Welp, my first attempt at brisket came out "okay". I haven't tried the point
yet, but I did try the flat. Not much smoke flavor made it through the fat
and I didn't turn the flat over, so it cooked too long on one side (oops).
But, the meat that came out usable is pretty good. The entire cook finished
up *way* quicker than I expected (250deg), but for the most part the results
were favorable.

I just need to figure out how to get the smoke to penetrate a little better
into the brisket. The pork came out great. I didn't find much difference
between the picnic and the butt in terms of meat "consistency", they both
cooked about the same, with a much larger bone in the picnic.

Now, on to the BBQ sauce...





--Brett

On 19-Aug-2007, "vex" > wrote:

> Welp, my first attempt at brisket came out "okay". I haven't tried the
> point
> yet, but I did try the flat. Not much smoke flavor made it through the fat
>
> and I didn't turn the flat over, so it cooked too long on one side (oops).
>
> But, the meat that came out usable is pretty good. The entire cook
> finished
> up *way* quicker than I expected (250deg), but for the most part the
> results
> were favorable.
>
> I just need to figure out how to get the smoke to penetrate a little
> better
> into the brisket. The pork came out great. I didn't find much difference
> between the picnic and the butt in terms of meat "consistency", they both
> cooked about the same, with a much larger bone in the picnic.
>
> Now, on to the BBQ sauce...

I can't tell from your description how much smoke penetration you got in
that brisket. I also didn't catch how long it took to cook. Howver, I
cooked a brisket for the crowd on Aug 11. It was a 10.6# packer cut
(kinda small for a packer cut) and it cooked in just 7 hours. It reached
195° internal in the point and somewhat higher in the flat during that
time. It's moist, flavorful and slices well. I'm posting the remains to the
point over on ABF so you can see just how mine came out if you have
access to that group. You will see that the smoke ring was 1/4 to 1/2
inch deep in the leaner parts and not at all in the fat. It was a good
brisket, we just didn't have enough people to eat all the food available
at the cookin. There was after all, a brisket, a butt, a picnic and 6 slabs
of ribs plus a good many side dishes for not more then about 20 people.

Let me just say that good brisket doesn't have to take 20 hours in the
pit. Some pretty knowledgable folks claimed my brisket was good so
I'm going to take their word for it. We'll see if I can get anybody to drive
six hours to eat my food the the next time I host a cook in.
--
Brick(Save a tree, eat a Beaver)

Brick wrote:

> I can't tell from your description how much smoke penetration you got
> in that brisket. I also didn't catch how long it took to cook.
> Howver, I cooked a brisket for the crowd on Aug 11. It was a 10.6#
> packer cut (kinda small for a packer cut) and it cooked in just 7
> hours. It reached 195° internal in the point and somewhat higher in
> the flat during that time. It's moist, flavorful and slices well. I'm
> posting the remains to the point over on ABF so you can see just how
> mine came out if you have
> access to that group. You will see that the smoke ring was 1/4 to 1/2
> inch deep in the leaner parts and not at all in the fat.

It was a 15lb packer cut. I got about 1/8" penetration in the flat and


slice...slice...slice...

about 1/4" penetration in the point. I pulled everything off when they read
about 192°, and the flat slightly higher, about 200°. Everything was done at
once, which was nice. Final cooking time was right at 6 hours.

Everything was moist, had lots of flavor (though a bit less smoke flavor in
the brisket than I'd like to have seen), and the brisket sliced very well,
but was easily broken (crumbled?) with gentle finger pressure.



--Brett