Saturday HH Brisket...not quite right


 
L

Lee Morris

TVWBB Fan
Cooked my third high heat brisket flat on Saturday and was a little disappointed. I was very pleased with my first two. I am in no way a brisket connoisseur, but I thought they were good. This one was a little dry. Had a good flavor but wasn't nearly as moist as the first two. Not sure why...all three cooks were almost identical.

Followed K Kruger's plan and smoked for 2.5 hours then foiled and cooked another 1.5 hours. Temps were about 338 the whole cook. Used a mixture of apple and white oak.

Cook times have been within 10 minutes give or take for all 3 cooks, but this one was clearly drier. I know dryness often is a result of over cooking, but this was the biggest flat I have cooked so it shouldn't have been overdone if the others weren't. Could under cooking somehow have made it dry?

Only tried to post pics on here one other time, but I'll try again now. Hopefully it works.

6.64 pound brisket flat from Costco


Rubbed with Texas BBQ Rub Brisket Blend


Loaded with Rancher briquettes with apple and white oak


Onto the smoker


Enough smoke for you??


Love the DigiQ


After 2.5 hours


After the foil...just over 4 hours total


Done!


Sliced


Smoke ring!


On the plate
 
First off, great looking meal. And awesome bark.

They wouldn't be dry from undercooking, they'd be tough.

If they were tender, but dry then that= overcooked.

They are fickle beasts my friend. Hang in there. Perhaps with one this size I'd go for a higher temp and shorter cook. Personally, I'd think getting into the foil a bit sooner ( because of the higher temp) might lead to less evaporative loss of moisture. Of course the brisket will be done much quicker when foiled too.

Nice smoke ring.

I have learned to spend time perfecting what to me is a perfect BBQ sauce. It comes in handy when I dont get the results I'm after on a brisket.


Keep it up.
 
With HH the margin for error is reduced substantially and while we all like to go by time, time/temp needs to be ignored after foiling. I foil at 160, then check after one hour, then every 15 minutes after that. "It's done when it's done" as the wise man once said....nice looking brisket though and as Tom suggested, a really good finishing sauce is a very good thing for dry brisket.
 
hey man I def. don't know like these guys about high heat but a long while ago I posted about the fat in them. Like you said, I am not a connoisseur (im copied the spelling from you
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) either, but every since i've been buying whole packers as marbled and fatty as possible and so far its been giving me a moister product. I need to stress I don't really have proof of this except a few agreed and a few folks sounded willing to try. I havn't done high heat yet though bud, just so you know. Might be worth a shot, its always fun to try. I've had nasty briskit, and really really good briskit both. they are fickle, I agree. But for now thats the way i'm stuck in because I promise it hasn't failed yet (about 5 briskits later) but want you to know that It could just be by chance. your dinner looks pretty good though to me. I'de say great job amigo, well done.
 
Moisture wise, it looks like it came out about the same as my last HH flat. It was hard to judge for me because the thinner part of the flat had absolutely no probe resistance, while the thicker part seemed it needed to go longer. I wrapped tightly in foil and let it continue to cook with a long rest, instead of a light tent and short rest. I was hoping things would even out. Ended up dry in the thin part and semi-dry in the thicker part. Anyway, your smoke ring is gigantic! I havent had one that large yet, maybe it was because your wsm looked like a five alarm fire in that smoke pic
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Brandon
 
I too did a brisket flat on Saturday. It was about 7 lbs. This was my first time trying high heat and it didn't turn out as good as I expected. I foiled after three hours, then took it off the cooker after it reached 185 degrees. I sprayed it with apple juice and wrapped it in two layers of HD aluminum foil for two hours. When I unwrapped the brisket, I recovered about 8 oz. of au jus for serving with the brisket

Here is the problem. I used my Performer rather than my WSM. The temp ran at a pretty consistent 350. The meat just seemed tougher than the last time that I tried to make a brisket. However, my last attempt was a full 13 lb. packer that I cooked on the WSM.

Did I change too many variables to ever really know what went wrong? Should I stick with the WSM rather than the Performer for brisket? To be honest, I'm a little confused and disappointed.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Did I change too many variables to ever really know what went wrong? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Seems likely to me. 3 hours was probably way too long. Do not temp after foiling high heat briskets. The internal is immaterial and without meaning. That was another problem. Another was then wrapping and holding for 2 hours.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">It was hard to judge for me because the thinner part of the flat had absolutely no probe resistance, while the thicker part seemed it needed to go longer. I wrapped tightly in foil and let it continue to cook with a long rest, instead of a light tent and short rest. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Resting tented would likely have worked. I feel the center of the flat only (no need to poke elsewhere, imo) and make all judgments from the feel of that area.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Followed K Kruger's plan and smoked for 2.5 hours then foiled and cooked another 1.5 hours </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I'd suggest temping if you're going to do flats (I do packers and don't temp). If nicely fatted and/or thick, try foiling at ~165, irrespective of time; if trimmed and/or thin go with 160. In either case don't temp after foiling. Check for done by feel using the timing Don suggests.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">They wouldn't be dry from undercooking, they'd be tough. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
They can be both if undercooked. Undercooking usually equals slightly-to-somewhat tough but moist, to somewhat-to-fairly-tough but dry. (This is because the internal rendering has not been sufficient enough to create a moist mouthfeel.)

Overcooked tends to be tender and somewhat-to-rather dry, or stringy and somwhat to rather dry. (In both cases this is due to cooking past the point of rendering sufficiently, whereby the meat has lost some to much of the renderings and internal moisture.)
 
sometimes its just the meat. when i do high temp i cook in the 275-300 deg area. usually comes out to 8.5-9 hours. i don't wrap in foil, etc. so far they have been moist enough for me. maybe just back the temp down a bit ?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">It was hard to judge for me because the thinner part of the flat had absolutely no probe resistance, while the thicker part seemed it needed to go longer. I wrapped tightly in foil and let it continue to cook with a long rest, instead of a light tent and short rest. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Resting tented would likely have worked. I feel the center of the flat only (no need to poke elsewhere, imo) and make all judgments from the feel of that area. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll keep that in mind Kevin, thanks for the advice.
 
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