Minion Brisket crusing along


 
J

John Richardson

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Started a 5 3/4 lb (trimmed weight) packer-cut brisket this morning at about 5 am. It's a little rainy/stormy here in KC, so I've got it near the mouth of my garage. I figure if a downpour comes, I can drag it in the garage and run a fan. Right now I have a garbage can lid over the handle with a weight to tip it up away from the vent, which seems to be working pretty good.

I lit it with 14 "new and improved" kingsford briquettes, and as many of the same as I could cram in the chamber along with 6 chunks of pecan (4 buried, 2 on top). Temp holding at 233 right now at the 2 hr. mark, I'm targeting 235 and it's been slowly climbing from 220-225. I figure around the 6 hour mark I'll ramp it up to 250ish. I've got mr. brisket on the bottom rack, becuase I plan to put a big vat of beans on the top rack around 13:00, and they have to be vegarian (don't ask) so I can't have mr. brisket dripping into the beans. My hope is that a brisket this size will take about 12 hours.
 
Well, it's at the 7 hour mark and it's started the climb up from the plateau. The smoker held in the 230's until about 10:30 or so when I cracked a vent to get it up a bit higher, then it hung around 250 +/- 3-4 degrees. When it started to climb out of the plateau, I realized it's a bit ahead of schedule and I should have just left it in the 230's, so I choked it back down to 225. I don't want it to be done for about 3 more hours
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although I suspect it's got it's own schedule.

This is my second cook, and it's been much easier to control the temps... I think starting w/ 14 lit instead of 20 is about right.
 
It will get easier and easier with each cook. Just keep good notes on what you have done and it will work like clockwork.
 
The results: it was okay... Pulled at 188 in the flat, held in a "warm" oven for about 45 minutes while the point cooked at 275 along with the beans for burnt ends. It was a little on the dry side, but very tender. Had a great smoke ring, but not a whole lot of smoke flavor. Not the best brisket I've ever made, but not bad. It had that "snap" texture in the slices, it just needed some moisture.

I think what happened was that I decided to drop the temp to 225 when it started climbing out of the plateau because it was a little early, and by extending the climb, it dried out. So yet again, I should have remembered the cardinal rule of BBQ: It'll be done when it's done. Usually, I have the opposite problem, namely it's at about 161 an hour before I need it to be ready, but this time I should have just upped the temp to 250 when it started climbing, and let it get done when it wanted to, around 3 pm, and then just hold it and reheat it.

Also, around 4pm I started having temp problems. It dropped to about 215 and wouldn't budge, even though there was plenty of unburned charcoal left. I gave the coals a stir and put a fan by one of the vents to try and increase the airflow, but got impatient and lit 12 more briquettes. When they were ready, it had climbed to 219 so it probably would have started up again on its own, but I think I held it so low that the amount of burning charcoal almost dropped below a threshold. I added about 30 unlit briquettes and the 12 lit, and I had plenty of fuel left at the end when I broke out the fan again to go to 275.

So next time, I'll relax and not obsess about the temperature, and keep it around 235 or so the whole time, increasing to 250 once it hits about 170, and I'll add about 4 more pieces of smoke wood around the 4 or 5 hour mark. That's one bad thing about the maverick, it leads me to try and get obsessive about the temp... If it's at 225 and goes to 227 I want to go out and adjust the vents
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