butt over brisket

[Brian J]

i'm cooking a ~ 12 lb brisket and a ~ 8 lb butt this weekend and planning to put the butt on the top shelf and the brisket on the bottom.

will my cooking times between the two meats vary much? also, does anyone ever experience problems with drippings from the butt washing away the rub on the brisket?

thanks.

 

[Larry Wolfe]

Brian,
You're cooking times are gonna be very close to one another, two good sized/matched pieces of meat to cook together. The juices from the butt will not dramatically effect the bark on your brisket.

 

[Keri C]

I do a B&B quite often. Depending on the thickness, marbling, personality, mood, and inclination of the brisket, it might be done before the butt - my 12-lb briskets usually take right at 12 hours, and the butts closer to 16 to 18 sometimes (running at 250 in the lid). Position your brisket on the bottom rack such that you can insert a probe into the middle of the flat from the side access door so that you can check it easily without removing the lid of the smoker.

When you trim off the hard non-renderable fat from the brisket, try to make it in big chunks and save it to tuck under the ends of the brisket where it hangs over the edge of the waterpan. That way, the scrap fat will catch the brunt of the heat rising along the walls of the cooker until such time as the brisket shrinks up enough to pull back from the hot spots. If you trim your butt, save a few scraps of fat to toss into the coals upon occasion. Helps you get that good fat-dripping-into-coals flavor without giving up the control offered by the waterpan.

Just my 2-cents...

Keri C, still smokin' on Tulsa Time (and cooking as Hot Wire BBQ)

 

[Mike B.]

I did this a couple of weeks ago with a 10 lb. butt and a 10 lb. brisket. The butt took about 21 hrs. to reach 195, and the brisket took about 17 hrs. to reach 188. I put the brisket on the bottom shelf about 5 hrs. after the butt, and the rub stayed on just fine. The brisket was a little on the dry side, but both were very very tasty.

 

[Travis K]

I'll be doing a 5 lb butt and a 6 lb brisket this weekend. It will be my 2nd multi-cook. Do most that place the brisket on the second shelf place it fat side up or down?

First cook of the year! I'm stoked but need to brush up on all the stuff I learned last year!

As someone else mentioned temp, do you target for 250 degrees at the lid? What does that normally put the 1st and 2nd racks at temperature wise?

 

[Jeff T Miller]

I do BOB all the time. That is pretty much the only way I do brisket anymore as I am not happy about how dry my brisket turns out by itself. I always put the brisket on the bottom so the butt will baste it. I haven't seen any evidence that it washes away any rub. I highly recomend this method of cooking brisket. I find that my brisket usually finishes about 3 hours before the butt. That is just an average though.

 

[Frank C]

This method is so good I almost always now do two butts over one big brisket when I plan a long smoke.

The foodsaver and freezer love it as well. I love the moisture and natural basting effect... I use a guru and a foiled pan and always get a moist product with great bark formation.

Finish times depend on the size of the cut... but the top cooks slightly faster.