Correct, Dave.
Avoiding a dry brisket is a matter of not overcooking, not cooking at some specific temp. The cooktemp possibilities is a fairly wide wedge, and the wedge can be made wider by the use of tools.
Let's use what we know of Brandon's brisket and cook as an illustration, filling in whatever details with the use of hypotheticals --for illustrative purposes-- as actual fine points are immaterial for the sake of explanation. 'Felix' did the cook. But let's look at something else first, then plug in Brandon's cook as a way to show the choices/possibilities/possible outcomes. Maybe this will be helpful.
Cooking good barbecue is not a religion, i.e., it does not require faith in the vague and adherence to counterfactuals. The notion that one often hears that 'every hunk of meat is different', or the like, is utterly bogus. Every hunk of meat is not different. With the gross variances between, say, Wagyu and Select, etc., (the stuff I already noted upthread), or butt from a Berk pig v. typical mass market butt, and so on, there are in fact few differences between hunks of the same meat. Whatever there are (grade, thickness, weight, etc.) are easily compensated for. The only thing to adhere to is shooting for excellent results. Period.
The issues at hand are these, which are not entirely inclusive but are the key operators:
meat
cooker
ambient conditions
fuel and start-up
cooktemp
Note here what is not included: type of thermometer and location; a finish temp target; whether heatsinks are used and what type; fatcap up or down; rest time; foil use, et al. Some of these might be germane but none are that important; others not at all important.
Felix had a brisket that was a bit on the thin side. I will assume that it was adequately marbled or he wouldn't have purchased it. Felix knows from his own experience that thinner briskets might pose problems (or else he wouldn't have noticed). The meat was 14.5 lbs; a packer. We'll assume he either didn't trim or that trimming was moderate. Doesn't matter.
Felix used a WSM for a cooker.
We'll assume Felix used either Kingsford or a typical lump. He used a Guru do the start-up would have been similar to a Minion start. Water, or another heatsink, is not typically used with a Guru but, nevertheless, it is immaterial.
Felix selected 235 for his cooktemp.
(Brandon I am not saying you did the following, but for illustrative purposes) let's assume Felix adhered to this (dogmatic) reasoning for his approach and cook:
Every hunk of meat is different so I can't to anything about that.
235 is the best temp to cook brisket.
Foil should never be used till the meat comes off the cooker.
Meat will plateau for several hours so a 4 hour plateau is nothing to concern myself with.
I don't need to check the meat for tender till it nears my target finish temp.
My target finish temp is 190.
Now, rethought and rewritten:
Every hunk of meat is different so I can't to anything about that.
Well, it isn't. But there are some differences (as noted above: grade, thickness, weight and the like) that can be taken into consideration. E.g., if the brisket is on the thin side, say, or overtrimmed, say, this can be compensated for in several ways, two of which are easy to add into the mix: foil and/or an increased cooktemp. If the meat grade is on the lower side both of these 'tools' can work to compensate as well.
235 is the best temp to cook brisket.
Not really. There isn't necessarily a 'best temp'. Assuming time isn't a factor (if it is one might need to speed or slow a cook), a range of temps are quite possible, and a good, narrower target range is better determined by the meat at hand. If a brisket is on the thin side, overtrimmed, or of lower grade, 235 might be a problem, and lower temps are likely to be. This is because of the dynamics within the meat during cooking. Cooking too low for briskets of this type can work against you prety easily. With insufficient soft fat deposits and/or connective tissue due to thinness, overtrimming or lower grade, the moisture loss duing a very slow cook can be too great --and there isn't enough gelatinizing connective tissue and rendering fat to compensate. Again, here, in terms of cooktemp, one can compensate for these problems in a brisket by the use of foil. Foil not in the cards? Fine, cook at a higher temp. Insurance? Do both, foiling when the brisket hits plateau.
Foil should never be used till the meat comes off the cooker.
Foil can be an effective tool. It isn't a must, but shouldn't be a 'must not' either. Too many briskets end up less than they could be because of some sort of 'keeping it pure' silliness. Again, it isn't required, but if one is cooking a potentialy problematic brisket --either because of the brisket itself or because of the conditions of the cook-- foil can work well to helop achieve very good results. No foil at hand? Still don't want to use it during a cook? Fine. But then brisket irregularities or irregularities on cook conditions should be compensated for in other ways.
Meat will plateau for several hours so a 4 hour plateau is nothing to concern myself with.
Meat can certainly plateau for several hours. It is a concern when, again, there are potential problems with the meat at hand, the brisket is hanging in the zone for a long time. A long plateaus with a problematic brisket is an open door for excessive moisture loss as the plateau is going on. Compensate: speed the plateau with foil, protecting from moisture loss, raise the temp, or both.
I don't need to check the meat for tender till it nears my target finish temp.
Sure you do. Finish temps can and do vary. High quality briskets often finish at much lower temps. Thick briskets of lower quality often finish at higher temps. 'Done' is not a product of a temp target or an arbitrary temp: done is moist and tender. Want to know where your brisket is in its cooking process? Stick a probe in it (not hither and yon) and feel what it feels like. Skip the target temp focus; get in there and give it a jab and feel it. Do it more early in the process, especially with potential problematic briskets or with cooks that don't see to be going as you thought they would and you'll learn over a little time how things feel as they cook and, when the cook is done, you can compare the progress of the feel to the end results (and you are less likely to miss 'done' as well). This learning is invaluable.
My target finish temp is 190. As already noted, this can vary. Following a specific temp as a target for some rarely worked, for others works seemingly all the time, yet for others works sometimes and sometimes not.
Streamlining the process is one thing many do, after some or much experience, without necessarily 'knowing' that that is what they are doing.
There are many ways to streamline and it involves standardizing (as much as possible) various elements of the process and the cook that are either easier to control, or that lend themselves to standardization. Using a Guru, e.g., is one of these --but so is adopting, say, the Minion Method for start-up. This can be standardized further by, e.g., always using X amount of lit and always spreading it in one particular way (or always using the coffee can approach, or whatever). Using one type and brand of fuel is another standardization as is, say, never using water, or always using water, or always using sand or ceramics.
Comp cooks often standardize meats by finding a retailer or wholesaler that can provide them with meats that are quite similar in size and/or grade. One reason that CAB is so popular (or Wagyu, as Jim Minion uses) is because there are certain standards that the producers must use in order for the meat to be CAB in the first place. Competitors purchasing all CAB need not focus on the vagaries of grading --someone else already has.
Less obvious but important things like a windblock, a roof over the cooker, always using 3 vents to control airflow or always using just one --these things also can be standardized if one wishes.
The point of all of this is to control the variables that are in one's potential control so that they can be replicated from cook to cook. One thing to understand, however, is that while standardization --streamlining the process-- can make cooks easier and more likely to be successful (as one tweaks the process over a little time), there are many possibilities, many combinations of standards that can work well, not just one particular way.
The use of foil can be one element of a streamlined process because it allows one to not be quite as particular about the meat grade and or trim. It evens out cooking in such a way (by making it more efficient) that lower grade cuts or cut that were poorly removed from the carcass (we've all seen them: big point with a flat that thins dramatically). One of the reasons I do high heat briskets (where the use of foil is pretty much mandatory) is because these two variables (high heat and foil -- plus a MM start) streamline the process for me -- and they are all I use. I do not use a windblock, cook in the open, change fuels frequently, and cook actual no-roll briskets (WalMart's packers are not no-roll, they are Select or better, despite the lack of grade on the package; no-roll means ungraded beef and WalMart does not purchase this), from which the selection is limited -- I usually have no more than 3 from which to choose. The fewer variables I can control, or the fewer I choose to control, the more important it is to choose variables that have the most impact.
Don't want to use foil? Again, that's fine, but then control variables that will be more likely to even out any unevenness, that will be more likely to give you the best results.
and check temps at 5am when I got up go to the bathroom, meat temp was 152. I then woke up at 9ish and meat temp is about 154, I'm thinking platau so I jumped the guru up to 250....long story short again, sorry, this thing just seemed to drag on and on, by 5pm (21 hours) it just reached 190. I open her up and feel for tender, the flat has a hard crust (bark) and the thickest part of the flat still has resistance. I can tell the flat is overcooking and gave up, pulled and rested. I sliced the flat (dry) added some sauce and vac sealed it, the point I chopped and also vac sealed, all of it went straight into the freezer. Well I ate some.... SOO...
I have never foiled a low/slow brisket, but in this case it would have helped with time and moisture, next time I just may... Thanks for reading I know its long.
