The Elusive 225


 
John_NJ said:
This was last night- beef brisket.

The Weber cookbook advised cooking as close to 225 as possible and cook for 4 hours to 160, wrap with foil and cook for 6 more hours to 190-195.

I couldn’t get the low temp, and it cooked too fast in my opinion.

It tasted ok, but was a little tough at 7 hours total cook time.

Hence the thread:

View attachment 65421

Edit: I also mistakenly cooked the first leg fat side down - the recipe called for fat side up the whole cook. That probably didn’t help.
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Is the entire cook done in a foil pan? And on the WSK?
 
Brett-EDH said:
Apple juice. Sorry about that.
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Ok- I have been using a lot of apple juice and apple cider vinegar on these cooks- I’ll try this method next time.

Brett-EDH said:
Is the entire cook done in a foil pan? And on the WSK?
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I used a foil pan for the overnight injected beef broth/ mustard rub and dry rub marinade.

Early the next morning I took the tray out of the refrigerator for about an hour. Once the grill was holding around 240 I put the tray on the grill for the first part of the cook..

After 3 hours/ 160 internal temperature I placed the brisket on three overlapped 3’ sections of heavy aluminum foil, partially folded it up, poured the drippings/ juice over it, inserted the digital thermometer probe into the thickest part, sealed it all up and put this directly on the grate.

Cooked for around another 4 hours till it was 195 internal temp, took it off and rested it inside for two hours.

Tasty but not as tender as I would have liked.
 
John_NJ said:
Ok- I have been using a lot of apple juice and apple cider vinegar on these cooks- I’ll try this method next time.



I used a foil pan for the overnight injected beef broth/ mustard rub and dry rub marinade.

Early the next morning I took the tray out of the refrigerator for about an hour. Once the grill was holding around 240 I put the tray on the grill for the first part of the cook..

After 3 hours/ 160 internal temperature I placed the brisket on three overlapped 3’ sections of heavy aluminum foil, partially folded it up, poured the drippings/ juice over it, inserted the digital thermometer probe into the thickest part, sealed it all up and put this directly on the grate.

Cooked for around another 4 hours till it was 195 internal temp, took it off and rested it inside for two hours.

Tasty but not as tender as I would have liked.
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Interesting. It sounds like it cooked like an oven roasted brisket. I think that foil pan cook session held way too much heat around the brisket. Basically making an oven and killing the airflow.

I’d probably have put the foil pan atop your deflector plate, added some liquid to the pan, placed the brisket on the top grilling grate and cooked a more traditional smoked brisket.

Then the wrap at 170-172°.

Maybe I should read your recipe you followed for more insight for what they’re recommending.

Briskets are pretty hard to screw up if you’re LAS. Anything 275° or less will yield a good brisket. HOPEFULLY, you didn’t overtrim. Briskets need that fat cap to cook properly. Just a cleanup trim. Not a full shave and haircut.
 
John_NJ said:
I started my “low and slow” journey during the past few northeast cold weather months so that’s probably skewing the results.

The grill can hold between 240 - 250 without much effort.

I understand all the “don’t sweat the small stuff” advice.

I’ll keep experimenting and will probably go the ATC route at some point if I can’t get the 225 range, because I am not adverse to using stupid robots, lol.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far.

Cheers
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Try what Brett said earlier. A pan of water (or AJ, but water's cheaper) adds a load that absorbs some of the heat and helps stabilize temps. That may be all that you need. An ATC has a learning curve all of its own. One thing with an ATC and a kamado...the coals are starved for oxygen and the instant you open the lid and flood the chamber with air it will cause a temperature spike of as much as 50F or more and with a kamado, it takes time for the temp to come back down and stabilize. Most of the ATCs on the market don't have a very sophisticated Lid Open Detection routine (exception: HeaterMeter) so your ATC may end up working against you.

The circled area shows the Lid Open event (orange line, sudden temp drop) and the temp spike and slow return. I glazed a ham on the rotisserie and kept the lid open too long. The ham was delicious, BTW.

1674410579126.png
 
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Ed P said:
One thing with an ATC and a kamado...the coals are starved for oxygen and the instant you open the lid and flood the chamber with air it will cause a temperature spike of as much as 50F or more and with a kamado, it takes time for the temp to come back down and stabilize. Most of the ATCs on the market don't have a very sophisticated Lid Open Detection routine (exception: HeaterMeter) so your ATC may end up working against you.
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That's interesting and something I'll soon learn.
I just got a Akorn Auto-Kamado and it has a built in set & forget it ( ATC ) . I had a bad fan during seasoning that took awhile to get shipped.
Never used a ATC or a Kamado so I'm looking forward to it especially in winter.
Maybe I'll try that elusive 225 for the halibut.;)
 
timothy said:
That's interesting and something I'll soon learn.
I just got a Akorn Auto-Kamado and it has a built in set & forget it ( ATC ) . I had a bad fan during seasoning that took awhile to get shipped.
Never used a ATC or a Kamado so I'm looking forward to it especially in winter.
Maybe I'll try that elusive 225 for the halibut.;)
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I don't think it will spike as much at 225F because the fire is so low, but opening the lid only when necessary and keeping the lid open for as short of a duration as you can are good habits. What typically happens is the ATC senses the temp drop from opening the lid so it turns on the fan which stokes the fire even more, depending on the Lid Open routine. The last 225F L&S I did was a pot roast on the pellet grill and I had a water pan below the roast, but controlling the fuel (pellets) to regulate heat is different from controlling the oxygen that feeds a fire.

EDIT: I just looked at the cook file and it was a small 2 or 3-bone rib roast for 1h40m so not hardly L&S. I was tuning the PID which caused the large temp spike, but you can see the effect of opening the lid at around 4:50. This is a PiFire controller.

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Yea I think this one says to hit the pause button when opening the lid.
I just got the new fan and installed it yesterday, did a seasoning burnoff.
I was planning on using it today but we got afew inches of snow and I'm doing Fajitas so griddles on the OTG and Q2200.
 
@Bryan Mayland really raised the bar on this feature. CAUTION: Don't read too much of this...it might make your head spin.

tvwbb.com

Feature Spotlight: LidTrack Smarter Lid Mode Detection

I've been working on a new upgraded feature for the past week and I thought I'd put out a little preview as what's in store because I'm tired of looking at the code for today. This is not available in the snapshot yet (pending UI changes) but look for it to be available after Thanksgiving. Don't...
tvwbb.com tvwbb.com
 
My banjo player had a ”Wildcat” that was a great ride! His folks has an off white “Electra” 225 convertible that was pretty cool!
I had a Lincoln Continental! That would have made a ver cool grill, with the rear opening hood!? I can just see doing some really crazy mods to make that thing a grill…
 
John_NJ said:
Ok I’m picking up another brisket.

Thanks for the tip.
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Hi John - One of the tricks not mentioned so far when using the water pan is putting some foil balls or logs between the water pan and heat deflector to create space/an air gap. The air gap will prevent the heat from transferring directly from the deflector plate and into the water pan. Otherwise, your pan will dry out within 2 to 3 hours, and messing with refilling the water pan under a brisket is not much fun..

I made some foil logs by using a 18" long section of HD foil and then twisting it loosely into a long shape that is about 0.75" tall, three of these under the water pan should work just fine. I did that on the kitchen counter and sort of mashed the logs down a bit with a roasting pan to make sure they'd sit flat when I put them on the deflector plate.

Also, I don't use anything but water in my water pans. I'm no chemist, but I don't believe flavor compounds evaporate and deposit on the food. I think what evaporates is pure water... the main benefit other from temp control is that a moist cook chamber helps the smoke "stick" to the meat.

I don't recall if you mentioned wrapping the brisket in any of your posts but for whole packer brisket I'm a believer in wrapping. I normally wrap and don't check for done-ness until the brisket is about 200 to 203, and then you MUST use a tooth pick or something similar to see if it slides into the meat with little resistance... I would recommend watching some YoutTube videos from Harry Soo or Kosmo on wrapping and resting. I made my best brisket when I followed the wrapping and resting described in the video below starting at about 11 minutes and 30 seconds

 
I just did the best brisket of my life a few days ago. It was done on a drum which is kind of similar to a WSM. What made this cook stand apart was the tenderness and juiciness of the flat. I cooked it all night with a billows. The alarm didn't go off at all. Very smooth cook. I'm in the habit of starting at 225 and bumping it up using the 100 degree rule: When the meat is within 100 degrees of the cooker temp, bump it up. I used a dry water pan as Harry Soo does on a WSM to protect from radiant heat. I cooked it upside down as Harry Soo does on a WSM - fat down. I did not wrap it until I pulled it from the cooker. I only peeked once during the cook. Fifteen hours in the cooker. After 15 hours, the flat was only 189 but I pulled it because the point was reading 204. Then wrapped it and held it for 7 hours in my kitchen oven at 150 F. The long wrap-and-hold technique is from smoke trails bbq on youtube. Here are some pics https://tvwbb.com/threads/prime-grade-brisket-last-week-on-the-drum.93880/
 
If you want easy, once it's time to wrap the meat, just finish the rest of the cook in an oven?
 
Thanks to @Brett-EDH and @John K BBQ , a few suggestions will be incorporated into the next cook:

Less trimming of the fat cap- I might have been too aggressive first time

Brisket on the grate with the foil pan below, above the diffuser plate with foil spacers for the first leg of the cook.

Foil pan will have some liquid- water and apple juice.

I will report back to this thread with my results.

I have some beef short ribs in the queue for the next cook, so probably a week or so before I do another brisket.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and comments.
 
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