Nice looking Brisket Mootpoint. I'm with Max, temperature is only part of the story, and getting a 'feel' for poking your Brisket is the best method. If smoking the point/flat together as a whole Packer, then the governing piece of meat will be the flat. You can kill the flat without the point being done yet. We do several Packers each week at our restaurant, and over the past 10 years of 'tinkering' with Briskets, I'm happy with how we roll them out now. I'll share a few things I've discovered, some by the experience and wiser council by others, and some I stumbled on to. These few points may seem trivial, but for us, it's been the difference between consistently cooking Brisket or not.
- I prep and cook Briskets two distinct ways. One way is for utilizing the entire Brisket, both point and flat, for slicing. The other way is to have some of the point remain thicker and fattier, for Burnt Ends. We sell a lot of Brisket sandwiches and sliced Brisket, so the majority of my Brisket's are prepped for complete slicing, which from a restaurant standpoint, is a much better yield, which translates to better profit.
- If I'm prepping a Brisket where the point muscle will be used for burnt ends, I trim fat all around to 1/4" on the outside, and just part of the thick heavy fat that separates the flat and the point. When prepping is done, The Brisket is 2 to 4 times thicker on the Point end compared to the thinner flat end.
- When smoking the Brisket prepped this way, the flat is the governing muscle. It will be done smoking/cooking well ahead of the the thicker point. One end of the flat will be thinner than the other. I sometimes 'fold' a few inches of the thin end under itself to match the thickness of the thicker end. This thin end will finish first, and dry out, so folding helps this cook more uniformly with the thicker side of the flat. I'm used to the feel of my mini thermopen probe, and know how it feels going through the flat. I check temp at various locaations, but I know how my probe feels. When it almost falls through the flat, it's done. After resting, I'll cut slices of whatever desired thickness, past where the point is laying on the flat, and continue slicing until I reach the point where the fat layer separating the flat and point is too thick to serve as slices. Then I'll cut remaining point end into cubes for further smoking and finishing burnt ends.
- When prepping and smoking a Brisket for full utilization as sliced (which I typically do for the restaurant), prepping takes on a whole different approach. I'll lay out the Brisket, and do the usual trimming of the heavy fats. I look at the flat side of the Packer Brisket, and take note of how thick the thicker side of the flat is - usually 1/2"+ thicker than the thinner side of the flat. The goal is to then trim the fat off the point end of the Brisket to closely match the thickness of the Flat end of the Brisket. This is where a finely sharpened knife is your best friend, and you can feel like a surgeon. The goal is to almost completely remove the thick, dense layer of fat that seperates the point and the flat, while not completely seperating them. (some folks just cut the point off the flat, trim fat, and lay point back over the flat). The goal is simple - get the Point end thinned down to match the thickness of the Flat end as is possible, The Point end will still be a little thicker, but when the thickness matches closely, the cooking time across the entire Brisket is much closer to the same. If the point end is too thick, even after trimming, I do the unthinkable - I'll pound on the Point end until I feel it's flattened out enough. I do Briskets with smoker temp ranging from 221 degrees to 225 degrees, depending on factors such as how large a load in the smoker, etc. After 12 hours, I start checking temp and feel of Briskets. When doing a whole Packer Brisket for slicing, it's a bit 'touchier' to determine when it's the right time to pull off the smoker. In a simple way of expressing this, my goal is to get the point end of the Brisket as close to 195 degrees without killing the flat end of the Brisket. Sounds simple enough, but this is a matter of the more subtle aspects of each Brisket. If the Brisket has a decently marbled piece of meat on the flat side, and not overly fatty on the point side, it will come off perfect. Sometimes a Brisket has unusually little fat on the flat side, and heavy fat marbling on the point side, which can be challenging to get both sides to render.
- When slicing the meat, I follow the same method described here - which is a good article on Brisket - you can scroll down to the 'slicing' section, which is very well described. I use the same '3 slicing zone' sort of approach.
http://www.amazingribs.com/rec...f/texas_brisket.html- Then finally, when I serve a Brisket prepared and rendered this way, I typically put some of the slices from the 'flat' end of the brisket with slices from the 'point' end. This gives customers the best of both worlds - a beautiful looking uniform slice from the flat end, with the 'richer' tasting (uhm, it's called fat) slices from the 'point' end.
Rick
quote:
Originally posted by MaxQ:
Fair enough.
One suggestion for next time, probe for tender around 190 as you would toothpick a rack of ribs...just use a longer toothpick. I keep 8" bamboo skewers handy for this. Not to say your brisket will be done at 190 but when you can push through the middle of the flat with little resistance, you're good to go. Note: the point will test for tender before the point does...rely on the flat.
Then you have a chance of having a tender, juicy brisket.
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