Brisket Flat cook today-Dry and not much bark


 
Dean's instructions are very good overall.
I use salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder (SPOG) and no mustard/oil/injection.
Yes this falls into the realm of nit picking.

I want Mike to weigh in with is method/recipe .... That is one spectacular looking piece of meat.

Ken, Walmart has packers here (Texas) as does Costco, Sam's...maybe try there??
 
Last edited:
Dean's instructions are very good overall.
I use salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder (SPOG) and no mustard/oil/injection.
Yes this falls into the realm of nit picking.

I want Mike to weigh in with is method/recipe .... That is one spectacular looking piece of meat.

Ken, Walmart has packers here (Texas) as does Costco, Sam's...maybe try there??

As I said, I use the water pan, with water and cook at 225 for as long as it takes. I use the minion method, and actually bury my smoke wood in the unlit charcoal, so it begins to smoke as the other charcoal lights. I take about half an hour to get the WSM up to temp, I usually only dump 10-12 lit coals on top of the full ring. Run all 3 vents open until I hit around 190, close one down, close the 2nd down at around 210 and usually end up closing the 3rd to about 1/4 open when I hit 220, this usually brings me right to 225.

As far as the meat goes, I trim some of the hard fat off, but try to leave a good portion of fat cap on, and I use the Big Bad Beef Rub from over at AmazingRibs (strong pepper flavor, but you can taste the rest too). I don't inject at all (tried once along with foiling and that turned out to be one overcooked brisket so I just stay away from trying again). I usually start my prep at 6pm, get the meat on sometime around 7 and let it go all night. Since I don't wrap or anything it does take a while. I used to get up at 3 or 4am to get it started for gatherings, but I always found that we ended up waiting for the meat. This way it's usually done sometime around noon, and can easily go into a warm cooler wrapped with towels until we're actually ready to eat. I've found that an hour or two rest is best. Depending what I feel like I'll either cut using my electric knife or my new carving knife (damn expensive, but worth the money). In the pics I provided that knife was crap, which is why the slices are a bit butchered. :)
 
Dean's instructions are very good overall.
I use salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder (SPOG) and no mustard/oil/injection.
Yes this falls into the realm of nit picking.

I want Mike to weigh in with is method/recipe .... That is one spectacular looking piece of meat.



Ken, Walmart has packers here (Texas) as does Costco, Sam's...maybe try there??

Tried all those places, no packers in my areas.
 
As I said, I use the water pan, with water and cook at 225 for as long as it takes. I use the minion method, and actually bury my smoke wood in the unlit charcoal, so it begins to smoke as the other charcoal lights. I take about half an hour to get the WSM up to temp, I usually only dump 10-12 lit coals on top of the full ring. Run all 3 vents open until I hit around 190, close one down, close the 2nd down at around 210 and usually end up closing the 3rd to about 1/4 open when I hit 220, this usually brings me right to 225.

As far as the meat goes, I trim some of the hard fat off, but try to leave a good portion of fat cap on, and I use the Big Bad Beef Rub from over at AmazingRibs (strong pepper flavor, but you can taste the rest too). I don't inject at all (tried once along with foiling and that turned out to be one overcooked brisket so I just stay away from trying again). I usually start my prep at 6pm, get the meat on sometime around 7 and let it go all night. Since I don't wrap or anything it does take a while. I used to get up at 3 or 4am to get it started for gatherings, but I always found that we ended up waiting for the meat. This way it's usually done sometime around noon, and can easily go into a warm cooler wrapped with towels until we're actually ready to eat. I've found that an hour or two rest is best. Depending what I feel like I'll either cut using my electric knife or my new carving knife (damn expensive, but worth the money). In the pics I provided that knife was crap, which is why the slices are a bit butchered. :)

This is all good advice. I used to use the Big Bad Beef Rub as well and while it is very good we prefer the heavy S&P with light O&G powder. Just a preference. As far as water in the pan, even if cooking with water in the pan yields an overall better result I'm not doing it because I don't want to deal with the clean up. To each his own. Just like Mike I used to get up at 4-5am and put the brisket/butt on but just as he said sometimes we would be waiting on "probe tender" so now briskets/butts are always overnight cooks unless it is a really small one. There really is not right or wrong way. Just pick one way or the other and do a brisket or two and then adjust the procedure to fit your taste and liking.

Main thing I've learned is some cooks cant be counted on to be finished right at serving time and I must allow for that so my target finish time is an hour or two before that. This prevents a lot of anxiety due to a cook taking longer than planned and hungry people getting antsy and as Mike said the brisket/butt will benefit from a hour or two rest before slicing anyway.

Cook one soon and post results and pictures...I'm anxious.
 

 

Back
Top