. Bark on the upper part of the brisket was beautiful. And I don't know if this makes sense, but it almost seemed like the point had collapsed down onto the flat with much of the fat vein between the two melted away. I had trimmed the outside of the packer somewhat before I got started, but I didn't dig anything out of the "V" between the two. I usually remove the point from the flat before slicing, but this time I just started slicing at the far end and worked my way across the entire packer seamlessly. It just seemed to be the thing to do. The entire thing was straight-up inhaled by the folks in attendance, there was not shred left.

4. I had also mixed up a double batch of Steve Petrone's Sauce No.5 while the brisket was cooking. In lieu of adding meat drippings I threw in a small number of mixed dried mushrooms (wife had just bought the jar, they were sitting on the counter), and I think it added a really nice robust touch to the sauce. Stuff got slathered by people on everything.

5. I had some very happy and satisfied co-workers.

(With all the madness, I only managed to snap one blurry cellphone pic of the end result, but I'm hoping to get pictures from some of the others who were there. Instead, I humbly offer the pictorial aftermath left in the wake of consuming another masterpiece...)

quote:

Overall, the brisket turned out phenomenally well, never mind all the drama leading up until I put it foiled in the cooler. It was tender and insanely juicy, with almost a silky texture. Bark on the upper part of the brisket was beautiful. And I don't know if this makes sense, but it almost seemed like the point had collapsed down onto the flat with much of the fat vein between the two melted away.

That does make sense, with Wagyus.

I'm so glad it went well. Wagyu briskets are fun to cook. As you noticed, the finish point can be similar to non-Wagyus if the cooktemps are higher. Their structure supports rather low sustained temps (try that some time when you have the time) but they don't need to be cooked that low to be successful.

[Where are you in L.A.? Before another year passes I'm looking to set up yet another household - but this time back in Calif. Probably downtown, WeHo, Hollywood, Franklin/Los Feliz, Silverlake, Echo, Elysian - or maybe Pasadena. Don't know yet. I'll be out there in Oct for The Other Venice Film Festival and looking forward to that.]

Mordechai--

Sounds like it went great!
Mine is on the smoker right now, hovering around 195 internal, as you noted, not quite there yet. I did an overnight--started at 1130-- it's 2pm right now. First few hours were at 210-235, but sometime during the wee hours, I woke up to a temp of 175. Quickly bumped the WSM back up to 260, been chugging along for about 5 hours at that time or slightly higher. Sucker's gotta be done soon! Will post pix and results later.

David:

Sounds a bit like my overnighter on Thursday, although my temps only dropped about 5 degrees overnight, dunno if it was just my cooker, the charcoal I was using (Trader Joe's hardwood generic, which according to those in the know on this board is actually Rancher), or the clay saucer. Whatever it was, temps were pretty rock-steady throughout, until I blew the vents wide open. Good luck with the eats today, I'm guessing you should already be chowing down.

Kevin:

Westside. Email me offline - whiskyfish at gmail and I'd love to find out more about your plans and make arrangements to host you. I figure I owe you, oh about a lifetime of free food and drink. (And while I'm just starting to learn about quality food, I'm blessed to have learned a thing or three about quality drink and would love to share.)

Question for both of you (and anyone else who chimes in) - how much of the finished product do you think was due to the Wagyu nature of the brisket as opposed to the technique/cook? I'm just learning how to not screw up a cook, and getting to the point where I can consistently crank out excellent results is a ways off. Would I have had somewhat of the same results with any old packer? Or did all that extra marbling give me a greater margin of error?

BTW, just put up two flat irons of about 1.75lb each on the grill. First time experiment, will let you know how they turn out.

Love flat irons.

As to your questions, imo, many of your descriptors apply frequently to Wagyus, not as often to standard Choice briskets though some can come close here and there. One can certainly crank out excellent Choice - and even Select - briskets but, imo, they are excellent relative to their class, not so much the über-brisket of Wagyu. And yes, the margin of error is greater.

Interesting that you say that, I appreciate the feedback. There's obviously a price premium to pay for the Wagyu, but if it really gives me broader latitude and margin for error then it's probably worth it. I'm still not at the point where I can confidently poke/probe a piece of meat and know what it's telling me, so I need to keep working at it. I'll probably continue to practice more with HH packers and save the Wagyu for those special occasions when I can go overnight really low and slow.

I also learned that when going low and slow I need to build a bigger time cushion into my calculations, as there's really no way to know how long something will take to get to tender, but that's another thing I need to mull over. Here's the best shot I managed to get of the finished product:



And yes, the flat irons were outstanding. I've never been the world's biggest rib eye fan, but I think I just discovered my new favorite steak cut. Insanely good.

Yes, Insanely. Really my favorite cut.

Both pics are evocative. Good stuff.

A lot of knowing what the meat is telling you is not overthinking it. Keep that in mind when you probe for tenderness. Be kind of quick and 'unthinking' and you'll see what I mean.