How does my Firebird session look? WSM 14.5"

[Troy Reimche]

Hello. Yesterday I smoked a small 3.5lb brisket on my WSM 14.5" and wanted to share the Fireboard session file with you all. I'm looking for any tips/tricks/critique/etc.

In the Fireboard session file you can see the smoker temp, which was measured by the Fireboard temp probe clipped to the top grate. "The Meat" is the temp probe inserted into the 3.5lb brisket. Finally the "Chicken Breasts" is the 2nd temp probe that was just laying on the bottom grate until about the 6:08pm mark when I put a couple of big chicken breasts on the bottom rack, and inserted the temp probe into the thick part of the bigger breast. "Set Point" was the target temp for the smoker, controlled by a BBQ Guru Pit Viper fan and Fireboard Drive cable. "Speed" on the graph is the fan speed.

I know one mistake I made was I didn't add enough coals to the smoker later on in the cook. You can tell by how the fan had to work harder in order to maintain temp. The temp was set at 225 for the first ~6 hours, then bumped it up to 240 to try and speed up the cook a little. When I pulled the brisket at 165 and wrapped it in pink butcher paper, then I added the chicken breasts to the bottom rack, and bumped the temp up to 250.

As you can see, the chicken breasts cooked fairly quickly, so we ate those. They turned out great like always.

This small brisket took almost a full 12 hours to cook. Is that normal? If so, it is fine, and I will just adjust my timing accordingly next time I smoke a brisket. It just seems like an awful long time for a small chunk of meat.

There were some random temperature fluctuations throughout the cook, which I found odd, but maybe that was because I didn't add enough coals throughout. I maybe added 2 dozen coals throughout the whole cook, and there's hardly any left after shutting it down and letting it cool.

I didn't get any pics of the meat since it was after 11:00 and I just wanted to go to bed. Next time I will be more prepared. I'm always learning.

Here is a link to the Fireboard session file: https://share.fireboard.io/E57035

 

[Brett-EDH]

Flat or point? That’s key to offering feedback. Both parts cook completely different on a smoker. From your chart, it looks like you cooked a middle section or a point, but not a flat.

 

[MartinB]

3.5 lb brisket? What do you have when you're done, 1.5 to 2 lb of meat? That's about 2-3 good sandwiches.

Can you add more coals from the start?
There's no benefit to cooking at 225. 275 will speed things up a lot. Give you better bark too.

This is a cook I did of a pork butt a while back and I let my smoker run for 25 hours after it was done. Don't have to add any coals, etc. Was still several hours of coals left when I shut it down but it was getting a little squirrely to control.

For me, the goal of using the controller is that I don't have to mess with anything. Basically set it and forget it

 

[Troy Reimche]

Yeah it was only a 3.5lb brisket, so I'm assuming it was either part of the middle section or point or something. I don't know much about brisket yet. My girlfriend bought it at the grocery store since it was on sale (she's always looking for a bargain) and it turned out really good to be honest. Yes I will definitely start with more coals next time. Just here trying to learn. I could definitely see how 275 would create a better bark on it so I'll try that next time too.

 

[MartinB]

Yeah it was only a 3.5lb brisket, so I'm assuming it was either part of the middle section or point or something. I don't know much about brisket yet. My girlfriend bought it at the grocery store since it was on sale (she's always looking for a bargain) and it turned out really good to be honest. Yes I will definitely start with more coals next time. Just here trying to learn. I could definitely see how 275 would create a better bark on it so I'll try that next time too.

The thing about buying small pieces of flat for instance instead of a whole brisket is the charge you twice the price . You usually end up paying $7-8 a pound instead of $4 or such. I know people look at briskets and think wow that's huge.... 10 to 15 lb. But the truth is after trimming a little bit fat, and cooking it you end up with only half of what the starting weight was, and that's actually not that much meat by the time you're done.

I'll cook whole brisket even for just me and my wife. We'll eat it for a day or two and then I'll slice , vacc seal and freeze the rest. I can't bring myself to buy just a flat, even if it's for making pastrami it's just price too high by itself usually.