Ideal Brisket cooking Temprature ?


 
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Tom Raveret

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I was part of an interesting discussion on this board one facet of which that was related to Brisket cooking tempratures. It got me thinking and I decided to open a thread related to it.

I'm looking for opinions on what people think are ideal cooking tempratureas for a brisket. one opinon is 200-225 another expressed opinion is that 235-250 is ideal.

A concern was raised that cooking in the 200-225 range could result in dry meat from a "too low and slow cook" Interestingly what got me thinking about this again was a christmas present of the new Smoke and Spice cookbook by the Jaimison's which refers to all its brisket recipies at 200-220 range.

Since Brisket is such a prized product off the WSM I was hoping to solicit some opinions from peoples experience.

I should state that my goal is for maximum tenderness but slicable.
 
I'm no expert but I've had pretty good results with smoking brisket at the 225-235 range (kind of in the middle of the two ranges you asked about). As long as you don't trim off too much of the fat cap the brisket should not dry out at that temp.

Also, I have Smoke & Spice and it has some great recipes, but I have seen other folks on the board note that the cooking temps & times are not accurate for a WSM. Good luck!
 
The biggest potential for dried out meat from too low & slow cooking exists primarily in leaner meats without a lot of intramuscular fat-- poultry (white meat) and brisket (flats) being two candidates. I think of too low as being nearer the 200* end of the 200-225* range. Insofar as BBQ temps go, cooking anywhere in the 225-250* range should not significantly affect the outcome, one way or the other.
 
Tom-

I have my best success when shooting for 230? for brisket cooking temps. I have switched back to water in the pan instead of sand when cooking brisket as it helps alleviate that issue of having a really thick bark on the bottom. Of course, if I wasn't lazy, I'd flip them. Mr. Minion suggested to me a while back that I should try cooking one with the fat cap pointed down to the fire. Haven't done it yet, but a buddy of mine did on Sunday, and it was a fine piece of meat.

I'm sure you know this already, but there are many people who believe that the Jamison's book is a little off on times/temps, but you have enough experience to know those are only guidelines anyway.... I think you need to do some brisket experimentation. One brisket every weekend for 5 weeks. Start with the first one at 200, then increment by 10 degrees every weekend and see which is best! /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Cheers,
Rich
 
One of my problems at the moment is the accuracy of the temp in my pit. Is my gauge right? Is the meat getting the same heat as the gauge? Until I spend more money I'm not going to know but I'm sure that I'm in the ballpark by +/- 10 degrees. At any rate I generally cook in the 220-260 range (of course my pit is not as consistent as the lovely WSM). I think as far as brisket goes, there are so many more things that can make a brisket good than just cooking temp. Also, Smoke&Spice is way off on their temps and times estimates. Also, they mention taking a pork butt off the pit when at 185 and making pulled pork with it (that finished temp would be more for slicing than pulling). I think they would have been better off telling people what range of temps to cook in and to be more concerned with the temp of the meat more so than how long it's been cooking when deciding if it's ready.
 
This is a timely topic since I've been wondering the same thing. I cooked a brisket this past weekend where most of the flat was dry. I cooked it at 250 and trimmed the fat cap to 1/8". I'm thinking I trimmed way too much fat off and next time I may leave more of the fat cap intact.

But where the flat was dry, the point was fine. However, there was still a lot of fat in the area between the flat and the point. I scraped it off with my chef knife before I shredded the point. Is this normal?

Thanks for the advice!
 
I was with most of you about cooking temp until a few weeks ago. I always cooked my brisket to about 190 and my pork to 195 to 200. A few weeks ago I tried something new. I cooked with a pit temp of about 225, just like normal, but when the meat hit 160, I dropped the pit temp to 190. After a while I lost my nerve and upped the pit to 200 and let it cook. The point was to keep the meat in the "zone" (160 to 180) for as long as I could stand it. It took 11 hours for the meat to go from 160 to 185 when I pulled it off. Both the brisket and the butt was the juiciest and most tender that I have ever cooked. According to other on this forum, the fat begins to render at 160, but the meat begins to dry out at 180. All I can tell you is that I will never cook pork or brisket to the higher temps that I used to cook them at. At least not until I prove myself wrong about this. I hope to cook another brisket this weekend, so I will see.


Royce Bunnell
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