My earlier post asking for advice on how to cut a brisket to fit my small smoker
A lot of folks recommended separating the point from the flat, and that was my original plan. But after unwrapping the brisket and looking at the muscles, separating would still leave them too big to fit on my rack. So instead I basically cut it where the brisket began to flatten out. The remaining flat piece is fairly consistent in thickness so by the looks of it, should cook pretty evenly on its own.
I vacuum packed the flat for a future cook, saved the fat trimmings for tallow, and sliced the meat trimmings thin so I can velvet them for a stir fry. Looking forward to smoking the point side on Friday – it’s currently sitting in my fridge for a dry brine.
by thestigsky
31 Comments
Godspeed little briskets
huge mistake
Sometimes you just don’t make a thing that you don’t have the tools to make. If a brisket doesn’t fit in your smoker then you shouldn’t smoke a brisket.
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Glad you are working with what you got. Hope it goes well!
A witch!
It’ll be fine. Much faster cook too.
Brine the flat for corned beef, Babish has a killer recipe for that. He braised his in Guinness (10/10), you could also smoke for a pastrami.
Just saying….this is easily solved by buying a larger smoker.
Foil boat the flat the entire time and cook it above the point.
Your meat, your meal. Hope it went well!
You can do it OP
OP has nice looking meat.
There are much better ways to separate a point from a flat….
I do this same thing. I also do it with racks of ribs if they are too long.
Small smokers unite!
Good luck with your first brisket smoke. They should come out decent on the GE indoor smoker.
I buy small 2 – 2.5 briskets that seem also to just be cuts. Smokes fairly quickly (5-6 hours mostly at 225, raising some at the end). If marbling is decent they come out great even unwrapped. Bark fairly good, at the leaner parts a bit dry as I go to 203 for shredded beef. Much faster than a full brisket would cook.
I put a 8×8 aluminum on the bottom shelf to catch drippings, makes great tallow or use some to wrap at the end in butcher paper to rest.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
That’s a serious trim 😬 (decapitation aside)
Ah, King Solomon’s choice.
Making it work with what you’ve got. Nothing wrong with that.
We tend to forget that our bbq ancestors didn’t have fancy Damascus knives or reverse flow smokers or choices when it came to the quality or type of cut. You do what you need to do king. May your beer stay ice cold and your brisket moist and tender
Cutting briskets in half is what you gotta do when you’re cooking them on a WSM. If anything it means more bark, which ain’t a bad thing.
There’s all sorts of ways to screw up a brisket but this ain’t one of them.
You can fold the brisket if you want…I used to do that when I had my Masterbuilt.
Why isn’t this done? Geometry+musculature says that the point and flat will cook differently—why are they cooked as one cut? It seems like it would only be advantageous because you could target specific temps and hone in the right doneness. I’ve eaten so many briskets where the point is great and the flat is overdone. Would this not help in avoiding that?
This is the r/smoking equalivalent to breaking spaghetti in front of an Italian
I can fit a full brisket on my Kettle, but these days I’ve been cutting them into thirds, smoking all 3 pieces at the same time, and removing each piece when they hit their individual stall temps. 2 of them I’ll rest, bag, and freeze. The other I’ll wrap and finish off in the Kettle. Why? Because my family isn’t big enough to finish off a whole brisket in a week and I don’t want to wait for parties to eat smoked brisket.
I cook the frozen ones at 155F for 24 hours in the sous vide at a later date. After the sous vide, it takes about 10 minutes under the broiler to set the bark. The results are every bit as delicious as if I smoked it the entire time. Also, I find that I get less dry parts since each section is a lot more uniform in size.
I have a smaller smoker and often its just for me an my wife so doing a whole brisket is impractical. But it sure doesn’t hurt the final product in any way. Plus since it’s smaller I can do a smoker/sous vide combo.
Do what you need to in order for it to fit, but leave some fat cap on next time–it will likely be dry without it.