Sunday Morning Brisket

[John K BBQ]

I hope everyone is having a glorious Sunday morning. I’ve got a brisket on my 22” WSM. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

Yesterday – when to Sam’s and bought a brisket. Prime whole packer was cheaper than choice flat…. 10 ~ 12 lb flats were about $95 this unit was $81 ish. Also gave my brisket the shake test – if they’re stiff and don’t flex when I give it a shake, I pass and keep shopping (tip courtesy of Baby Back Maniac).

Details on the investment





Here she is out of the package - pre trimming. I always trim brisket the night before the cook, and usually budget around 30 to 45 minutes so I'm not rushing thru it. I do like that curved blade knife - it makes meat trimming a lot easier.



Here we are after trimming, ready to go in the fridge. I decided not to season before going into the fridge this time. A little salt before going in the fridge doesn't hurt but going no salt is a little less messy for handling the next day since the salt will draw out moisture from the meat and pool in the storage pan.



Bright and squirrelly this morning, I got the smoker going. Normally I have the charcoal all loaded the night before but last night there were some distractions. I had a pretty good amount of KF Pro briquettes left from the last cook, so I shook all the ashes off I could, then tucked about 6 small pecan chunks underneath and 2 hickory chunks. I made the doughtnut, and filled the hole with Rockwood lump. There were some really big pieces that I couldn't break with my hands so I stuck them out on the perimeter so they couldn't become a "fuse" in the middle of the charcoal ring and light the all the charcoal prematurely.

Here you can see me standing in my jammy pants and sandals and you can see the wood chunks



Here you can see the big *ss chunks of lump. I tossed my glove in there for "Scale". I really love Rockwood lump but I'm not sure it's available in areas outside of St. Louis. Missouri is a pretty major charcoal producing state. Rockwood is made here with offices in the St. Louis area. My guess is that the production facility is somewhere on the I-44 corridor between St. Louis and Springfield MO.



Here is the "final arrangement" before light off. You can see where I tucked a couple of lighter cubes in the middle. I stopped using chimneys. I use this method and give it about 15 minutes to get going before I put the smoker together and start the Smoke X ~ Billows. I had the smoker running at 280 about 25 minutes after light off.



After I had the smoker lit, I went back in the kitchen to season the Brisket. Lots of kosher salt, lots of McCormack's course ground pepper and a light dusting of Lawry's with black pepper. You can see the unseasoned part vs seasoned here. After the photo, I finished the entire brisket and evened out the pepper coverage.



Here we are with the brisket on the smoker;



I love being out on the patio with the sun shining thru my smoke! Photo was taken around 7:30. I have the Thermo-Works Smoke X and Billows all set to run at 280F, meat was about 37F when I put it on, and after about 70 minutes we're at 70F, so we're climbing about 30 degrees per hour, and should be hitting the 160F in 2.5 to 3.5 hours. Only time will tell. Planning to wrap it up tight with a little Shiner Bock and keep running hot with the target to have it in a cooler by around 3 ish. Wish me luck!

 

[Colin]

Great post John. Nice photography. Thank you for taking the time to do it and sharing. Also, nice patio area. I'm sure you enjoy your as much as I do mine, especially that time of the morning.

Watching.

 

[Jeff Boudman]

Thanks for sharing the photos and information. Like you, I enjoy the entire process from start to finish.

 

[JKalchik]

John, Rockwood started showing up here in MN 3 or 4 years ago, but it's generally not quite convenient for me to pick up, along with being on the expensive side. A friend of mine from southern MI got me started on it some 5+ years ago, I brought back 160 lbs. when I paid him a visit.

Those are some very good shots. I'll concur with your observation about stiff brisket, I'd sort of independently arrived at the same conclusion. My suspicion is that the connective tissue is a lot "softer," melts easier, and ends up with a much more tender end result. It also may be an observation on how much hard fat is on the cap.

 

[Joan]

What I want to know is, what do the neighbors say about the cooking smells all day? I don't remember ever seeing it discussed here.

 

[timothy]

Lookin good so far!
I see Rockwood at Ace but it's like $ 30.00 for 20lbs..

 

[JKalchik]

Timothy, I usually see Rockwood for about $27-28 for a 20 lb. bag.

Joan, my neighbors have never had a problem with my smoker, but it's running fairly well away from the house, and comparatively speaking, I make little smoke. Edit: I should add that one of my neighbors asked me to smoke a turkey for them a couple months. They're still telling me it's the best bird they've ever eaten.

 

[Brett-EDH]

What I want to know is, what do the neighbors say about the cooking smells all day? I don't remember ever seeing it discussed here.

That might depend on how close the neighbors are. I have one neighbor who’s house is 18’ away from mine.

They usually ask what I’m cooking because it smells good. They also have a Traeger so they like the smells of smoking and or seasoned coals. I can’t say they like searing smells because one cannot sear on a Traeger (sorry, had to go there)

My other closest neighbors are more than 80’ away so I can’t hear them yell at me if they’re doing so.

 

[Michael Richards]

Great post John. Nice photography. Thank you for taking the time to do it and sharing. Also, nice patio area. I'm sure you enjoy your as much as I do mine, especially that time of the morning.

Watching.

I have not done an early morning start time cook in a while and I actually missed that while reading this post. I love the smoke rolling as I am having my coffee with the dog and I the only one awake us just sitting outside on the patio. Man that is good living.

 

[Michael Richards]

John,
Great post, you captured the joy of bbq really really well. I hope the cook went well and it is stilling in the cooler resting right now.

 

[AndyK]

Looking really nice.
Good job.
Keep us posted on the cook.
I love seeing these kind of pics.

I just started getting my performer ready for my tri tip cook.
An afternoon by the bbq is my idea of a good time.

 

[John K BBQ]

Thanks for the compliments! Here's the current status; I read up on the "boat method" instead of fully wrapping. Here's what it looked like after I made the foil boat, about 5 hours into the cook. I pulled it out when I had about 198F in the point and everything felt nice and soft (about 9 hours into the cook). The bark didn't get quite where I wanted it but I'm optimistic about the flavors. Brisket is currently resting in a 180F oven. I'll be slicing this bad boy up in about an hour over at my buddy's house. I'll post some "end results" pic later on.

 

[John K BBQ]

Alright - here we go, here are the results. This brisket was a solid B or B+. The bark hardened up a bit/got better in the oven. About 1/3 of the point was a little dry, but the rest was pretty good. The parts of the flat under the point were very tender and the barky parts of the point were delish. I am going to try the boat method again, and maybe try to run at 250~275F and get a little bit better/earlier start on the next one. I think I didn't really the the sides of the boat wrapped tight enough to the brisket. Here are a few more pics. Thanks for following along!

Here it is ready to carve - bark seemed to improve while resting in the oven (brisket was in the "boat", and not covered in the oven.



Here's the bend test.


Here's a whole mess of brisket, all carved up. We served 11 and had a few lbs left over. I'm thinking the rest is going into some TX style chili when the weather cools down just a bit.