Which wood would you go with?


 
R

Ryan STL

New member
Hey all, long time reader of the site, but first time poster. Been smoking on a WSM 22 for a few years now and love it. But I've got a new challenge this weekend - I'm cooking for a larger group of people and are doing multiple meats. I would post to the new owners site, but I've been doing this for some time and think I have some ideas. But I want to hear what you all think!

I'm going to do 2 pork butts and 1 brisket at the same time. While they rest, I'll throw on some wings of course. I've done both butt and brisket before with some success (although looking at some of the pictures on this site - I have to keep working on my game). I'm thinking the night before, I'll get the pork butts on the lower rack and the brisket on the top. I'm a foiler of brisket but not butts, so I will probably foil the brisket and drop it to the bottom once it hits the stall and the bark is set. I'll bring the butts up to the top rack at that time.

So this brings me to my first question. I'm a fan of texas style brisket - salt and pepper thickly rubbed and then smoked over oak chunks. With pulled pork I like to use apple with a touch of cherry wood. But I've never done both at the same time. Knowing I'm doing both, which wood would you go with? I have hickory, oak, cherry, apple, and pecan currently in the arsenal.

I'm really at a loss when I start thinking about this. Maybe I'm over thinking it :mad:

Also, just curious on the foilers who do burnt ends. Do you rest your brisket for any time before cutting off the point? Or do you immediately open the foil, cut off the point, and then re-foil while the point cooks away for another few hours?
 
Think I agree, you're overthinking it. Your guests are no where as critical as you. I like your brisket plan. Figure you don't sauce your pork but your guests will. It ain't KCBS.
 
Just remember where it all ends up notated how good it is or how much time you worry about it. I have had an incredible source for cherry and have loved that for quite some time, I go back and forth, it's all pretty good, maple, oak, pecan, peach, use what you've got, then get more, try something else, try the same product with different smoke media. Make notes! Memory can fail!
 
I have always used a combo of hickory apple and cherry for all my meats. Simply because I couldn't decide which ONE to use. However, I do drop the hickory when doing poultry though.
 
I would go with the hickory. It seems to me to be a good compromise between oak and fruit woods.
 
Ryan. I believe I am your guy, since I did everything that you are trying to do this past Sunday for memorial day. I did two butts and a brisket and I wanted to do it texas style as well. So here is my advice. How much cooking of the other food are you going to to do? How much sleep are you going to need? And when are you going to serve the food?

When I did my cook. I did butts over brisket and I staggerd when I placed the meats in the smoker. You should figure about 1hour to 1.25hr for every pound of meat. I wanted to serve my food at 12 noon so I Knew that I wanted my smoking to be done by 9AM so I would have three hours to tend to the other items I was cooking for the event. Plus I would have some built in time if the meats took longer to cook. In my case I did a 13LB Brisket, a 10Lb butt and a 8lb butt. The brisket was going to cook the longer so I placed it on at 8PM, the 10LB butt 930PM and the 8 LB butt at 11AM. Once the last butt was on, I went to bed and I did not wake up again until about 6-7AM. Up to you if you want to wrap and switch racks and all of that other stuff, but if you are doing an overnight cook, that is valuable sleep you will be losing. If this was a competition, I would probably say patience, but if you are cooking for just a bunch of people who wouldn't know that difference then I would vote for getting the sleeping and not worrying yourself about all the extra stuff, especially if you have to cook other foods for the event.

Lastly, if you stagger the time you put your meats on, then with a little luck, you should be able to pull off all three meats off the smoker at around the same time. This would be great since you want to do chicken afterwards, you can then crank up the heat even more at one time instead playing around with not wanting to high of a temp to finish off a big piece of beef.

Secondly, I did and would recommend butts over brisket, the pork juices running down over your brisket gives a taste that is simply awesome. If you have an instant thermometer, you can taking the temp and to the probe test on the brisket on the lower rack via the charcoal.

Secondly, This was my first time cooking use both racks, it worked out very very well. A few things to consider though. In the past, I only used the top rack and no water or sand in my water pan. I made the mistake of reading on this site that the bottom rack is often a few degrees cooler than the top. So when I was planning my cook, I always had I mind that I would set my bottom to 245 which would mean my butts would cook anywhere between 245-260 degrees, but this was not the case. Without water or sand in the pan to act like a heat sink, my bottom rack was hotter than my top. To fix this problem, I needed to add some water to the pan. This help with temp control.

I hope this information helps. Let me know if you have more questions.
 
Thanks everyone for the feedback! I think you all were right - I mostly overthinking it. After reading through some suggestions, I am going to go with oak for its clean flavor (and because brisket is just so darn good with oak) and maybe kiss it with a little hickory for an added element. I love apple with pork but honestly haven't tried pork with oak, so it will be a great learning experience as well!

Andre - great points on the timing and placement. I was curious though. I was thinking of going brisket on top until I foil (then switching) mostly because I didn't want the pork dripping to displace any rub on the brisket. But it sounds like you had great success with getting those drippings to add to the end bark and increase flavor. Curious though - would you say just the flavor tasted enhanced or that your bark was actually improved?

And yes, I will be doing mostly an all nighter - good for getting some extra whiskey in me. I have a two probe thermometer with alarm, but I enjoy the late night peace and whiskey over sleep once in a while.
 
All I can say is this, the bark and my brisket was the tasty I have ever had in my life. This by far was my best brisket period, full stop, end of story. I really believe the pork drippings help, but I also believe my dry salt brine help just as much. Please go to amazingribs.com and read his take on the dry salt brine. I used .5 teaspoon of salt for each lb of meat. I seasoned my meat with this and let them sit for 12 hours. It was only about 15 minutes before I put each respective meat on the grill did I add the other seasonings. So in your case if your are for a texas style brisket, then this would be when you add only the black pepper. The dry brine and the Butts over the Brisket are the reasons why my brisket was the best.

The pork but is fatty, but the drippings are just that drippings, so it will do not harm to the bark. It will only enhance it. I strongly recommend you cook butts over brisket.

Again I would strongly encourage you to bypass the wrapping and go for the sleep especially if your are doing the over night. The juice is simply not worth the squeeze. If you are truly cooking everything for that many people then you will be cooking for about a day and half with the other half you entertaining and enjoying the company of your guests. That 6-7 hours worth of sleep that you can get overnight will be precious.

Best
 
I think you may have convinced me to go all out on the dry brine and the pork drippings - I'll let you know how it turns out!
 
Andre A said:
Did you have the cook yet? How did it go?
Click to expand...

Andre - great suggestions! I ended up staggering the times almost perfectly. Brisket was rubbed with salt for a semi-dry brine about 4 hours before the smoking, then pepper was added just before it went on. Pulled pork was injected and rubbed with a variety of spices. I ended up going brisket below for most of the cook on your suggestion too. The wood was mostly oak with just a couple of chunks of hickory.

Pan was filled with water and run at 225-250 throughout the cook. Brisket was foiled around 4:30 am.

All I have to say was wow. This was my best brisket yet. I cooked the flat to 203 on the dot. Put in cooler, wrapped. I took the point off after it had cooled enough to handle and rubbed that more and back on the smoker for burnt ends. The brisket had excellent flavor and was extremely moist. The smoke ring didn't quite take as well as a few other briskets I've done, but the flavor was still spot on.

The pulled pork turned out very good too. I've done slightly better before, but it was still a HUGE hit.

the other star was the chicken wings. I put those on after the brisket and pork came off. A simple homemade cajun style rub and then on for a couple hours.

I have to say that your ideas were great! I think in the future I'm going to go with a dry brine (probably longer than I did too it was just timing this time around). Definitely going to try pork with more oak wood too because it seemed to keep it pretty mild and let the pork speak for itself.
 
Man you just made my day. I am glad that my suggestions worked out for you. I noticed that you still woke up though in the middle of the night!! How was the rest of the event and when did you crash? And yes the dry salt brine is money!! I never cook any other way now.
 
Andre A said:
Man you just made my day. I am glad that my suggestions worked out for you. I noticed that you still woke up though in the middle of the night!! How was the rest of the event and when did you crash? And yes the dry salt brine is money!! I never cook any other way now.
Click to expand...

I still went with the overnight smoke - luckily with the alarm handy, I could get some sleep. Really just up to wrap the brisket and then to spritz the pork.

The event was awesome - people raved about the que. It's amazing how all of us on here can be perfectionists while everyone eating our food usually thinks its incredible we can do such wonders :)

Also had some wiffle ball, beer pong, and golf chip shot competitions going at the party. It was a blast! The sleep the next night did come quickly though. I think I was out by 9 pm haha.
 
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