Brisket? Fat side up or down and why?


 
C

C. Callahan (BBQ KIDD)

New member
I always cook my briskets fat side up with a full water pan and never flip. But I hear alot about fat side down. I thought fat side up would allow the melting fat to keep the brisket moist, is this just a myth?
 
C., i cook all my brisket's fat side up and never flip the melting fat run's down the sides of the brisky, fat side down the fat just drips straight down, i cook the briskets HH all the time, cooking brisket is the only time i use a empty water pan just to shield the direct heat from the brisket, i start mopping after the 1st hr and mop every hr after that, as far as melting fat being a myth no one really knows, brisket will only be dry when over cooked, all i know is fat side up the melting fat will keep the brisket almost self basting hope this helped
 
Count me as a fat side up member. Low and slow, my feeling is it self-bastes as it cooks. I'm a foiler as well from about 160 internal till almost done, with a finish out of the foil to firm up my bark.
 
I'm a fat side downer, a la Jim Minion, but I foil at 160 like MacPete; otherwise, the brisket plateaus and I'll never reach the finish!
 
Nothing scientific about my method I cook fat side down because all my briskets have came out very good so why change . I did my first one yrs ago like that for no good reason and it worked and I never trim off any fat .
wsmsmile8gm.gif
 
i'm a fat up guy but i will try a fat down cook next time. to be honest, i don't think it really matters. i'm thinking that the fat might need to be all taken off so that the rub and smoke can get to more of the meat. with fat on yer almost eliminating half the surface of the brisket. moisture/fat just comes from the meat make up itself. fat down is usually used when the heat source is from the bottom such as cooking on a uds. but the only way is to try yerself and see.
 
One can certainly cook fat up if one prefers, but that fat up 'bastes' the meat is a myth. First, exterior fat on briskets is mostly hard fat, i.e,. it doesn't render much. Second, what does merely drips off the brisket, as Noe correctly notes.

It's an individual's choice of course but fat down means the up side is protected from the more direct heat emanating from below, and it means the rub on the lean side doesn't get scraped off by the grate nor is it lost via the drippings.

I'm a fat down guy.

The notion that one should cook fat up comes from classic cooking technique. But this was never meant as some sort of basting or 'keeping the meat moist' sort of thing, despite what one reads on the Net. It's done for two reasons: one, because the meat is in a pan on the oven, the pan protects the meat from direct heat; two, because the lean on the pans bottom, along with the slowly dripping fat, will create fond on the bottom of the pan, the thing responsible for flavoring the sauce or gravy that will be made after the meat cooks.
 
low and slow: fat side up, out of tradition.

HH: fat side down, because the fat provides an extra layer of insulation from the coals.
 
I've been listening to the podcast of the BBQ Central Show Brisket Roundtable from a couple of years ago. The panelists were LeAnn Whippen, Ray Lampe, Fast Eddie Maurin and Jim Minion.

As I recall, Dr. BBQ said he always cooked his briskets fat down on his BGE. Seems that Fast Eddie also was a fat down guy. Ms. Wood Chick said she liked to cook her briskets fat side up, but Fast Eddie pointed out that cooking on a rotisserie cooker like she uses, there are advantages to fat side up.

The general consensus of the folks who cook on cookers where the heat source is below the meat seems to be that having the fat cap between the heat source and the meat on top of the fat adds some level of protection from the rising heat.

As usual, Kevin's response above is well-reasoned, theoretically sound and dead-on.

Pat
 
George fat is flavour, just score the fat cap and pour ur rub all over the brisky, the water pan is protecting the brisky, the wsm works like a convection oven so the heat on top of the brisky is intense also, in all honesty as long as u do not over cook a brisky it should be good and moist, the trick is 160-170 then foil, i start checking for doneness after 2hrs in foil no more temp checks all feel hope this helped, most bbq joints cook there briskets over 500 degrees if they admit it or not
 
Is it really necessary to foil at 160? A couple weeks ago I did a 5lb flat in my kettle @ 300, no foiling, and it turned out pretty good.
 
Necessary? No. It can be the difference between success and failure in some cases though. It depends on the flat, the cooking conditions, and how on it the cook is. Foiling changes the cooking dynamics, upping efficiency considerably.

I don't cook flats pretty much as a rule, but I usually recommend foiling them because, again, depending on the variables above (especially the flat itself), it's not hard for one to screw up. This can be rather discouraging, especially to those new to cooking brisket.
 
Craig like KK said foiling necessary no, but the window for success or failure is very very small, also i never cook flats, if i cannot find a whole untrimmed packer i would rather cook a roast
 
If cooking on a wsm, cook with fat down. If cooking on a typical offset, cook with the fat up.

Tip: put a brisket on the bottom rack with a bit of foil under the end of the flat where it hangs past the pan. Take any fat you trim off and put on the foil before you lay the brisket there and this all will help it cook more evenly....no need on the point end. Want it to be even better? Cook a butt or two over it and the juices will baste some of the best brisket bark you've ever had.
 
Dave I did that last cook and worked perfectly. Although after several hours I found the foil under the brisket edges was stuck to the brisket slighly but worse it seemed to be galvanized to the grate. Next time I will oil the grate or foil. I like the idea with the fat under the edges. I'm going to try that.

I also will try scoring the fat before I rub it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top