The brisket was a flat from Sam's and weighed 7.07 pounds. It was not choice though-so I may have got stuck by Sam's on this one. After having read all of the threads relating to brisket on this forum and finding out that cooking brisket can be quite tricky, I decided to use all of the information that might be helpful. So I washed it, and then moderately sprinkled with rib rub, mustard, pepper, Montreal Steak Seasoning and brown sugar. I let it sit in the refrigerator for 14 hours. I put 1 1/2 oz. of hickory and 2 1/2 oz. of pecan and an organge peel in the wood box. I put the brisket in at midnight at 195 degrees after injecting it with about 1/3 pound of melted butter and placing thick slices of fatty beacon over all of the top of the brisket (completely covering). I also threw about 3/4 lb. of fat taken from rib steaks onto the top center of the brisket. At 8:30 AM, I checked it with two probes and it was at 178/179 (opposite ends). I then increased the temperature to 220 degrees. I checked it a couple of other times on the half hour and finally at 11:45 AM I pulled it at 192/196 degrees, put in plastic bag, put in about 1/4 cup of beef stock, foiled that, wrapped in a towel and put in picnic cooler for 2.25 hours.
Now the results were less than I was hoping for. First of all, while it appeared moist on the outside, it appeared and handled like a solid piece of "rubber". It was fairly tender and moist but not real tender and juciy (like I expected). It tasted good but not "very goood or excellent". And it had a limited amount of smoke flavor.
Does anybody have any suggestions regarding the next attempt?
Was this a brisket from a big tuff older breeding animal since its size for a flat was not that different from the sizes dicussed on this forum for whole packers?
Was 195 degrees and 220 degrees too low of a cooking temperature?
Should I have left it in to an internal of 200 or more?
Should I have foiled it for the last hour?
With some beef stock?
Should I have done something else different?
Any comments would be appreciated. I know there are many experts out there.
Thanks.
MIN Que
![Smiler](/static/images/graemlins/icon_smile.gif)