High-Tem brisket results

[Pat McCreight]

Well I decided to try the high-temp brisket for myself. I could not locate any packers, so I went with a nice looking flat from Sam's. It was CAB and just under 7 lbs prior to trimming. I cut away a few big hunks of fat where the point was, and I trimmed the fat cap slightly more than I would for an overnight. Did a paste, wrapped in plastic overnight, and rubbed on top of paste before cooking. I put it in the smoker cold, right after assembling the cooker (Minion Method lump). I used 5-6 pieces of hickory.

I put the meat on at 1:45 and the cooker got up to temp in about an hour (lid 302 at 2:30, 322 at 3:00). I maintained a lid temp of around 325 the entire time.

I foiled the brisket at 4:30 when the internal temp reached 165. I put the brisket in a 1/2 steam pan and covered the pan tightly.

At 5:30 I checked for tender, but there was quite a bit of resistance to the probe. Checked again at 6:00 and it was getting better, but not quite there. At this point, I decided to leave the meat in the pan and take the foil cover off to try and crisp up the bark a little. Pulled the brisket off 30 minutes later. Tender from the probe test. I removed all the juices (about 1 cup only) from the pan, and then added back about 1/3 cup. I left the meat in the pan and covered again with foil, and then placed in a cooler for 1.5 hours.

Sliced and ate.

Results - The brisket was definitely good, but not as good as I had hoped for. Some parts were a tad dry, but the middle slices were pretty juicy still. Decent smoke ring for the timeframe, and I was pleased with the flavor of the paste and rub. My only real complaint was the hint of dryness in some pieces.

Do you think using a foil steam pan could have made an appreciable difference versus tightly wrapping in foil (especially during holding)?

All in all, I was pretty happy. I also came down with a cold the morning of the cook, so my attitude and taste buds were definitely off. But the family seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

Here are some pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/patrick.mccreight/BrisketMar908

 

[K Kruger]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Do you think using a foil steam pan could have made an appreciable difference versus tightly wrapping in foil (especially during holding)? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>I don't--but I do think the pan could have lengthened the cook a bit.

I don't wrap tightly in foil during cooking. I crimp the foil tightly closed but I leave a little room around the meat (i do packers pretty much exclusively) and some headspace above the meat.

In my experience, cooking at high heat can mean fairly significant residual heat cooking once the brisket is pulled. If taken to tender in the coooker, prolonged resting (especially if tightly wrapped or in a well sealed container) can lead to some overcooking (dryness) in spots.

When I take to tender (which is most of the time) I rest--merely tented with foil--about 20-30 min. For the times I need to rest longer, I pull the brisket sooner (before tender) and wrap and rest longer, allowing the residual cooking to get it to tender. A couple times I've planned to do it the first way but something's come up necessitating a longer hold time. In those cases I've taken to tender, rested tented for 20 min, then wrapped and coolered for 1-1.5 hours. It worked well. I need to do it a couple more times on purpose to confirm but it makes sense to me.