Saturday Brisket Cook


 
jeffsipes

jeffsipes

TVWBB Member
I got a box in the mail on Thursday from Texas BBQ Rub with 2# of their No. 2Brisket Rub. I went by my local meat market and picked up an 11# packer at lunchtime on Friday.

This morning, I took the brisket out of the cryovac, trimmed off a little fat here and there and got it ready to rub.

Here's a photo of the label

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I trimmed a corner off of the flat so I could find the grain when it's time to slice.

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I doused the beef with worcestershire sauce and then liberally applied the number two rub.

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I let it sit (covered) for an hour or two while I got the WSM set up. Here's the brisky getting ready to head outside. Somehow, beer became involved about noon.

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After about 8 hours, the internal temperature of the point broke over 190 degrees. Sticking a probe in the point tells me that it is ready. The flat still isn't quite tender enough so I'll be checking it every 30 minutes or so until it's ready to wrap.

Here's the photo at the 8 hour mark:

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When I cut the corner off the flat this morning, I coated it with some Cajun Foreplay. I cooked that corner into a burnt end and took it off while I had the lid open. You can see it in front of the brisket, it looks like a briquet.

I trimmed a little fat off and had it for a snack while I wait for the flat to tenderize. The Cajun Foreplay had a nice spice, very complimentary to the smoke flavor on the beef, also gave me a nice bark. I left the sauce off for this morsel because I wanted to taste the rub. We'll see what happens to the rest of the burnt ends tomorrow.

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I'll keep you updated on the progress. I'm not the most experienced brisket cook so I tried to keep this pretty simple. So far, things are looking good - let's just hope it stays that way!

I hope everybody is enjoying a good weekend cook.
 
Jeff look Great! I know you used that rub, but what else did you put on her. I see some bbq sauce in one of the pic's. Did you put that on and then put the rub? And what wood did you use in the WSM
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I kept a pretty detailed cooking log on yesterday's cook and I'm glad I did because a couple of things came out different than anticipated.

I cooked this brisket on my WSM and ran it consistently at 230 ish for the whole cook. I had to add some more fuel about 10+ hours into the cook and the temp rode up to 260 for the final hour. The point got to 190 in about 7h but the flat was still not tender so I let it ride. At about 12h, the temp probe in the point was saying 215 and the flat finally yielded. I brought it inside and wrapped it up and put it in the cooler. I took it off the grill at 2am - not an ideal hour but when you have four young kids, you cook when you can.

Coming off the grill:

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I checked the temp with a second probe before wrapping and putting in the cooler and I got 200+ in the point and 180+ in the flat. Seemed reasonable to me so I wrapped it up and put it in the cooler.

I got up this morning about 6 (well, our 1 year old got up about 6 and woke up the rest of the house on the way). We came downstairs together and I thought it would be a good time to slice my brisket, put it in zip locs and have it ready for lunch this afternoon or dinner tonight. I sliced the flat and chopped the point.

The flat:

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I was surprised by a couple of things. The flat was on the dry side. It wasn't bone dry but it wasn't 'juice runneth over'. It had great snap - i.e. the texture of the flat was competition quality. The appearance wasn't great - the flat was generally uniform in color with little, if any, smoke ring. It tastes great and will make great sandwiches but I don't know if the appearance/moisture issues I've identified are because I let it sit in the cooler for five hours before slicing or a challenging cut of meat or operator error (can't be the latter).

The other thing that got my attention was the yield. I got about 4# of meat out of an 11# packer. Seems low to me. The point had an incredible amount of fat in the meat structure. Bad news is that it didn't yield enough chopped beef. Good news, it was crazy moist.

The yield:

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I purposely kept this cook very simple. I didn't trim the brisket much if any. I removed some hard nodes of fat that didn't seem like they would render at all. Otherwise, I left it as it came out of the cryopack. I put worcestershire on the beef and Texas BBQ Rub Brisket Blend all over before hitting the smoker. I used 3 or 4 fist sized chunks of hickory for the first several hours and didn't add more. I didn't inject. I didn't wrap, baste, mop, or sauce. I didn't open the cooker for the first 7 hours or so. The water pan in the WSM never ran dry. It is still about half full of water.

My son (the one year old that gets up too early) got the first pieces off the cutting board as I was slicing and dicing and he liked it. So, life is good.

I would be happy to have any comments from y'all on the finished product. The taste and texture were very good but the moisture and appearance were sub par. All and all, a low stress cook that yielded some great meat for lunch.
 
I didn't wrap it until I took it off the smoker. I put it in an aluminum broiler pan and double wrapped the top to seal it. There was a little au jus in the pan but nothing else.
 
I've yet to do any brisket low and slow (all mine have been high heat), but 4# of meat from an 11# packers seems incredibly low to me.
 
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