High temp brisket


 
Folks,

I did the High Temp smoke last night. My community of tasters verdict is that it was good but not as good as my slow cooked briskets. It was better than restaurant brisket but I've done better. Part of the taste difference though may be due to me using a friend's rub. It was saltier and sweeter than the Wild Willy's rub from Jamison and Jamison that I normally use.

Here's what I did:

0) 11.5 pound Costco packer. It didn't appear to be graded.

1) Start fire using the standard method with a full Weber chimney. Fill ring to the 3/4 level.

2) Trim of most the visible fat and cut fat deeply out of the point-flat veins. I did this because this thread claims that the fat won't appreciably render in such a fast cook. The brisket is probably 9.5 pounds.

3) Apply a dry rub just before cooking. (IOW, I'm trying to make this as quick a process as possible. No overnight preparation allowed.)

4) Place on WSM at 340 degrees F using pecan smoke wood over Kingsford briquettes. No water is in the pan. I just used a suspended layer of foil over the pan.

5) Foil after temp. reaches 170-175 (3:15 hours in my case) with constant temp monitoring.

6) Remove the brisket at 200 degrees about an hour later.

7) Let it rest surrounded by towels for over an hour. (My guests arrived more than fashionably late.)

8) The temperature was 170+ when I opened the foil to serve.

9) Drain over 1 1/2 cups of fluid into an oil separator and save juice. The bark, while visible, is soft.

10) Slice thinly across the bias. Surprisingly to me after draining all of the fluid above, the meat is still quite juicy.

11) Serve without BBQ sauce. (No one has asked for sauce in the past.) No one asked this time either.

Because posts in this thread claim this method is better for lower grade briskets, my next attempt will be to use this method with my grass fed & finished briskets. I want to do this because the grass fed cattle produce tougher briskets than the feedlot raised cattle.

I'm glad I tried this. It is very good to have a different and acceptable technique in my repertoire. After I try this a few more times, I'll report back whether this will be replacing my low and slow briskets.

Andrew
 
My last brisket was grass-fed. On advice gained from this forum I did a high temp cook. Foiled at 165-170, removed from foil when almost tender and placed back on the rack to firm up the bark for 20-30 minutes.

It was quite good, better than my low and slow attempts with similar meat. The high-temp cook seems particularly appropriate for a lean, well-trimmed grass-fed brisket.
 
What is the best technique to identify where to start when removing the point from the flat, during a high temp smoke? Also, at what point into the cook do I do this? Going to Orlando for a week, and when I get back the first thing I want to do is attempt a high heat brisket.
 
What is the best technique to identify where to start when removing the point from the flat, during a high temp smoke? Also, at what point into the cook do I do this?
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Removing the point from the flat is easy when it's cooked. There's a big fat seam that seperates the 2. You want to cook the flat to 160º-165º then foil and cook till tender. Once the flat finishes, then remove the point from the flat and return the point to the smoker to finish or to make burnt ends. I know many don't return the point to the WSM, and save the point meat for chili and such. You can insert a toothpick as a marker, into the fat seam before you put on the rub to give you an idea where they join, when it's time to seperate them. HTH
 
Thanks for the speedy reply Brian. That's the way I'll do it. Also, when it's foiled and you check for tender, do you roll some of the foil back, or poke through?
 
Also, when it's foiled and you check for tender, do you roll some of the foil back, or poke through?
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Steve, I open the foil at the seam on top. Also, I suggest cooking it with the fat cap down towards the coals. This will help in protecting it from the heat below. Then after you seperate the flat and point, remember to foil the flat with the fat cap up. This will help in producing a very moist flat. I foil mine at 160º.
 
I just did my 1st high temp cook Monday, I put the brisket on at 13:30 and took it off at17:00. It was the best brisket I have done and I have done some good ones at low/slow. I cooked it fat cap down,(it was a 9.5LB's)cooked for 2 hours at 350F. dome 310 grate, after 2 hours I wraped it in foil for 1.5.hr's, after that I took it off and let it sit for .5 hr's, It was tender, moist prob temps were from 185 to 205F when it was resting, and it had lots of juice, almost 2.5 cups, as far as a smoke ring, not much but I was doing this for my ownself not comp. there was little to no bark but thats was ok too.
I will tweek my rub a little, not so much sugar in it. In the next comp I do I will use this high temp cook so this way I will be able to have it pipeing hot when turned in. So the only thing cooking all night long will be the Pork butt.
 
Tomorrow, for the UFC fight, is my first brisket cook after many rib and butt successes. I think I will do this on my Performer due to ribs occupying the bullet.


It would be awesome to have this in the Cooking Section for reference.
Thank you all for your input.
 
Dave-

The high temp doesn't always allow for typical bark or smoke ring.

Sometimes I'll get a nice ring, other times not.

I use a paste for substitute of bark. I foil around the two hour mark or when the color deepens.

I have probably cooked at least 40-50 briskets this way now (high heat), and it is almost foolproof.
 
I did the high-heat last weekend and it was my best one yet. Rubbed with basic BBQ rub from one of the Raichlen Books. Got my temp up to around 325 and cooked for almost 3 hours. When the meat hit 165, I foiled with some beef broth in there with the meat. After another hour and a half or so, I used my thermometer probe to check doneness and when it moved in and out easily, I pulled out. It was really good. Paired it with basic sauce, blue cheese potato salad and green beans. Sorry, no pics though. It went too fast.

Another question though. I saw above someone referenced buying a packer at costco. I have only seen flats there. Is this new?

Bob
 
Craig, what type(s) of paste are you useing or, what makes a good paste to form a bark? As far as the smoke ring, well just lets hope that in judgeing a moist brisket with good flavor will score high for me. I will be doing my next contest in Sept. at the "Battel of the Brisket' in Mission, Kansas and I want to make a good showing and place with my Brisket.
 
craig's probably out cookin'.

I've not had a problem with smokering formation. I always Minion the start though, using about twice as much lit as for a low/slow. This means I use from 22-30 lit briquettes (the lower amount is Wicked Good, the higher, K).

These threads will give you an idea of typical cooks for me and the sort of pastes I make (here, here, and here). An actual recipe for a paste/dry combo is here.
 
Kevin, I was cooking at a tailgate...lol

Dave-

My paste is a variation of one of Kevin's

I use;

1/2 small yellow onion
4/5 cloves garlic
tablespoon of dijon
tablespoon of Worsterschire
tablespoon of steak dust
tablespoon of jack daniels
a heavy forkful of pickled jalapenos

You won't get a hard bark, but rather a surface that appears to be bark, but is still a bit moist.

IMO, the paste has waaaay, waaaay, waaaay more flavor than that of a rub.

You can experiment with different combo's, as almost anything works off of the onion and garlic base.

When i apply the paste, I'll salt the brisket first, then directly apply the paste in a couple of stages.

Again, using Kevin's idea, I'll coat the paste with coarse seasonings of choice. And on the wsm it goes!
 
Originally posted by Russ Hazzon:
Chris,
Any chance of adding this technique to the "cooking" section of the website?
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Hey! I also requested this addition to Cooking Topics! No pressure or anything, Chris.
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When doing a high heat brisket your temps will jump once foiling. I had this issue. I like you was tempted to open the foil and peak, many members told me to wait a while before checking for doneness. I waited, and waited i think my temp floated around 210, and about 90 mins in a checked and ended up waiting 2 horus before pulling.

My advice, dont check for temps check for done!
 
Hey guys, did my first high-heat a couple weeks, and loved it. Super easy and also very high quality product when the brisket is done. I had a great smoke ring on mine, but I really poured the hickory to the fire in the time before foiling.

I'm doing a party in a couple weeks, and I am doing two briskets, high heat, but I was needing to know if there is anything special I need to do with the brisket on the bottom rack. SHould I foil the ends before putting it on to protect from the heat, or will they be ok? Anything else I should know? I've only done it on the top rack so far. Thanks in advance for the help. This thread guided me through my first cook with great success!
 
Foil the ends. They might be okay but you don't want to have to deal with them during the cook and putting pieces of foil under the ends won't affect the cook so just do it and get it out of the way.

No other changes are necessary.
 
This very informative thread had fallen back to page 49 here in the BBQ forum. I know I'm not supposed to bump up threads (sorry Chris), but this one is getting hard too find for a lot of people. Could we get this thread as a sticky?
 
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