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I recently took delivery of my Cookshack Amerique right after the first of the year. Since then we have used the smoker for a multitude of proteins and vegetables. This was my first attempt at smoking a brisket and I thought I would share/document my notes...

2/12/14

15 lb Prime Grade Packer Brisket.
Fat cap on flat left untrimmed.
Notched fat between flat and point & removed the eye.
Trimmed point well (almost all external fat removed).
Sprinkled with sugar in the raw then rubbed with Simply Marvelous Peppered Cow.
Wrapped with plastic wrap and refrigerated 24 hours.
Sprinkled with more rub prior to placing in the smoker.
4.5 Oz Hickory & Apple Wood and one charcoal briquette.



@10:00 PM In the smoker (middle shelf above temp probe, angled with flat near rear corner, point near front corner, fat side down).
Smoker set to 225 F with the probe temp set to 195 F.
Outside temperature is approx 35 F.



@7:00 AM temp holding at 165 F. Outside temp approx 29 F.



@ 1:00 PM temp holding at 188 F. Smoker opened for approx 5 min. Probe temp adjusted to 197 F.



@ 4:00 PM Entire brisket pulled from smoker, with flat @ 197 F. Flat separated from the point and foiled with a little beef broth and bbq sauce. Point wrapped in foil with a little beef broth and back in the smoker @ 265 F until point reaches about 200 F.



@ 7:00 PM Point is 200 F and is cubed up and tossed with a sprinkling of more rub and bbq sauce to coat. Covered with foil and back into the smoker until tender.



@ 8:30 PM Removed foil from burnt ends and added a little more bbq sauce. Left in smoker to set sauce.

@ 9:00 AM Pulled burnt ends from the smoker set out to cool.

Last edited {1}
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Looks to me like you have it all figured out. Much better than my first brisket. Looks fabulous. You didn't give a report on the taste. How was it?

Also, if you haven't tried making them yet, search for "beinks" using the search tool. It is a great way to use burnt ends for family and friends. We call them BBQ crack at our house.
The brisket turned out well and received several compliments from my friends & family.

If I can be completely honest, I am not a big fan of brisket... My wife adores a well smoked/cooked brisket. I enjoy it, but I just love animals that *oink* much more. I would much rather eat a rack of ribs or pork shoulder any day. With that said, I do like the challenge smoking a brisket presents.

Regarding my 197 F probe setting...
As I mentioned this was my first brisket smoke and based on several brisket smokes I had read it would be much better to slightly overcook the brisket than undercook and end up with shoe leather. So, my thoughts were that because I had a well-marbled prime grade brisket that it would stand up to slight overcooking and I erred on that side (assuming that 197 F would, in fact, overcook the brisket). Ultimately, my thought process panned out and we ended up with a very tender brisket with slices that held together nicely.

I would much rather be lucky than good.
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.
Brisket can be a very strange creature and when you start putting numbers to it, like baking a cake....well, lets just say it becomes more of a challenge to master brisket.

I like to lay a pencil width slice over my finger, after cooked, and watch the ends sag so much that they almost touch. Wink Then you have a chance of having a tender, juicy brisket.

Those burnt ends look nice.
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.
Last edited by Former Member
I'm no expert,but I have had the opportunity to cook with a few.

Along with Smokin'Okie,We've had the pleasure of reading more than a few threads over the years since the forum was started.

I have to agree with the fine cooks above that this is a fine lookin' packer for whatever stage of the cook's experience.

I am impressed by the detail of the cook in words and the great pix to help the understanding.

Even more useful is the fact that along with a "novice" cook's experience[which we usually hear as at least problematic],we were treated to an experienced restaurant cook's approach to doing volume packer prep, cooking, and serving all in the same thread.

I believe this might be the first time I have had the pleasure to read both at once.

The comments from all the experienced cooks above alluded to the quality of the "brisket".
I tend to hear from good cooks I have been around that "your starting piece of meat might have the most to do with what you end up serving". Smiler

Also,that you can't just take a piece of another cook's technique and plan to end up with his finished product[many new cooks look for "the secret" Roll Eyes]

Just a couple thoughts from a very enjoyable presentation.
quote:
Originally posted by jcohen1005:
Rick;
Great post.
This information will be invaluable for our soon to open restaurant.

Thanks!!


Pics of your restaurant look like your getting close to opening. Your dual SM260's will be able to crank out Brisket and everything else. In my experience, the SM's are a fantastic smoker for Brisket, since it's a bit moister environment. In fact, when loaded heavy, the occasional 'moisture dump' is required, simply by opening the door for 30 seconds to let a rush of steam/moist air out to allow smoker to reach temp. The smoker stalls due to excessive moisture, and one could make a mental stretch and equate to this being similar as when meat 'stalls' around 170 degrees when on the smoker. The urban myth is that 'it's the fat and connective tissue breaking down', when in actuality, the 'stall' happens because the meats are throwing moisture off, causing cooling similar to when we exert, and our bodies sweat to cool down.

Rick
Last edited by Former Member
quote:
Originally posted by astronorick:
quote:
Originally posted by jcohen1005:
Rick;
Great post.
This information will be invaluable for our soon to open restaurant.

Thanks!!


....... The urban myth is that 'it's the fat and connective tissue breaking down', when in actuality, the 'stall' happens because the meats are throwing moisture off, causing cooling similar to when we exert, and our bodies sweat to cool down.

Rick



VERY interesting, instead of thread jacking I'll start another thread on this "Urban Myth". Just because I cook more briskets than read about them. Big Grin
Last edited by cal 2

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