I've cooked some pretty dry briskets in the past and now determined to learn how to cook a properly moist and tender brisket come hell or high water. Took a local BBQ class last weekend and learned a lot of new tips. Here's my strategy for today's cook:

Picked up a 13lb USDA Prime whole packer brisket at HEB yesterday afternoon. It's on the smoker now.

- Trick from the class. Place the brisket in freezer for 20 mins or so before trimming. Makes the fat cap easier to trim. Trimmed the fat pretty aggressively down to 1/8" or less. Theory being that we want the guests to be eating all the bark and spices and around an 1/8" or less layer of fat is as much as most people want to eat without trimming it off at the dinner table
- Used a thin coat of vegetable oil as the binder then added the Big Bad Beef Rub from Amazing Ribs. I already had some premix on hand with a bit of Oakridge BBQ Ghost Chile Rub mixed in. A lot of folks down here just use a 50-50 mix of coarse ground salt and coarse ground pepper.

I'm using a Primo Oval XL kamado grill with ceramic heat deflector plates. Because the heat source is directly under the meat I've taken to cooking the brisket fat side down to protect the meat better. I've also taken to adding a water pan on top of the ceramic plates to provide a bit of moisture during the cook.

Using cherry wood chunks for smoke today. Thought I'd mix it up a little.

Also periodically I'll be using a spray bottle to moisten the surface of the brisket with a mix of plain water and apple cider.

Right now the grill temp has stabilized at 235 degrees about perfect as my goal is 225 to 250 degrees grill/smoker temp. My plan is to smoke this brisket until the stall, sometime around 155 to 160 degrees meat temperature. Then I'll wrap in heavy duty foil (Texas Crutch) to power through the stall.

I'm debating to remove the foil around 180 degrees for finishing the cook to crisp up the bark a bit before the cook finishes. Then will rest the meat about an hour before slicing.

Picked up some Hatch Chile sausages and another pack of Jalapeno Cheese sausages to cook for snacks during the smoke also. Making some guacomole today along with homemade BBQ sauce, Frijoles Borrachos, and buttermilk cornbread.

All right, man. You know the drill.

This sounds like a well-thought-out day, so I’m expecting some great things!

Hey Steve Happy Birthday. I'll get some pics later.

It's in foil now almost up to 190 deg meat temperature. Today I've found the only thing with using a water pan in the cook is it really inhibits a good bark early on because everything stays pretty moist in the kamado. The foil crutch really cuts down on cooking time. I'm going to pull it out of the foil at 190 or so and remove the water pan to let the bark and crust set up a bit and will finish the cook without foil now that we're through the stall.

Frijoles Borrachos are on the stove simmering. I broke tradition of using Modelo Negro and used Guiness for the beer. That will officially make these Irish-Mexican beans lol I'll post up the recipe if anyone's interested

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Photobucket??

Hi Pablo I just need to find our camera and I'll snap some pics after unwrapping from the foil in a couple minutes. I take the photos from the camera, shrink them down in Paint, and then they meet the max upload size requirement.

hahahaha thanks!

It's poke, by the way. po-ke. My wife is Hawaiian. But some people write poki. Not pronounced pokey though.

I haven’t done a brisket in a few weeks. I think this holiday weekend I’ll have to step up.

In the future I’d suggest trying to wrap with peach paper. Tin foil can make the brisket be pot-roasty.

Haven't done a brisket since this Summer but the last one I did I marinated for 24 hrs first. Trimmed fat right down to where it was almost transparent.

Read an article by an award winning "Smoker Chef" that the more fat you leave on the outside of a brisket the more it keeps smoke and flavor from the meat. The fat INSIDE the brisket is what keeps the meat moist during a slow cook.

As for the 'Water Pan" I often just put apple juice in mine. Keeps some moisture in the smoker and also puts a nice flavor to the meat. Even with the moisture I get a nice bark with all kinds of flavor. My "Judges" are my Grandkids and they all announced that the last brisket, the one I marinated, was the best ever. When three kids can polish off the better part of 10# brisket (after trim) who can argue.


Yesterday I put three turkey breasts through the slicer. Three, three pound Butterballs, marinated for 48 hours in a salt (half the usual for me), brown sugar, and Prague Cure #1 yielded a nice moist finished product with a slight pink flavor. Applewood for the smoke and about 8 hours in the box.

My problem was sampleing as I sliced. 3-4 slices for packaging, a slice for "Quality Control" purposes

Now that I have the unrestricted use of my arms back I'll be doing some Holiday Ham. Problem with starting from scratch is that the ham takes a month in the brine to give it an old fashioned cure.

Funny you mention this. I was just adding peach paper and a paper rack/cutter to my Amazon rack this morning. Was doing a bit of google-fu on foil vs paper wrap this morning and a lot of folks like the paper approach as it breathes better and maintains a better crust. A lot of professional BBQ joints use the paper wrap also cuz it's cheaper when you're cooking several hundred or thousand briskets over time.

Next time I'll be doing a paper wrap.

Damn rookie move... Had a temperature spike over 300 degrees so shut the kamado airflow down to bring things under control... left it damped too long and fire went out *reaching for seppaku knife*

Brisket going back to foil wrap in the over at 250 degree oven temp... Restarting the grill for sausages

And I thought that Texans had this stuff mastered . . . .

He's from WA.

You are spot on with putting the fat cap down on that style of smoker, I learned the hard way

If you don`t mind a tip for next time instead of a water pan try a pan with beef broth and a large whole onion cut up and a couple cloves of garlic and have it directly under the brisket so it catches the brisket drippings. When your brisket is done take all the drippings with the onion and garlic and put it in a blender and liquify then add a pint or so of a bold and spicy bbq sauce, I make my own honey/chiplote bbq sauce. When you separate the point from the flat cut the point into cubes and add the mixture of broth and bbq sauce and return to the smoker to heat up. I make these all the time and at the last group shoot I took these to an entire cast iron dutch oven worth were gone in less than 10 minutes. Warning it does have a bold flavor and can be addicting. Looking forward to your pictures

Sounds great, Dave....

By the way, Primo has deflector plates & shields. There are a few places online that offer free shipping for them:

http://www.primogrill.com/en-us/products/accessories

I just got done pulling two 9 pound pork shoulders that I started smoking yesterday around noon.

I cheated last night and ripped a chunk off of one shoulder and made a sammich about midnight.

Got about 16 lbs of pork in the fridge now! I loves me some pulled pork sammiches!