About a 14 lbs brisket from Costco. 200° for 15 hours until internal temp was between 168° and 187°, then 250° for about an hour and twenty until internal was up between 195° and 205° and meat was probe tender. I had a water pan in the smoker through the whole cook. I started using Costco pellet blend of oak, cherry, maple, & hickory to kill the bag, then switched to Traeger mesquite pellets.
This is my second brisket. I love the jiggle but, like my first, my bark is kinda sad. Any tips for a better bark? I do want to try Lumberjack pellets because I hear they are good. If I just need to smoke it longer, what is the risk of it drying out?
by Sumthin-Sumthin44692
39 Comments
More pepper.
First off stop cooking at 200 degrees
The water pan is your problem, too much steam. That being said that looks awesome and I’m sure it tasted awesome!
Try a higher heat like 225-250 I’m not a fan of treager pellets. I run a mix of gmg gold and royal oak charcoal pellets.
Try using a binder and more pepper and salt or whatever rub you like and let it sit in the rub longer
Just run 250. There’s no reason to smoke lower, unless you just like waiting.
Worry less about getting a picture perfect bark and make sure your meat is tender and juicy. I never ate a shitty brisket and went around telling everyone about how great the bark was though.
You need to season it more
No water pan, more rub with a binder like mustard, just smoke at 225-250 i spritz with cola and acv every 1-2 hours except during the stall. I also never wrap wrapping kinda ruins your bark
Season the living shit out of it. Looks like you put it on light. Also, pepper and pepper and then more pepper. Pepper barks up anything.
First, ditch the Costco pellets. Get some lumberjack hickory or smokin pecan pecan shell pellets, even the pit boss competition blend is/was pretty good when I used them in the past. Only binder I use if I use one is canola oil. SPG rub, heavy on the P. As an alternative, try the pit boss beef/brisket rub. Go heavy on rub. It won’t be overwhelming on a brisket when heavily applied. Cook fat cap down with point on the hottest end of cooker. Don’t cook to a certain temp. Cook till you like the bark. Foil boat instead of wrap. I usually start a brisket the night before on 180. I get a fabulous bark. I normally cook mine on a cooling rack in a restaurant pan with beef stock in bottom. Next morning I start basting with juices in pan. Sometimes I’ll wrap over top of pan, sometimes I don’t. Depends on my mood. Finish cooking till probe tender, like hot butter. Long rest in cooler. Several hours. Or heated rest in 170° oven. Thank me later! Oh, and I personally like to remove about 90% of the deckle fat between the flat and point. Leave about 1/4-3/8”. Good luck
More temp and if you didn’t do the foilboat I would recommend giving it a try
In all honesty cook it at a higher temp and use pepper.
Did you wrap it?
You could try a rub of yellow mustard before applying rub. Helps with creating a nice bark.
Man this sub gets kinda salty sometimes. Relax, fellas.
You should definitely be trimming more
2 to 1 parts pepper to salt, 225° instead of 200°. Meat Church is not the be all end all for BBQ. Mad Scientist, Chudds, How To BBQ Right and many others all say 225° to start. But pepper heavy is best. Also, how’s the smoke ring? Maybe add a smoke tube if it’s lacking. Oh and ditch the water pan if you are using one. You don’t want a moist environment in the smoke chamber
Coat with something that will caramalize, apple cider vinegar with some brown sugar or something. I’ve brushed honey/bourbon mixture. Just something that can crisp without flat out burning.
Try using lowrys for j your seasoning mix. I do 2-1-1-1 pepper kosher salt lawrys gp.
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That’s quite the twerk
Traeger pellets aren’t great. And overpriced.
Pit Boss Champions Blend is good I get nice bark on my brisket.
Run at 250, season more, try different pellets. I use knotty wood and noticed a difference in bark from other pellets.
I go 225 on my Camp Chef woodwind the whole way through. Liberal SPG seasoning with a little oil if I need it to stick, no spritz, no water pan, no wrap. I’ll turn it up if I stall too long and I’m worried about being done on time, but I’ll usually start them the night before to give myself the runway I need. Almost always get a good bark that way.
A couple things to get better bark, first is season heavy like as much as you can get to stick to it, coarse back pepper is really what builds good bark.
Wiat to wrap until your bark looks like you want it, internal temp is just a guide for wrap…but you can look up goldies brisket method, they don’t wrap untill the end. Or look up foil boat with is also proven to work well
Trim so you don’t get rendered fat pooling anywhere, these pools will stop the bark from setting up
Lastly 200 is a bit low for my pellet smoker, I might run 200 if I’m doing overnight for 6 or 8 hours but bump it to 250 first thing in the morning and might even go to 300 once it’s wrapped (if I wrap)
Just some stuff I’ve had sucess with, more important is to try some stuff and see what works
You left at 200 for too long.
* I usually plan for a 20 hour including the rest so when I start the night before I put it on 200 for the overnight portion of the cook
* then when I wake up I push to 215-220 until it reaches 165-175 (basically when it stalls)
* then I pour over some tallow, wrap it and crank to 250-275 till it is 203 internal temp and probe tender
* then it rests in a Yeti till it’s time to eat
That was always my complaint with pellet smokers. It made good bbq but the bark was never right. I switched to a stick burner. No saying stick burner or nothing but the bark is better
Was this choice or prime?
Like others have said, should do a higher temp.
Also doesnt matter that it’s a pellet grill. All you need is smoke and convection to get bark on anything.
This is a method that worked wonders for me on my Recteq 590.
* season with a healthy amount of Salt, pepper, garlic. I’d dry brine with the seasoning for 24 hours if you can plan ahead.
* 200 degrees unwrapped for 2 hours.
* up temp to 225 and smoke until 170 internal.
* use foil boat method and pour rendered beef tallow on top. Smoke until finish temp (probe tender).
* wrap in foil and let rest at least 4 hours above 160 degrees.
I got great bark with that method and most importantly the cook was fantastic.
https://preview.redd.it/csvz86gvqs2f1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7601aa7ea19cdfabb5760d3c6fb40bfa63725e7
Use lumberjack pellets and get a gasket for your smoker. I got one for my pellet and it made a big difference.
Put it in my mouth. All of it.
Spritz often and don’t wrap
More pepper and don’t be afraid to cook your brisket warmer. And as personal preference I don’t wrap my brisket until the bark is how I want it, which is usually after the stall.
Did you use a binder?
Theres no seasoning
Did you wrap?
Perhaps I’m being a silly bitch here, but I prefer my brisket like this personally. Never really found the appeal or function (I assume for locking in heat and juices and texture) of bark.
I’m here for downvotes, but in addition to more pepper (the poignancy of the pepper mellows a ton, don’t think it’s going to be radically pepper forward l) is a light dusting of ground coffee if you want that meteorite look.