My first brisket on the WSK


 
G

GautamR

New member
Hi all,

I've been doing lots of things in the last few weeks since my first post: baby back ribs, pizza (shout-out to the incredibly useful thread here), T bone steak and bacon. But it's time for my first BRISKET!

I've been watching (what feels like) every brisket video on the internet (but is probably only a tiny fraction of them) and I've been trying to work out my approach. We tend to eat around 8pm in the evening which makes the trickiest decision when to start cooking and how / how long to rest. Equipment I have at my disposal includes a Signal and Billows (picked up cheap on eBay), a cheapish Coleman cooler, a tube heater (which I use to ferment salami), and normal BBQ bits and pieces.

Briskets in the UK tend to be a bit smaller I think, so I could go for a 6kg / 13lb one which would be say 11-12lbs after trimming? With that in mind (and bearing in mind I don't want to get up at 3am!) should I go for option 1 or 2:
  1. Stabilise Summit at 9-10pm at 225F the night before, put it in at 10pm, use the Billows to run for c12 hours ish, remove 10am, cool to 180F, and put in pre-heated cooler in towels etc. and hope it stays hot enough for 10 hours
  2. Get up at 6am and put it in at 7am, run it a bit hotter at 250F and hope it takes 9-10 hours, let it cool to 180F, and put it in the cooler at 6pm for 2 hours to rest
Option 1 might be juicier but riskier? I've tried to get my oven to hold at 150F but it won't do it and doesn't seem to be able to be recalibrated. Or could I get the Billows to hold the WSK at 150F? Seems unlikely.

Also - wrap, no wrap or boat? I've seen that all versions seem to work - interested to know what people think and whether it might help option 2 by speeding things up a bit.

All advice welcome!
 
I did my first WSK brisket a week ago. Others here will likely chime in, but I'll share what I did and the results, all of which I will change up next time.

Keep in mind, you can do a LOT of things differently and still have an amazing brisket.

First observation I'd like to share is that it took me a long time to finish mine. I think it has to do with being in an area with high humidity. I would say mine was around 15 lbs after trimming. I put it on at 12:30AM and it wasn't finished until 4PM. Yep, that's a total of 15.5 hours. I was at 215-225F overnight, and as I was pushing through the stall, I upped to around 275.

I did a foil boat just because I wasn't feeling like moving probes and wrapping with paper. Next time I will go with paper, but it's just to try something different. I also went fat cap up.

This cooker holds so much moisture. The whole brisket was tender and juicy. I did leave it on for a bit too long as it was pulling apart easily, so I probably should have taken it off an hour sooner. I didn't trim off the thin edges and those were probably the only chewy parts, but I like having those parts also. It's like having some tasty beef jerky.

I'm very new to this, but I will say that having it done sooner and keeping it warm after will be less stressful than hoping it cooks in time. You are using a smaller brisket, so of course you have some things to consider.

Others here will likely say my cook should have been way faster. I was being on the careful side, and the results were awesome.

This was my experience, and yours might be completely different. I hope I'm helping and not making things worse. Figured some newbie to newbie brisket chat couldn't hurt 😁

I tend to confuse the hell out of people, so feel free to ask questions! I know the pros here (cough cough brett-edh and danhoo among others) will chime in as well. You should check our their posts if you haven't yet.
 
Too bad you can’t do the hot hold in the oven. That makes landing the brisket plane sooo much easier to pull off.

You don’t need more than 8-10, 12 at the most, hours in the smoke. After that, I’d wrap and finish the cook until tender in a hotter cooker. Or the kitchen oven which is easier and works just as well.

Then cooler and towels.

Good luck!
 
GautamR said:
Thanks both for the really helpful tips! That leans me towards option 1 rather than 2 perhaps. Or perhaps I just have to get up early!
Click to expand...
In my rambling, I forgot to ask. Can your oven hold at 170F? I've read about people keeping at that temp for this purpose. Hopefully this wasn't too obvious, just sharing what I've seen. My brisket was cut when it got down to 170 internal and it worked out really well.
 
Joe-Mofongolero said:
In my rambling, I forgot to ask. Can your oven hold at 170F? I've read about people keeping at that temp for this purpose. Hopefully this wasn't too obvious, just sharing what I've seen. My brisket was cut when it got down to 170 internal and it worked out really well.
Click to expand...
I'm going to try it right now!
 
Joe-Mofongolero said:
In my rambling, I forgot to ask. Can your oven hold at 170F? I've read about people keeping at that temp for this purpose. Hopefully this wasn't too obvious, just sharing what I've seen. My brisket was cut when it got down to 170 internal and it worked out really well.
Click to expand...

Success! (I think). I put a big dish of water in the oven and ran a probe for a few hours - looks like it can hold around 66C or 150F, with 10F variance on either side. I presume that's within the range of tolerance?


IMG_1991.PNG
 
GautamR said:
Success! (I think). I put a big dish of water in the oven and ran a probe for a few hours - looks like it can hold around 66C or 150F, with 10F variance on either side. I presume that's within the range of tolerance?


View attachment 118491
Click to expand...

Awesome! Also, I am no expert on the temps to hold at. I would imagine as long as it's over 140 (apparently the bad temp where you can get bad stuff growing) and under 170 (the highest target I've seen people aim for before slicing), it should be good. Please don't take only my word for it. I am very new to this 😁
 
You are good.

You can hold a wrapped brisket (unwaxed butcher paper preferred over foil) from 2 to 24 hours at an oven temp of 140F (the minimum food safe temp) to 170F. Some folks say to go on the upper side of that range (165-170F), arguing that while fat in the brisket will continue to render (i.e. melt) above 140F, collagen begins to melt at around 160°F.

I go 150F with a roaster pan of water at the bottom of the oven. For moisture and temp regulation. Chris explains further below.

My usual plan is 10 hours smoke, about two hours wrapped in a 300F+ oven to finish the cook to tender, then 150F wrapped hold for however long until serving.

 
Last edited:
Great thanks both! Definitely worth a try on the overnight + long rest plan. Any other views very welcome, plus any thoughts on paper / foil / boat / no wrap options...
 
GautamR said:
Great thanks both! Definitely worth a try on the overnight + long rest plan. Any other views very welcome, plus any thoughts on paper / foil / boat / no wrap options...
Click to expand...
I am still new to charcoal grilling and wasn’t having much success with brisket on the WSK, and found this video very helpful.

My results after watching this video were pretty good.

For what it’s worth:

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top