smoked my first brisket like 2 weeks ago. thought it came out pretty alright. pretty much just a crap shoot based on stuff i had learned and read over here for the past year.
seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder and then let rest in the oven for a few hours to bring my start temp up. started in the smoker at 225° with a pan of water in the smoke chamber(would love to hear your thoughts on the water pan, helpful or not) and apple chunks in the fire box. it was burning a bit dirtier than id have liked on account wood was more green than i thought.
had some trouble with temperature control because it was about 10°f outside and windy. so i was within 200°-270° smoking the whole time. pretty inconsistent not just because of the weather but im also still having trouble dialing in my temp control. getting better each smoke.
wrapped at 160° with all the tallow that i made from the trimmings. it ended up being a lot. (pic 4, is that pretty standard ? or too much ?) and smoked at 250°ish until 202° rest for an hour and a half before slicing. wish i had the time to rest some more.
definitley should have trimmed more. you can only kinda make it out but theres a massive hunk of fat on the thick end of the slices. wasted a lot of bark that way and it was rather unappealing. i also made the seasoning just a hair too salty. going to experiment more with that.
anyway just trolling the boat for thoughts and opinions. feel free to leave a good tip you learned along the way. especially about temperature control. would love the next one to be better.
by Moms-milkers
4 Comments
1. 225 is too low for brisket. Maybe 225 for the first 3 hours then crank it to 250
2. Swings are normal and I don’t see any negative effects from them
3. Don’t wrap at 160. Wrap when it needs to be wrapped. I know I’ll get downvoted but I don’t even wrap anymore and when I did, I’d usually wrap in the high 180s
4. Don’t pull it out at 202. Pull it out when it’s done. Does it probe like butter? No? Leave it in. If the flat is still not probing like butter but the point is, let it go longer, the point is very forgiving
5. A 1 hour rest is not long enough
Looks to me like you are progressing well grasshopper……;/
I don’t wrap anymore. And, can’t really tell the difference (but it’s a heck easier)
Good suggestions here. Not an exact science (which makes it fun!)
Most importantly – how did it taste?
Is your “pretty alright” tied to taste, texture, tenderness, etc, etc… the point is what are you trying to fix?