Big time Brisket Fail


 
PeterD

PeterD

TVWBB Super Fan
Hi all,

First cook of the season turned out to be a shoe-leather disaster. 13.1# Angus (pre-trim weight), trimmed down to 11 lb, 12 oz. Mustard slather, salt, Coarse and cracked black pepper, a dash of cayenne, ancho, celery seed and espresso-grind coffee—my usual brisket rub—applied about an hour before it went on. Weber Smoky Mountain 18" (old model, with shallow water pan and no thermometer in the lid). Minion method with about 20 lit, and 6 embedded chunks of post oak. In other words, the same setup I've been using for a few years. I used a FlameBoss 300 Wifi controller since I needed sleep overnight.

Normally I just throw the brisket on right away, but I wanted to try to get a clean fire this time, so I waited. Temps shot up to 350 and stayed there, even with the blower unplugged and the top vent down to just a fraction of an inch. After 2 hours it calmed down and I put the brisket on at midnight. With a 12 pounder on there, I figured mid-afternoon should be good. Seemed to go OK overnight, with a few oscillations around 7am (it's always done this and I can never understand why, but that's not important right now).

Looking at the graph from the FlameBoss, it got through the stall OK, and hit mid-190s, which is when I usually start probing with my Thermapen. It was tough as leather, and the Thermapen was saying upper-170s/lower-180s, depending on where I was probing. OK. Still under, so I wrapped in butcher paper and put it back on the pit for 2 hours. No change in temp, no change in texture (still rock-hard in the flat). The point was perfect. Temps still in the 180s. I started to get a feeling that this was going pear-shaped fast, and that's basically what happened. I wrapped in foil this time, back on for another 90 minutes. No change. It never topped 200. Remember, this was a smallish brisket. I stopped residual cooking, wrapped in foil and set it aside for 90 minutes in a cooler.

When it came time to serve, the point was moist, jiggly, and perfect but the entire flat muscle was rock hard, dry, and took heavy knife pressure to slice. It broke apart across the grain when I attempted to slice it. BBQ sauce, a great bark bite, and patient, hungry guests saved the Smoke Day cookout, but needless to say this was a disaster.

I find this typical in my smokes, too. Never this extreme, but finishing with dry flat meat happens more often than not. I usually start probing around 190ish and I can never get that like buttah feel in the flat that I do in the point, even if the flat is tasty.

Here's the graph of my cook. Pit temps in red, meat in yellow. The drop after 9 am was wrapping in butcher paper and adding coals since my fire was dying. (sorry, I can't figure out how to embed an image, so here's the URL):
Memorial%20Day%20Brisket%202019.jpg
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/yytsceoq5cxond3/Memorial Day Brisket 2019.jpg?dl=0
 
More info: This morning I did an ice water/boiling water test on my probes. At room temperature water both the pit and meat probes were dead-on with my two calibrated ThermaPens. At Freezing, both probes were about 3 degrees above the ThermaPen. At a rolling boil, both were 4 degrees below the ThermaPen. The difference between 212 and 208 is meaningless for the pit, but a little more worrisome for the meat probe. But even with that said, the meat probe still never came close to 200 in the cook.
 
Peter, I am sorry to hear this. My first guess is that you wrapped too late. Meaning, the brisket dried out enough that wrapping couldn't rescue what was lost in moisture. My other thought is that brisket isn't well marbled so it was an uphill battle from the start. I'd suggest wrapping earlier, when the crust is set and adding some beef broth to the wrap so you put some moisture back into it. You should be able to hit 200 eventually. Also, you will hit the temp faster with foil than with paper as the seal is tighter. If it goes too fast on the next try, then you can loosen the wrap to let it breathe more. Also, are you leaving the fat on the flat?
 
Yup, fat cap left intact. It was a CAB Choice packer from Restaurant Despot. Might have been an ornery cow with no fat, I guess. I have been using pink butcher paper ever since Aaron Franklin's video series a few years ago and for the most part it's worked well to help speed up a long cook when time's getting short. Truth be told, I prefer not to wrap if I can avoid it, but you're right, maybe it should have gotten wrapped it in the 160s. I was fast asleep at that point in the cook, however (between 4 and 6am). I don't go by time, but based on experience, I usually budget somewhere around 1.25 to 1.5 hours per pound, so it wouldn't have occurred to me that it would have lost its moisture and been overcooked after only 9 or 10 hours, at ~250°.

I'd planned to start this cook at 9pm, pull before noon, rest it in the faux Cambro, and serve at 2:30 or 3pm. Lingering rain delayed the start until a bit after 10:30, and it was 12:15 by the time I had a clean fire at something close to my intended cook temp of 250°F. Usually if I'm going to wrap I'll do so when it's about 165 to 170, more or less. Note that I temp in the thickest part of the flat, just where it rides over top of the point.
 
Too bad! I never like hearing about a cook going sideways! We spend way too much time for failures to happen. As many have said before, sometimes you just get a “bad one”. Use the dry stuff for chili! It will still be good.
 
That's a bummer, sorry it went south on you. I'm no brisket expert as only do one a year on smoke day and didn't get to do it this year just way to windy. If like you said the method was the same as you always do my guess it was a bad piece of meat.
 
I've always had good luck with CAB choice packers. I only ever get them at the grocery store where there is one mysteriously mixed in with regular select briskets at the same price. If I ask the grocery store butcher, they look at me confused and say something like "There's different grades of beef? Hmmm how 'about that?"

Is there a CAB brisket fairy?

I've cooked briskets and had them turn out fine wrapped or unwrapped. I typically do the butcher paper thing these days. If I'm trying to speed up a cook or save one I'll use foil because it allows you to add some liquid. I've had briskets slow down and even drop in temp after wrapping in paper, just because it can be tricky to wrap them tightly. It wouldn't hurt to even spritz the paper a little bit before putting the brisket on it to wrap. I usually go fat down and then face up after the wrap to keep the fat from sticking to the paper.
 
I've always had good luck with brisket cooks but one time a few years ago I had a Choice brisket that came out awful. Cooked exactly like always. Guests were happy but I knew better. It happens.
 
Totally agree with Donna. One of the keys regarding what happened is confirmed by what you wrote... "It broke apart across the grain when I attempted to slice it." This happens after the connective tissue has turned to gelatin and that moisture giving gelatin has drained out from the brisket.
 
Bob Bass said:
Totally agree with Donna. One of the keys regarding what happened is confirmed by what you wrote... "It broke apart across the grain when I attempted to slice it." This happens after the connective tissue has turned to gelatin and that moisture giving gelatin has drained out from the brisket.
Click to expand...

That makes sense in the post-mortem, but what do you think I could have done to prevent this, and why would it have happened so early? My usual process for brisket is start at 9 or 10pm, let it go overnight at about 250°F, and wrap around 8am. I usually get a dry flat (but never this bad) but it's still tasty with great bark. I consider my process to be very good, but it always seems to go to hell at the end, so my question is this. If I want to do a 12-14 pounder low and slow, with an intended slicing/serving time at 3pm, when should I get it on the pit, and when should I wrap? I've got another one planned for the 4th of July—for the same crowd—and I want to make it up to everybody who slogged through this mess yesterday.

I'm not a fan of hot-and-fast cooking, and I never have been. I've got plenty of time, lots of cigars, and plenty of rum and Scotch, so sitting outside for a few hours keeping the WSM company is a Good Thing. But obviously I gotta change something up. I really want a moist, juicy, and jiggly flat one of these days.
 
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Thanks for the tip. So from the image, the first significant event was when my fire was going out. I refueled and wrapped in butcher paper, and dropped the target temp to 230. As the meat temp hit 203 according to the Flame Boss probe, I took it off the smoker, and opened up the butcher paper. But when I probed it with the ThermaPen it was reading in the 180s. Confirmed with my second TP. So I then figured an incorrect probe placement through the butcher paper resulted in the higher meat temp. I cranked the pit temp to 275, and began spritzing the hell out of the brisket with water every 20 minutes or so. Meat temp began to drop. Meat temp spiked briefly when I foiled it and put it back on then started climbing to where I assumed it would be done. Pulled it off, vented, re-foiled and served at 5pm.

It never really stalled in the way others have in the past. It just slowed down the rate of temperature rise for 5 hours a little compared with the first 3 hours. Where should I have been checking for done here?
 
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