Pink paper / foil


 
The foil "Texas Crutch" is used to get the brisket through the stall by eliminating the evaporative cooling effect in the smoker. The danger with foil is that the brisket gets braised instead of smoked. The butcher paper helps power through the stall, but allows some moisture and air to pass through. Aaron Franklin -- who is largely responsible for the trend -- says that he wraps briskets when they look proper to him. They don't get much darker or develop the "meteorite" crust, which can sometimes be bitter tasting.

Jeff
 
If the butcher paper allows some air to exchange, then the brisket is still getting smoke ?

When I wrap in foil, I see no reason to keep the meat , whether brisket or pork butt, on the smoker. I go inside to the oven. Butcher paper would be a way for it to still get smoke.
 
That paper also soaks up some of the grease and moisture and gives you a crust closer somewhere between wrapped in foil and unwrapped. I've been doing my briskets this way for a while. Nothing wrong with foil either. It just depends on what you want with your final product. It won't magically help you cook Franklin quality brisket.
 
I've done both. I, we, are older and do not like hard bark (on any meat) so we, I, prefer foiling over using paper.
If you're going to foil and add apple juice, I would recommend using no more than 1/4 cup...and I heat mine up before adding it to the foil boat. This way it doesn't cool the meat down and take so long to come back up to temp.


FWIW, I've seen people smoke Spare Ribs without wrapping who had (what looked like) success. Out of curiosity, I tried this about 2 weeks ago. I ended up with a close cousin to a hockey puck the size of a skateboard. I get the same results when I do burnt ends with pork country ribs. On a good note, I KNOW what processes and meat I won't be smoking/cooking in the future.
 

 

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