Dan C. FL
TVWBB Pro
I'm gonna walk you through the weekend. Before I get to the fun of this, I have to note something. I was going to grill burgers Friday night. The weather had other plans. So, instead, I fried up bacon in my cast iron skillet. Then, I dumped most of the bacon grease...but not all. Then I cooked my burgers in the cast iron skillet with bacon grease. Those burgers were soooooo good.
The misses and I went to Costco on Friday. While there, we saw a nice looking just shy of 8 lbs. choice brisket. I've never cooked brisket before. I had read all of Chris' articles on brisket cooking and thought that I had learned enough to put together something decent. I took her out and coated her in a rub of 1/4 cup of salt, 1/4 cup of black pepper, and an 1/8 cup of granulated garlic.
I set up the smoker with 3 fist sized hunks of pecan and got her going.
I ran right around 250* for the first three hours of the cook. At the 3rd hour, I noticed that there was literally no smoke coming out of the smoker. I'm not sure how long it went without smoking, probably about an hour. So, I grabbed another chunk of pecan and put it in and pressed the other two pieces that I could see and reach down into the coals. We were back on track. At hour 4, the meat 165*. But, I was not satisfied with the way the bark was shaping up. It basically was nonexistent, just some fluids and spices sitting on top of the meat. I decided that I didn't want to sacrifice the bark by using the crutch, and I only had tin foil so I was a little unsure about doing the crutch with that. So, I left her going uncovered. Hours 5-6 were uneventful, except for a little spike up to 285* at the grate. Hour 7 it began to rain. So, I took the top two sections off, moved the bottom section under cover and then reassembled. It really didn't matter much because I was in the middle of the stall. (Hr 5 was 169*, Hr 6 was 167*, Hour 7 stayed at 167*). Finally, in the 8th hour, I saw movement. Then, 10.5 hours after I started, it reached 195*. I poked it with the thermometer off and the probe went in really easily. So, I went ahead and pulled it.
Here she is getting ready to rest:
Sliced it up and took a bite and it was dry. Not terribly bad, but it was definitely dry. In fact, that was the misses first comment. "It's dry." It was really tender and it did that whole bendy thing when you pick it up in the middle of the slice. Just dry. The wife also thought there was too much of a peppery taste. She and I will agree to disagree on that (and I'll make it her way next time.
).
Served it up with some habanero bbq sauce and some potatoes and onions that had butter, salt and pepper that were grilled in tin foil pouches. They were good.
Honestly, I thought the flavor of the brisket was good. On a side note, I had run into a friend the day before and he said that he wanted to try it even if it was bad. So, I brought it to him at work. I warned him it was dry, but he replied I like it a little dry. His review? He really liked it. He said he wouldn't change a thing. I just need to figure out the answer to two questions: 1) Why did it take so long for the bark to set up? Was it lack of smoke? Too much rub? and 2) Why did it dry out? My gut is telling me that, because of the texture of some of the meat, allowing it to get up to 205* would have resulted in us eating or throwing away shoe leather.
So, what say you peeps?
Sunday we decided that I would grill pork tenderloin we also got from Costco. We decided, upon my wife's excellent suggestion, to marinate it in a lemongrass saison. Here it is in the bath:
Since we had two tenderloins to cook (quite the surprise when we opened the cryovac), we decided to do an experiment. Both tenderloins got salt and pepper, but one got fresh minced garlic and the other got granulated garlic.
I did a reverse sear on these, which worked out great. They were both about 140* when I pulled them off to rest for about 5 minutes.
Sliced with a nice little bit of pinkness to ti:
We served it with steamed corn. It was soooooo good. The beer gave it a great flavor...oh, and by the way, fresh garlic was the unanimous winner (of course.).
So, I would say that it was a good weekend. I've got some dishes down, but I still need to practice my brisket and my baby back ribs.
The misses and I went to Costco on Friday. While there, we saw a nice looking just shy of 8 lbs. choice brisket. I've never cooked brisket before. I had read all of Chris' articles on brisket cooking and thought that I had learned enough to put together something decent. I took her out and coated her in a rub of 1/4 cup of salt, 1/4 cup of black pepper, and an 1/8 cup of granulated garlic.
I set up the smoker with 3 fist sized hunks of pecan and got her going.
I ran right around 250* for the first three hours of the cook. At the 3rd hour, I noticed that there was literally no smoke coming out of the smoker. I'm not sure how long it went without smoking, probably about an hour. So, I grabbed another chunk of pecan and put it in and pressed the other two pieces that I could see and reach down into the coals. We were back on track. At hour 4, the meat 165*. But, I was not satisfied with the way the bark was shaping up. It basically was nonexistent, just some fluids and spices sitting on top of the meat. I decided that I didn't want to sacrifice the bark by using the crutch, and I only had tin foil so I was a little unsure about doing the crutch with that. So, I left her going uncovered. Hours 5-6 were uneventful, except for a little spike up to 285* at the grate. Hour 7 it began to rain. So, I took the top two sections off, moved the bottom section under cover and then reassembled. It really didn't matter much because I was in the middle of the stall. (Hr 5 was 169*, Hr 6 was 167*, Hour 7 stayed at 167*). Finally, in the 8th hour, I saw movement. Then, 10.5 hours after I started, it reached 195*. I poked it with the thermometer off and the probe went in really easily. So, I went ahead and pulled it.
Here she is getting ready to rest:
Sliced it up and took a bite and it was dry. Not terribly bad, but it was definitely dry. In fact, that was the misses first comment. "It's dry." It was really tender and it did that whole bendy thing when you pick it up in the middle of the slice. Just dry. The wife also thought there was too much of a peppery taste. She and I will agree to disagree on that (and I'll make it her way next time.
).
Served it up with some habanero bbq sauce and some potatoes and onions that had butter, salt and pepper that were grilled in tin foil pouches. They were good.
Honestly, I thought the flavor of the brisket was good. On a side note, I had run into a friend the day before and he said that he wanted to try it even if it was bad. So, I brought it to him at work. I warned him it was dry, but he replied I like it a little dry. His review? He really liked it. He said he wouldn't change a thing. I just need to figure out the answer to two questions: 1) Why did it take so long for the bark to set up? Was it lack of smoke? Too much rub? and 2) Why did it dry out? My gut is telling me that, because of the texture of some of the meat, allowing it to get up to 205* would have resulted in us eating or throwing away shoe leather.
So, what say you peeps?
Sunday we decided that I would grill pork tenderloin we also got from Costco. We decided, upon my wife's excellent suggestion, to marinate it in a lemongrass saison. Here it is in the bath:
Since we had two tenderloins to cook (quite the surprise when we opened the cryovac), we decided to do an experiment. Both tenderloins got salt and pepper, but one got fresh minced garlic and the other got granulated garlic.
I did a reverse sear on these, which worked out great. They were both about 140* when I pulled them off to rest for about 5 minutes.
Sliced with a nice little bit of pinkness to ti:
We served it with steamed corn. It was soooooo good. The beer gave it a great flavor...oh, and by the way, fresh garlic was the unanimous winner (of course.).
So, I would say that it was a good weekend. I've got some dishes down, but I still need to practice my brisket and my baby back ribs.
) eat our mistakes without too much trouble. And learn from it. 
