Memorial Day I decided to finally give brisket a shot. Read up and decided to go low&slow with it instead of HH.
Purchased about a 8.88 lb packer from Wal-Mart (only place near me that has untrimmed packers), and after I trimmed it up it was probably down to 8lb or so. Followed the rub recipe on the Overnight Cook article, only I added a little sugar to take some bite off. Went with oak and apple wood.
I started at 4am, thinking I'd plan for 12 hours (1.5 hours per pound) instead of banking on 1 hour/pound. Well it was done by noon on the dot, right at an hour/pound. Let it rest about 1.5 hours in the cooler and sliced. Point went back on for burnt ends since I had extra time left and the WSM was still holding steady. Flat was good, burnt ends turned out great as well. Bark was jet black and everything had a nice mild but present smokey flavor. Went another 4 hours on the burnt ends.
Front to back, the WSM gave me 15 straight hours of temps in the 230-240 range, using the Minion Method and no fuel added. I started with 2 full chimneys unlit in the chamber, and 20 lit+smoke wood on top. The anomaly of it is I had the bottom vents 100% closed for much of the cook. If I opened the vents it shot up past 260. But it held like a rock at 230-240 from about 9am until 7pm with the bottom vents closed during that time. I could have stretched it past 7 if I would have opened the vents. I was blown away, I've done quite a few cooks in the last year (check out my intro post) and have never had to shut the vents all the way like that.
Here be the pics:
Getting ready for an early morning...
Rub on and into the fridge for the night!
Roughly 5 hours in at this point I believe.
Done, son! After an hour and a half in the cooler.
Bark
Flat sliced. You can see at the bottom where I lost track of which direction I was slicing (cut the flat as it was too wide for my knife) and accidentally sliced with the grain. Rookie mistake!
Point back on the pit for burnt ends
Point done
Pulled/chopped and ready to eat. Love me some burnt ends.
Thanks for looking! First brisket and definitely not my last!
-Jeff
Purchased about a 8.88 lb packer from Wal-Mart (only place near me that has untrimmed packers), and after I trimmed it up it was probably down to 8lb or so. Followed the rub recipe on the Overnight Cook article, only I added a little sugar to take some bite off. Went with oak and apple wood.
I started at 4am, thinking I'd plan for 12 hours (1.5 hours per pound) instead of banking on 1 hour/pound. Well it was done by noon on the dot, right at an hour/pound. Let it rest about 1.5 hours in the cooler and sliced. Point went back on for burnt ends since I had extra time left and the WSM was still holding steady. Flat was good, burnt ends turned out great as well. Bark was jet black and everything had a nice mild but present smokey flavor. Went another 4 hours on the burnt ends.
Front to back, the WSM gave me 15 straight hours of temps in the 230-240 range, using the Minion Method and no fuel added. I started with 2 full chimneys unlit in the chamber, and 20 lit+smoke wood on top. The anomaly of it is I had the bottom vents 100% closed for much of the cook. If I opened the vents it shot up past 260. But it held like a rock at 230-240 from about 9am until 7pm with the bottom vents closed during that time. I could have stretched it past 7 if I would have opened the vents. I was blown away, I've done quite a few cooks in the last year (check out my intro post) and have never had to shut the vents all the way like that.
Here be the pics:
Getting ready for an early morning...
Rub on and into the fridge for the night!
Roughly 5 hours in at this point I believe.
Done, son! After an hour and a half in the cooler.
Bark
Flat sliced. You can see at the bottom where I lost track of which direction I was slicing (cut the flat as it was too wide for my knife) and accidentally sliced with the grain. Rookie mistake!
Point back on the pit for burnt ends
Point done
Pulled/chopped and ready to eat. Love me some burnt ends.
Thanks for looking! First brisket and definitely not my last!
-Jeff
