Dry Brisket

[James Harvey]

Hey All,

My brisket, after 4 atempts, is dry. I see juices dripping on television. I have no juice to be found on my low slow brisket.
The meat is a full brisket. I trim the fat around the outside but leave the intra fat between the point and flat. I cook until around 180F and start doing a twist test with a fork for tender. Final resting temp has ranged from 195F to 205F. The meat is very, if not overly, tender but dry. I get that overly tender is overcooked but if it's not fork tender I don't feel it's done.
Does anyone smoke a brisket and get cascading juices?

 

[Glenn W]

Does anyone smoke a brisket and get cascading juices?

Yes. Couple questions for you. Do you foil? What temps are you cooking? Are you cooking whole briskets or flats? Weight? When you rest are you letting it stop cooking under a tent before foiling and towels?

Temps don't mean much. Not done experimenting but I think my HH briskets are more moist that low n slow. They are somewhat tricky to catch at the perfect doneness compared to butts.

 

[Dave Russell]

I wouldn't expect a brisket to pass a "twist test" with a fork before I pulled it off the cooker. If you cook it that long, the pieces will fall apart and yep, you'll end up with a dry flat. You want to probe it with a fork or probe and it feel like "buttuh", but not as soft as you might take a pork butt. The resting period supposedly allows some of the juices to be reabsorbed, but not if overcooked.

 

[John Mc.]

My humble two cents, maybe they will help - once I started thinking about *cold* butter from the fridge when probing for tender my briskets stopped being dry.

 

[Bill S.]

James...You say you trim the fat on the "outside but leave the intra fat between the flat and point". Are you over trimming the flat section?

 

[S Mitchell]

James, I think you and I are in the same boat. I could not get a moist brisket to save my life. I cooked one last weekend and decided I was not going to worry about temps any more and focus strictly on probing for tenderness. My previous briskets were dry and when I would look at a slice it even looked over cooked, like an overdone pot roast. I decided to try one more and if I burned it up, so be it. I kept cooking it until it felt like I was probing butter. The very center still had some resistance, so I should have kept going, but we were hungry.

The final product was a very good brisket that needed a little more time for the center. I should have trusted my self and next time I will. I would be willing to bet that you are like I am. Just forget the temps or at most use them only as a reference point. Cook until probe tender and you will be happy. Getting the feel of probe tenderness was another worry for me, but as stated in a post above, you want to feel like you are probing butter. When you feel it you will know. Good luck.

 

[Paul K]

James,

A dry brisket is an indication of an over-cooked brisket. Rather than concentrate on temps, use a fork or probe to test for tenderness. You're looking for no resistance when piercing the meat; like a hot knife into butter. I'm not familiar with the 'twisting' technique you refer to. Temps can be misleading as each brisket is different. The old rule is 'it's done when it's done'. True, somewhere around 190-200 it should be done, but obviously going beyond tender starts to dry out the meat. Foiling will help to some degree however if you continue to cook a piece of meat, the internal moisture will continue to cook out regardless of foiling. Foiling will essentially braise your meat. What you are after is pulling the brisket as soon as it is tender or if you're really good pulling right before that point. But for those just trying to smoke a good brisket, don't worry about that specific moment; a brisket can be somewhat forgiving up to a point. That's where testing comes in. You can start with an internal temp of 170ish or based on cook temp and size of brisket (see this example in the cooking section. Flats by themselves are somewhat more difficult to cook than whole packers. Try another and test for tenderness based on feel and see how things turn out.

Paul

 

[Kyle Freeman]

When saying the probe should feel like its going into butter, is this in reference to inserting the probe perpendicular to the fat cap, i.e. through the top, or horizontally into the side of the brisket?

It seems as though Ive gotten consistently dry brisket lately. I normally pull them off in the 190 range, when it feels like butter from the top, through the fat cap. Should I instead be probing from the side, and checking when it hits 180?

The brisket falls apart when cutting, but just seems dry to me.

 

[Tim L.]

Maybe it's just me, but this is such a confusing topic. One person says "hot knife into butter" another says "cold butter from the fridge". Can someone post a pic and temperature reading of the butter they are referring to? JK!

Also, are we likely all referring to the same issue when we are looking for guidance on our briskets, or is there a difference (obviously there is, but are we confusing the two) between dry and not-tender?

For my probe I used the thermapen, but I think it tricked me because it is so sharp. I think a fork would have provided more natural resistance and would have been a better indicator.

As mentioned in my own post in this section, I'm still not positive whether mine was over or under (my guess) cooked. Was on a total of 5.5 hours, 1.5 of those covered with foil, all of them in a aluminum pan, and generally at 325*. Foiled at 170, pulled at 200.

 

[dean]

Any one new to smoking or new to smoking brisket, I recomend doing only a flat until you get good at it! I tried doing whole packer briskets my first time out and had horrible results.. The flat was too done or the fattier side was under done! You end up with dry roast beef if over cooked! Imo you have to cook the whole brisket until the flat is done and then cut it in half along the middle (where that big row of fat is) and throw that fatty, thicker piece back on the smoker! I also some times chop up that fatty piece into one inch "cubes" and add just a little piece of smoke wood and cook in sauce of choice a while longer as it makes wonderfull "burnt ends"!!