Big (15.5 lb) Brisket question

[Colin Edwards]

I decided to do my first whole brisket this weekend. I've had my WSM for 2 years now, but I've stuck to pretty much only Butts, Chickens, and Ribs up until now. I was able to find only 1 untrimmed brisket in a 50 mile radius, and it's on the heavy side at 15.5 lbs. I won't be taking it out of the cryovac until Friday, so I'm not sure how much weight I'll lose to trimming down the fat. For those of you who have bought one this size before, do you think I'm looking at a 14-15 hour cook? Mostly wondering because I'm trying to time this out with other food to serve for a party.

 

[Mache]

If you trim to around 1/4 inch of fat overall, I would assume you would pull off 2-2.5 pounds of fat. I am a big fan of the Aaron Franklin method and if you use his approach with a trimmed brisket of 13 pounds I would expect it to take 13-16.25 hours on the smoker (1-1.25 hours per pound at 250F overall - spritz and wrap in butcher paper at the stall, start checking for done at 185F internal temperature). You then need to let it rest, loosely tented for at least an hour or until the internal temperature reaches 170F. You can then serve it or hold it (foil or butcher paper wrapped and then toweled in a boiling water rinsed cooler or in a holding oven/smoker at 160F). For more about Aaron Franklin's approach to brisket see his videos. I posted my understanding of Franklin methodology in this thread.

Good luck,

-- Mache

 

[Gene_N]

Hello Colin,

I'm a weekend smoker. I've cooked 2 full packers this size many times using my 22.5. After resting, I into 1-1.5 lbs chunks and seal in a freezer bag to be used for fast weeknight dinners. What I usually do is smoke as long as I can using one big ring of KO, maintaining temps between 220-260 usually to 160-180 internal temp; (8-11 hours of cook time, depends on ambient temp and wind). I then pan, cover with foil and cook in my gasser and kitchen oven at 350 until internal temps get to 205. I then drain the au jus for sauce and rest the meat for at least one hour in a ice chest with the meat wrapped in towels. Panning and covering the meat is important for me because I use the au jus for KC Burnt Ends sauce. While I rest, I separate out the fat from the au jus. After resting, I will separate cap from flat and re-wrap and store in frig overnight before I portion out and seal the following morning.

After one hour of rest (prep, smoke, pan/cover finish cook in 350 grill/oven then rest), total elapsed time is around 12-14 hours. YMMV

If you can get 14-15 hrs smoke time from one large ring, more power to you. The meat absorbs only so much smoke then the rest of the time is about cooking to tenderness.

I hope this helps.. Good luck.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

You are probably about right on the cook time if you wrap, although the ones I've cooked are usually closer to 10 lbs. I've cooked only 3 with guests coming over and it can be extremely hard to determine when the things will be done. I've had some that stall forever and some that don't stall hardly at all. You can rest it for up to 3 hrs as everyone mentioned (tightly wrapped with foil with towels in a cooler) so I'd try to give yourself a few hours leeway. If you get a brisket that doesn't stall much, wrap later or not at all.

 

[J Hasselberger]

I did a 17-pounder (before trimming) about a month ago. I trimmed the fat cap and cut off about 3" of the flat to grind in with burgers, so it netted out at around 13+. It took just about 13 hours total. It went on at 11:00p.m. at 250. At 7:00 a.m. it was a nice color and the cooker had dropped to about 215. I wrapped in butcher paper and goosed the temp up to around 270. When it probed done at around noon, it was at about 190-ish internal. I don't find that I can predict doneness with any kind of reliable accuracy -- when it's done, it's done.

 

[Alan F]

Here are notes from my last brisket cook using butcher paper.

Put on 14lb packer at midnight at 275f (had temp spike to 290 during the night.) At 6am wrapped and put in a 275 oven, and 8:30am flat was in the 190's but not tender...at 9am flat was tender, about 206, and was cooled for 15m before a long rest (4 hours) at 200f.

 

[Monty House]

You never know. Put it on, relax, visit, nap, sip a beer, read a book....probe for tenderness.

 

[Colin Edwards]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'll let you know how it turns out!

 

[Colin Edwards]

I didn't trim any of the fat off the 15.5 lb packer. I decided that I'd rather keep the fat/weight so that I could start it earlier in the night with time to get the temp/vents balanced for the weather conditions and get some sleep with it cooking really low and slow. I put the brisket on at 8:00 PM Friday night. It was a cold, windy and rainy night. Kept the smoker down around 200-225 while I was awake (alarms on my remote thermometer were set for 195 and 250). I got woken up 5 times throughout the night to deal with temp spikes and drops, but I didn't think that was too bad.

The first picture below is right before it went in to my 18.5" WSM. I balled up a piece of HD foil to support the arch between the two handles on the top rack. The big brisket really makes the 18" grate look tiny in that picture!

The next two pictures are 12 hours into the cook at 8:00 AM Saturday. I dropped the ball and didn't take any pictures when I finally took it off at 2:00 PM after smoking for 18 hours, but I think the 8:00AM pics speak for how well things were going. We had about 20 people over for a party, and the entire flat was gone in about 25 minutes. I also did a couple of chickens on the bottom rack and those were also devoured immediately. The fat was removed from the point and it went back in the smoker until 8:00 PM when it was finished off by 6-8 people looking for another snack. Didn't make burnt ends with it...just put it in the smoker to try to cook out some more of the fat and keep it warm.

I feel really good about my first attempt at brisket. I don't know if it could have come out any better. I also feel good about being able to keep the smoker burning for about 30 hours before I finally closed up all the vents and went to bed. I did add 10 hot and 15-20 unlit coals a couple of times during the day on Saturday, but it wasn't hard at all to keep it going and keep the temp steady. In past years, I only did 8-12 hour sessions, and when I was doing them I spent way too much time worrying about temperature. I used to see the smoker temp rising by 6-8 degrees and get nervous and start making adjustments almost immediately. I've finally learned to have more patience and let the temp rise or fall by 15-20 degrees without worrying or changing anything. BBQ is a thing of both science and art, and patience is important.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

That looks awesome! Wish you had taken the final pictures! I'm like you with the temp adjustments. I'd get so flustered about minor temperature changes that I often would make it worse by overcorrecting. Did you wrap it during the cook? My last few cooks I haven't and I burned up all my drippings.

 

[ChuckO]

That's a fine cook on a big ol' Brisket! I've never had that kind of sucess on Briskets that large. What I end up doing is cooking two 6 to 8 LBS Briskets for a total of approx 15 LBS of Brisket, and in doing so, I can keep the total cook time 10 hours or less. My smoker(s) are very manageable up to 10 hours, and then become more difficult as time wears on

You're a Pit Master in my books

 

[Hamilton Barnes]

I did a brisket last weekend around 8.5 lbs before trimming (butcher has done most for me--a little too much cap on from the flat on one side of it) I was planning on it taking several more hours than it did. Luckily I caught it in time and pulled it off. I try to give myself too much time so my guests aren't waiting on the food to finish, but we cook to temp not by time.

 

[Monty House]

Well done. You came through with flying colors! Thanks for the pix, too.

 

[Colin Edwards]

Did you wrap it during the cook?

I didn't completely wrap it at all. But, because I was nervous about it drying out, I did put it in a large aluminum steam pan for a few hours. I cut about 3 inches off of one end of the pan (so it would fit on the top cooking grate) and propped up the cut side with some big balls of aluminum foil to catch the juices. I put it in the pan fat side up, flat end "down" at the end of pan that wasn't propped at all (so the thinnest part of the flat on the end was the most submerged). It went into that pan around 9 AM (13 hrs into the cook), and I left it in there sitting in its own juices for about 3 hours. I don't know if this was necessary...I just wanted to make sure it didn't dry out, so I gave this a try. I took it out of the pan after the 3 hrs, hoping that the last 2 or so I was leaving it on the smoker for would dry up the bark a little bit.

 

[Colin Edwards]

I did a brisket last weekend around 8.5 lbs before trimming (butcher has done most for me--a little too much cap on from the flat on one side of it) I was planning on it taking several more hours than it did. Luckily I caught it in time and pulled it off. I try to give myself too much time so my guests aren't waiting on the food to finish, but we cook to temp not by time.

I was cooking to temp, too...just trying to use an educated guess about time per pound to have it ready within a certain time window. As for temp, I was shooting for 195 based on my reading here, but I couldn't get it to budge past 189. So, after about 1:45 with it measuring 189 throughout the flat, I decided to give it a fork test, and it was very tender, so I pulled it.