Accidental Jerky Prevention


 
N

Nick Cosby

TVWBB Fan
I've had this happen to me twice now where the bottom of the brisket would become dried out like jerky and take up a 1/4" to 1/2" of meat. Now has anyone else had this issue and could recommend a fix to prevent this in the future?
I'm thinking I just need to shorten my cooks, this last one was about 17hrs for a 14lber.
 
That brisket actually looks fantastic other than that part. To me that mostly looks like a layer of crust. Wrapping could allieviate that if its just crust. Try wrapping at 165 or just after the crust has set. That could just be the picture. Cooking fat down might help but I think you just have too much radiant heat hitting the bottom of the brisket if its not just the crust. My guess would be you're cooking without water in the pan and you need something there to absorb more heat like water, a pizza stone, a terra cotta bowl, sand, whatever. I've never had that problem to that extent. I usually just wrap the pan and put a sheet over the top to keep drippings from burning. Your cook time shouldn't be the issue. I've done plenty of cooks low and slow around 225 unwrapped and not had that problem, at least not to that extent.
 
First of all, tour brisket looks fantastic.
More over, I use WSM and for this reason I trimm very lightly the fat side and I set the brisket with the fat side down.
 
What temp are you cooking at? The rest of the brisket looks great. I have never seen a brisket that looks good but has one part super tough like that. I don't trim the fat cap side of the brisket and cook it fat side down. Are you cooking on the top grate?
 
Cooking top grate, fat up, it started at 210 for the 10hrs of charcoal, then at last 7hrs it ranged between 250-285ish with vents closed, I think this is where it happened cause I didn't think about the water bowl refill, this is my first brisket cook of the year and first with a newborn, so my mind was kinda busy.
 
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