Flat

That happens in the plateau. Don't worry about it. Meat temp will stay flat or even drop.

It smoked for a little over 9 hours. I never thought a flat that size would that that long to smoke. I'll know better next time. I ended up FTC it for the night. I'll see what it looks like in the morning.

Thanks Pags

quote:

Originally posted by S & H:
I ended up FTC it for the night. I'll see what it looks like in the morning.

Thanks Pags

I hope you didn't FTC for 6-8 hrs or longer. Temps would have fallen quite a bit. Any concern about food safety? Or am I being too cautious? Jer

Jer. I sure did. It was in the cooler for 7 hours. Still warm when I opened it up this morning, gave it a slice. Not bad but far from great. I made two large mistakes. 1 Bought a flat. 2 didnt give myself the time it needed to smoke to a finish. I'll know better next time.

Flats are the red headed step-children of BBQ

I'm learning Max. I was in SAMs looking at Briskets. I've never smoked one. All they had was flats. Looked good so I bought it. Got home, got on the forum. Didn't take much reading to learn I should have passed it up but also paid to much for it. Live and learn. I never thought that it take over 7toe 8 hours to smoke it being so thin. Also a mistake!! all that being said. Even not being great it's still pretty damn good.

Yeah, a flat maybe not the best thing to learn how to cook right from the start, but hey, there are folks around here that think a cook that goes ahead and decides to cook something will be farther along then those that never try.

Like you said, sometimes our mistakes cooked on a CS are far from ruined.

If cooking a flat I look for the ones in the 7-8 lb range, good fat cap, and as thick and even as I can find. It doesn't hurt to have some fat disbursed in the grains/fibers of meat.

While I can always get myself a packer from the restaurant meat purveyor, the one food club store around here sells flats only. I've probably cooked a dozen of them this year as it's only 2 or 4 of us eating. I've had 2 of 'em come out great, a couple very dry and the rest marginally good. It's all in the meat.

A couple tips I can offer you:
1. Wet age them at least 2 weeks. Box store beef is usually still mooing when it hits the cold case.
2. Injecting them + a 6-8 hr rest with injection will improve moisture.
3. Leave the thermometer in the drawer and use a skewer, top thru bottom, to determine doneness. They need to probe like butter.

The last flat I smoked was foiled with 1/4 c of Stubbs Beef Marinade. I liked it.

quote:

If cooking a flat I look for the ones in the 7-8 lb range, good fat cap, and as THICKand even as I can find. It doesn't hurt to have some fat disbursed in the grains/fibers of meat.

Excellent point ---no pun intended

quote:

Originally posted by S & H:
It smoked for a little over 9 hours. I never thought a flat that size would that that long to smoke.

I haven't said this in a while, but you can quote me.

...It's done when it's done...

Sounds like you don't have a lot of experience cooking brisket. The hard part about BBQ is that it's not a recipe, there are just too many variances in it to give you a simple 1.5 pds per hour at xx temp.

Now that being said, if YOU keep good notes, for your smoker and your method, you'll be able to come up with some times as you cook more.

Also, how did you determine doneness? It's never on time, it's closer to a specific finishing temp BUT plus or minus some temp based on the exact tenderness you want.

I knew I had that coming Smokin!! I do know you can't put a time on when it's done I used it for a target to start checking it. I could have started the smoke first thing yesterday morning but I had some runs to make not sure how long they would take. Sooooo. I started the smoke at 2pm thinking I had time being the flat was small and thin (2" max). It reached a temp of 170 by 7. I was thinkin off by 9 maybe. Nope! It dropped to 160 in the next hour and held, and held, and held. At 1130 I took it off and FTCed and went to bed. Temp at that time was 170 and it was tuff. Lessons learned. Always start in the morning. Easier to slow it down then speed it up. Still "good eats". I've recorded the smoke and try again another time.

quote:

Originally posted by S & H:
... Temp at that time was 170 and it was tuff. Lessons learned...

Yes, short for 195 for slicing, and learn the "poke and prod" method of determining doneness.

Just keep good notes and you'll quickly get there.

Like the good cooks above say.

Our Sam's only had a price code for packers,so 3-4 times the mngr offered me whole cases that shipped by accident,at packer price.Like cal says,practice,practice,practice.Plus,you learn the many alternate uses for beef roasts.

Ribdog used to claim that I was working on the book" 1,001 Uses For Leftover Briskets"
The Team Mom used to have chinese on speed dial on brisket practice weeks.

Now RD has had 9-10 lb upper choice flats,that some good cooks have taken to comps,when that was all they could get on 3-4 week road trips.

Also large caters may uses cases of flats when they were the only one there with knife skills and they also have higher yields.
They can be faster and less waste.

I have many good friends/cooks that have tried really nice flats for a few comps.

S&H,if I remember you ain't but a small piece from east TX,so there are lots of options for practice briskets.

Bowl of Red,beef hash,enchiladas,tacos,burritos,beef stew,and the countless ways the team could think of practice briskets.

Well Tom. I like to think East Tx ain't far from me. All is not lost with the flat. I came home sliced the brisket thin piled it on a hoggie roll with some CS BBQ sauce. Still a good samich. I'll lick this baby, it won't licke me. Thanks to all help here on this forum I can't help but smoke great Q.

Id like to say that being a CS owner is like when a bought my Harley. American made product but more then that it's the service, the people you meet, and the willingness of those people to help green horns like me get to speed. Something that's lost in most we do in today's world. Thanks again.

Someday,you ought to share with our country music fans how one of the true legends picked his name.

Conway Twitty.