Brian Johnson
TVWBB Pro
About a week before Christmas I had a great idea to do an overnight brisket to have for dinner on Christmas Day! Suffice it to say, that didn't happen. I did, however buy the brisket and ended up cooking Wednesday night! It's been a week and I didn't note the specifics pre-cook, but I'm fairly certain I picked up a 16-17 lbs brisket from Costco.
I fired up the 18.5" WSM with a foil-wrapped water pan and prepped the meat while I waited for the smoker to get to temperature. Got it all trimmed and rubbed with unmeasured amounts of salt, black pepper, and garlic powder (forgot to add the onion powder even though it was sitting right in front of me on the counter... oh well!), and put it on the 18.5" WSM around 11:30.
I was shooting for 225°-250°F (with upper and lower alarms set at 260°F and 220°F, respectively), but once the meat got on and the smoker settled in around 260°F I was happy and went to bed around 1:30 am.
Around 3:00 am I was awakened to a low pit temp alarm. By the time I remembered where I was, got some sweats on so I wouldn't freeze, and made it out to the smoker, the pit was at 216°F. I opened the bottom vents a little to increase air flow and took a peak while I was there. Unfortunately, I took too long with the pics (give me a break it was 3 am - I wasn't really awake) and by 3:20 am the temp hit a peak of 290 °F. I made several adjustments and lightly dozed on the couch as the temp recovered and eventually stabilized before going back to bed at 4:00 am.
I woke up a couple times to look at my handy remote thermometer and by the time 7:30 am rolled around the brisket was definitely in the stall and the pit temp had dropped to about 225°F. At this point I snapped another picture and wrapped my brisket in butcher paper.
Of course, being so focused on wrapping the meat (see this was the first time I'd ever wrapped a brisket), I forgot to put the lid on while wrapping. So by the time I returned the brisket to the WSM and closed it up again, the pit temp had reached 300°F. Still not panicking, I completely closed one of the bottom vents. Twenty minutes or so later the pit temp stabilized and I tried to go back to bed for a while. Unfortunately we had a minor plumbing issue that roused me out of bed not 20 minutes later. Fortunately it was a simple "shut off the supply line - dry the floor - replace the supply line & make sure everything it tight" kind of repair, but after being sprayed with cold water I was wide awake for the day.
Plumbing issues aside, the cook was pretty uneventful. I added more charcoal to the WSM a couple of times over the next few hours, because I wasn't thinking and assumed my normal "add a few hot coals in the morning" routine I use for overnight pork butt cooks would suffice for a brisket. Next time I'll just do a hot squat and "top off" my fuel and hope that there's still enough room for proper air flow (aka not so much ash so as to snuff out the fire).
After the brisket reached about 195°F, I started probing for tenderness. Once I was pleased with how it was probing, I pulled the brisket of the WSM and rested on the counter for a few minutes before transferring it to a cooler for about an hour before slicing it up for dinner. In the meantime, I made some veggies & rolls to serve as sides. Then came slicing & eating.
The overall consensus was that it was really good, especially considering I hadn't cooked a brisket since mid-2019. Personally, I wish I had paid more attention to the composition of the rub, specifically I would have liked more black pepper. I also think I could have used one more chuck of smoke wood, though if I had to choose between more pepper and more smoke wood, I probably would go for the pepper because while I would have appreciated a stronger smoke profile it's not as if there was no smoke profile was non-existent.
Anyway. . . That was my cook. I will leave you now with some images of the finished product!
Happy New Year to my TVWBB family!
I fired up the 18.5" WSM with a foil-wrapped water pan and prepped the meat while I waited for the smoker to get to temperature. Got it all trimmed and rubbed with unmeasured amounts of salt, black pepper, and garlic powder (forgot to add the onion powder even though it was sitting right in front of me on the counter... oh well!), and put it on the 18.5" WSM around 11:30.
I was shooting for 225°-250°F (with upper and lower alarms set at 260°F and 220°F, respectively), but once the meat got on and the smoker settled in around 260°F I was happy and went to bed around 1:30 am.
Around 3:00 am I was awakened to a low pit temp alarm. By the time I remembered where I was, got some sweats on so I wouldn't freeze, and made it out to the smoker, the pit was at 216°F. I opened the bottom vents a little to increase air flow and took a peak while I was there. Unfortunately, I took too long with the pics (give me a break it was 3 am - I wasn't really awake) and by 3:20 am the temp hit a peak of 290 °F. I made several adjustments and lightly dozed on the couch as the temp recovered and eventually stabilized before going back to bed at 4:00 am.
I woke up a couple times to look at my handy remote thermometer and by the time 7:30 am rolled around the brisket was definitely in the stall and the pit temp had dropped to about 225°F. At this point I snapped another picture and wrapped my brisket in butcher paper.
Plumbing issues aside, the cook was pretty uneventful. I added more charcoal to the WSM a couple of times over the next few hours, because I wasn't thinking and assumed my normal "add a few hot coals in the morning" routine I use for overnight pork butt cooks would suffice for a brisket. Next time I'll just do a hot squat and "top off" my fuel and hope that there's still enough room for proper air flow (aka not so much ash so as to snuff out the fire).
After the brisket reached about 195°F, I started probing for tenderness. Once I was pleased with how it was probing, I pulled the brisket of the WSM and rested on the counter for a few minutes before transferring it to a cooler for about an hour before slicing it up for dinner. In the meantime, I made some veggies & rolls to serve as sides. Then came slicing & eating.
The overall consensus was that it was really good, especially considering I hadn't cooked a brisket since mid-2019. Personally, I wish I had paid more attention to the composition of the rub, specifically I would have liked more black pepper. I also think I could have used one more chuck of smoke wood, though if I had to choose between more pepper and more smoke wood, I probably would go for the pepper because while I would have appreciated a stronger smoke profile it's not as if there was no smoke profile was non-existent.
Anyway. . . That was my cook. I will leave you now with some images of the finished product!
Happy New Year to my TVWBB family!
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