6am Brisket surprise


 
B

BrianM

Guest
I'm also doing an overnight labor day brisket. This is my 6th Brisket on the WSM, but something strange happened. I fired up the WSM at 11:15 using Minion method, let the temp get to 230ish, and by midnight I put the brisket on. I set my dual probe Nu-Temp alarms for 325 at the dome, and 165 for the meat and went to bed. I woke up at 6am, and the dome temp was 266, and the meat temp was 202!? I pulled the brisket off, wrapped it in foil and stuck it in a warm oven while I try to figure out what happened.

- The meat: 9lb choice packer brisket from Sams. Pretty uniform thickness, but less fat pad than ones I've done in the past.

- The Nu-Temp alarm: Admittedly, I had too many adult beverages last night and I'm guessing the alarm went off but I heard nothing.

- My decision to pull the meat off: My previous 5 briskets have all taken at least 8 or 10 hours to reach 165. Fearing that i'll have brisket crumble, I had to pull it. I am going to try and hold the meat for a few hours in foil in a warm oven.

I was really surprised when the temp was 202 at 6.. In fact, I got out one of my non-digital thermometers thinking the Nu-Temp was acting up.

Hopefully the pros can offer some explanations as to what might've happened... do some briskets just cook fast, or in my drunken sleep did the WSM soar to 500 degrees ??
icon_biggrin.gif


Thanks
Brian
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BrianM:
I'm also doing an overnight labor day brisket. This is my 6th Brisket on the WSM, but something strange happened. I fired up the WSM at 11:15 using Minion method, let the temp get to 230ish, and by midnight I put the brisket on. I set my dual probe Nu-Temp alarms for 325 at the dome, and 165 for the meat and went to bed. I woke up at 6am, and the dome temp was 266, and the meat temp was 202!? I pulled the brisket off, wrapped it in foil and stuck it in a warm oven while I try to figure out what happened.

- The meat: 9lb choice packer brisket from Sams. Pretty uniform thickness, but less fat pad than ones I've done in the past.

- The Nu-Temp alarm: Admittedly, I had too many adult beverages last night and I'm guessing the alarm went off but I heard nothing.

- My decision to pull the meat off: My previous 5 briskets have all taken at least 8 or 10 hours to reach 165. Fearing that i'll have brisket crumble, I had to pull it. I am going to try and hold the meat for a few hours in foil in a warm oven.

I was really surprised when the temp was 202 at 6.. In fact, I got out one of my non-digital thermometers thinking the Nu-Temp was acting up.

Hopefully the pros can offer some explanations as to what might've happened... do some briskets just cook fast, or in my drunken sleep did the WSM soar to 500 degrees ??
icon_biggrin.gif


Thanks
Brian </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree, you had a temp spike at some point!

Did you probe to make sure the brisket was done, 'tender' or did you simply go by temp? I'm sure, it's done at 202º, but you may want to double check to ensure it's tender.

Yes, each piece of meat is different, some cook faster than others and some cook slower and are more stubborn. For instance, I cooked 2-9lb butts yesterday around 250º and they took 11.5 hours, go figure.
 
It feels pretty tender to the probe but I haven't cut into it yet. Think I just slice now and reheat for dinner?
 
Update:

I notice the temp of the meat in the warm oven had dropped back rather quickly to about 160, so I decided to go ahead and crank the oven up to 300 until the meat got back to around 200. (~1 hour). I pulled the meat out, let it rest for 20 minutes, then carved into it. Other than being a slightly drier than what I'm used to it is excellent. It has a very defined smoke ring about 1/4 inch deep, and I can still cut it with a fork but is not so tender that you can't pick it up.. I sliced it all up, put it on a platter with just a touch of water to try to regain some moistness (or at least not lose any more) wrapped it tightly with plastic and foil. Back in the warm oven..

This was a strange smoke but my WSM has not let me down yet. Amazing little metal tube!!
 
Btw, load the meat in when you first add the lit and assemble the cooker (it's one of the operative points of the MM). Less chance of spiking.
 
Kevin,

Does the cold meat keep the temp down or is it more of the fact you don't have to open the lid again which stokes the fire?
 
Both. But you really want to stabilize with the meat in. Adding it later means more coals end up lighting sooner.
 
Must be the weekend for fast cooks. I put my 8 lb. brisket on last night at 7PM, temps in the WSM stayed 255-260. The meat hit 165 at 10:30. I foiled and put back in. It hit 197 at 2AM. I took it off and wrapped it in blankets in the cooler. Sliced this AM and this was the most juicy tender brisket I've done yet.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I notice the temp of the meat in the warm oven had dropped back rather quickly to about 160, </div></BLOCKQUOTE>Did you reposition the probe when it went into the oven? Maybe it wasn't as done as you thought. You can get funny probe readings if it isn't in the thick of the meat (in a vein of fat for example).

Did you use water in the pan? If so you certainly didn't spike much above 300ºF.
 
I took temp readings from 4 different places in the meat. It was definitely 200-205 when it came off the smoker. I had a full water pan, top vent 100%, one bottom 100%, the other 2 closed.
 
I consistantly get just shy of 1 hour per pound at the 250 mark. If you cooked above 250, which your reading at 266 confirms, then it would make sense for your brisket to cook in 6 hours. Especially if you started at 9lbs and then trimmed some fat. your brisket could have ended up at like 8 or 7.5ish lbs.

I've never had a brisket take longer than 1 hour per pound. Pork butts definitely take longer than beef to cook in my smoker.
 
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