16.2 pd Choice packer from the base commissary. Splashed some Worchestershire and injected in a few spots of the flat. Sprinkled salt, fine pepper, paprika, Garlic powder, garlic salt, Kosher salt, and some basil. I went easy on the salts. Rest in the refer for 2 hours. I placed the untrimmed packer in the elite at 10pm at 225o. The meat went in cold fat side down and the smoker was cold. See pictures and questions below.
6am after 8 hours
Pulled after 14 hours. Temp was 190 and 186. Toothpick tested and slightly more resistantant then butter.
Juices gushing out of the toothpick test holes. Now in FTC until dinner.
The temperatures read 161 and 164 at 8:00am. 10 hours in and have only risen 3 degrees since 6am. I am guessing I am in that stall point. I have plenty of time so I have two options. Leave the temp as it is and continue to go slow and low or crank the temp up to 250 or higher. I would like to get them in the FTC for a couple of hours before dinner. I still have 6hrs until I would like to take them out and put them in the cooler. Looking for some comments and suggestions. Thanks!! Both gauges are in the flat. The stock gauge is in the flat near the point and the other is in the flat further from the point.
Yes, it looks like you are in the "plateau". When the brisket is in this stage it is breaking down the "collagen", which if I understand this right. It is denaturing the muscle fibers which are intertwined with the fat/marbling. The fat is turning into gelatin which will cause the brisket to have flavor and moisture.
That big piece of fat that is on top of the flat. I like to trim it off before cooking.
As Smokin' says, "it's done when it's done".
You have choices to make and I'm not sure that you would like my answer if you are eating at 6pm,oh well!
At this point, I'm not sure 25 more degrees is going to shorten your cook time by alot. I cook my briskets in my AmeriQ at 250, so I don't think that raising your temp up 25 degrees is necessarily going to hurt anything either.
I was taught by the fine cooks on the forum that you need to establish a baseline, that way in the future you can tell if what you change helps or hurts. I was also taught that good notes on all details of the cook is needed, and the most important thing I was taught is only change one thing at a time.
It is this baseline of 225* that I was taught to learn off of. With that said, I personally wouldn't raise the temp of the smoker as long as it was in the 160's* range.
Establishing a baseline is an excellent idea! I am under no preassure to serve this for dinner. Therefor I am going to leave the temp at 225* and see what happens. The temp has risen 8 degrees to 169* in the last 45 minutes.
Posted a couple of pictures of the finished unsliced product up above. Now it is FTC and will pull it out in 4.5 hrs for dinner. Thanks for all your help. I did slice a piece off the point and gave it a taste. It was outstanding. I hope the rest of it is just as good.
Let me know how the tenderness is. The longer you hold it usually helps. For me, I only use a toothpick on ribs. For brisket I used a regular temp probe, but I don't know that a TP wouldn't work.
Actually, you're right! It was the temp probe I used and not a toothpick. They were sitting there from my ribs a couple days ago and I didn't use them. I get confused some times when I think.
Before reading this post and looking at the first picture, I said to myself, "I know where that brisket came from...the comissary." Before I retired and moved, I could always count on finding the cheapest, choice beef there than anywhere else.
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .