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I am in the research phase, getting ready to slow cook my first beef brisket on a charcoal grill. I plan on doing a rub with sea salt, garlic, oil, cayenne, and cracked pepper. If I can find a meat injector I will inject it with a high acid marinade of bourbon, apple cider vinegar, worcestershire sauce, and beef broth. If I can not find a meat injector I will combine the previous concoction with the rub ingredients and use it as a marinade and leave it in the fridge overnight. I plan to take a pile of coals and push them to one side of my Weber grill, any suggestions on briquette numbers or a briquette per pound of beef ratio? In addition, I will soak a couple of chunks of apple tree wood in water overnight and throw this on once the coals get going. I will let the whole thing burn for an hour or so and throw the brisket on and go to work and check back in 10-12 hrs. Will this work or will it be a disaster? Any advice on tweaking this process? Thanks in advance.
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The straight forward advice is appreciated. Is the problem here that I want to do this on a charcoal grill in general or just that I hope to leave it it unattended? Obviously people have done this on a grill before so it can't be impossible. I have read instructions but nothing saying how to keep the temps steady or how often it has to be checked/basted etc. Any specific ideas of how to do this would be appreciated. Thanks.
JA - welcome to the forum.

A successful brisket requires low (225 - 250) steady heat...for 1- 1.5 hrs @ lb. Not easily achieved on a grill. It CAN be done, but not in the sense of walking away from it for any lenght of time.

I suggest you consider the electric smokers Cookshack offers. They WILL allow you to slow smoke, unattended for a long duration, i.e. brisket or pork butts.
What MaxQ said.
Walking away from a charcoal grill and not checking or assisting in keeping the temperature stable the whole while is a recipe for disaster.

One of the first things you adapt to with a Cookshack is you CAN put food in, set the temp and walk away. It took me at least a dozen cooks before I put a brisket in my SM150 and let it run unattended overnight WHILE I SLEPT !! I got up in the morning and my yard smelled like heaven and the brisket was still about 90 minutes away from being perfect. Enough time for me to have my coffee, pack my wife's lunch and make some potato salad.

If you want a Cookshack but can't afford one look on your local CL or on eBay - there are some really great Cookshacks for sale - I got my SM150 off CL for $1400.00. Thought it had been used for years in a restaurant and a fire house it was like brand new once I cleaned it up a wee bit. Real tanks.
Charcoal??? I bought a Cookshack because I was tired of attending to coals ALL DAY LONG! You will be very disappointed if you think you are just going to light a match and walk away. Barbecue is way more to it than that. And it is BEEF son. It has its own flavor. Injecting it with all that crap ruins it if you ask me. Maybe stop watching all that TV where they do all that.
Hey Guys,

Are you TRYING to run people off? Wink Just because someone has something different, we always try to help. Maybe they'll come around to smoking, but we want to help if we can.

SURE there are other places, but none as informative and friendly as this one for getting a good product.

Jay.

How many briskets have you cooked? For me, I recommend NOT injecting the first few. If you don't know what it tastes like without an injection, it's hard to judge the flavors. And brisket to me taste better when you let the beef flavor come through.

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