brisket sunday....

[Silverback]

Gotta figure out a way to stay strong through smoking sessions. Usually I'm up 24 hours or so overall, between starting fire, smoking, feeding, party and so forth.

Here is my smoking regiment

10-Midnight (whenever I start) - until 0900 or so: Coffee and Jack Daniels a bottle of water or two mixed in.

0900-Smoked food is finished: Jack and Coke with a bottle of water or two

Beer during presentation/etc of food bottle and then a bottle of water and another jack/coke during meal or maybe a beer.

After meal, since so full I slim it down with just jack daniels until falling over or otherwise bed time/party is over.

Which sucks, cause when I smoke something short like ribs, chicken or whatever - I have to have jack daniels.

Normally I do pretty good. This time here's my schedule of events...

8pm, went to Hat Tricks in Lewisville to see Rev. Horton Heat and had a few Jack/Diets

1am, stopped by Walmart because I forgot to pick up wood, all they had were chunks... bcoop was at Whataburger getting breakfast tacos

2am, started the fire, while bcoop kept drinking

3am, got the meat on the pit

4am, added more wood

5am, added more wood

7am, temp was around 140ish because I fell asleep, so I added more wood

8am, added more wood, and wrapped brisket

9am, added more wood

10am, pulled brisket and placed in cooler.

12pm, had to go to Verizon store to work out issues with phone because I was on call and not getting work email.

2pm, finally made it home to cut the brisket, ThreeFingerPete was waiting with buns by the front door.

So I was tired, and just ready to eat by the time it came off, and said i'm gonna take a quick picture and eat this fucking food!

[ceyko]

So I was tired, and just ready to eat by the time it came off, and said i'm gonna take a quick picture and eat this fucking food!

Yeah, poor focus.

[Silverback]

If I would have actually picked up logs or hell even mini logs some time on Saturday, things would have gone much smoother, but writing a paper on Work Force Sustainability took precedence, and much more time than I thought it would.

Having to add chunks every hour got real old, real quick.

[Jose]

2pm, finally made it home to cut the brisket, ThreeFingerPete was waiting with buns by the front door.

Now that's a scary visual [ThreeFingerPete]GIVE ME SOME MEAT FOR MY BUNS![/ThreeFingerPete] LOL!

Don't know if it's really been mentioned before but at what point do you wrap it? Is it once it reaches a certain temperature or a certain time period?

[Silverback]

Now that's a scary visual [ThreeFingerPete]GIVE ME SOME MEAT FOR MY BUNS![/ThreeFingerPete] LOL!

Don't know if it's really been mentioned before but at what point do you wrap it? Is it once it reaches a certain temperature or a certain time period?

honestly there's tons of theories on wrapping, not wrapping, when to wrap, how long to wrap, etc... My thought is meat can only absorb so much smoke, so wrapping it when it has a decent amount of cooking time left will help keep the brisket moist. I've cooked unwrapped low and slow, unwrapped/wrapped hot and fast, and unwrapped/wrapped low and slow, and found the unwrapped/wrapped method of low and slow to work the best.

This brisket I cooked between 225-250. I left it unwrapped fat side up sitting on a lifted rack over a pan from 3am until about 8am, when it hit 150 degrees, i pulled it off, wrapped it in about 4-5 layers of foil, then put it back on, but this time fat side down. I cooked until 200 degrees, then pulled it from the smoker and placed it in a cooler with two layers of towels in the bottom, a rack to sit on, and a towel to cover it. I left it in there until we were ready to eat, which was about 4 hours?? It was still sitting at 130-140 degrees when I pulled it from the cooler.

This was one of the best briskets I've ever cooked. And all I used for a rub was generous amounts of the Old Main rub, nothing fancy about it, it's pretty much just salt, pepper, garlic, onion.

[2165 Turbo Rail]

Probably a sin to Brent and Matt but I went out and bought an electric smoker today. They are 350-400 new I got this one for 200.

Masterbuilt 40" electric smoker with built in meat thermometer and RF controller
Needs a little cleaning on the glass but other then that it's working fine. I'll prob throw something on it tomorrow

[ceyko]

honestly there's tons of theories on wrapping, not wrapping, when to wrap, how long to wrap, etc... My thought is meat can only absorb so much smoke, so wrapping it when it has a decent amount of cooking time left will help keep the brisket moist. I've cooked unwrapped low and slow, unwrapped/wrapped hot and fast, and unwrapped/wrapped low and slow, and found the unwrapped/wrapped method of low and slow to work the best.

For what it's worth....I do basically the same...just wrapped and then unwrapped more towards the end. By "wrapped" I loosely have it covered.