Twin Briskets

170°-175° stall is normal.
Do a search on "stall"

Wayne B

Welcome to the forum.

Your briskets were cut from the flat. You don't mention the USDA grade...they could have been Select or Choice. My initial suggestion would be to find a small USDA Choice packer iso flat. Packers include the "point", which has substancially more fat.

In general, flats tend to yield less moisture in the finished product. One trick used by many brisket cooks, is to wrap the brisket tightly with foil when it hits the stall/plateau stage of 170. The theory is, foiling helps prevent moisture loss. There's a lot of argument on this but I'm an advocate of foiling flats; not packers. If you choose to wrap with foil, foil tightly. Air pockets will accentuate steam and moisture loss.

As to you injection question...hard to reply without knowing what you used to inject with. Most commercially sold brisket injections contain phosphate, which helps retain internal moisture.

Next time around, buy a small (10-12#) packer, inject it and set the Smokette for 250. Inject from the bottom (no fat side) and smoke it fat side down. I think you'll be a lot happier with the results.

The flats were your everyday supermarket grade since everywhere I went had NO BRISKETS of any kind. Next time I'll search out the point cut well in advance.

The injection was canned beef broth. I was tempted to wrap the brisket at the stall but it had no bark whatsoever at that point so I opted not to. Gonna try Butcher injections next time.

Thanks for all your help, guys.

JDS

Max is right.
If you have a big Walmart near you try them - one of those super stores with the grocery department. They ususally have select (at least) packers - priced about $2.39 a pound, a lot of fat on it but they smoke up pretty nicely. It's tough finding good packers in some areas of the country. I know where I live it's hit and miss. I have a local Mom and Pop store with a good butcher and I can get whole packers ranging from 10 to 16 pounds that are CHOICE but a bit pricy (like $3.49). To some that is exorbitant but doggone it just depends where you live. Now I am different that Max in that I like to smoke my packers uninjected and with the fat side up. I criss cross cut into that fat cap, slap on some mustard all over and then pack my rub on it all over, then layer on a hefty layer of brown sugar. Smoke with some hickory or red oak at 250 until my quick read thermometer gives me an internal temp of 195. I have a SM150 now and I start my briskets about 9pm. When I get up at 05:30 I still have hours to go and plenty of time to make my side dishes. I used to foil but I prefer the bark now.

I tell ya it's an adventure and you learn along the way and your product will get better and better over time. I used to have an SM008 (now called the SM009 or Smokette) and they do up a nice brisket - the big ones I used to have to cut in half to fit on the shelves. I'd buy like a 16 pounder and cut it literally in half, freeze half, and smoke the other. I love sliced brisket but man I really have a thing for BURNT ENDS !!!!!!!!

Mike.... I like your idea about starting up the night before. When I got blindsided by the stall, my estimated 6:00 dinner time was suddenly looking like a 9pm deal. Next time I'll wrap it in towels and a cooler for 4 hours or so to provide for the plateau so we can all eat at a decent hour instead of standing around the smoker with forks and knives and watching the temperature gauge.

JDS,

LOL it's not MY idea, I got it from the old timers here. And yeah I had my share of staying up late waiting for the doggone plateau to pass, the wife off in bed with something thrown together (not the brisket or pork butt). With a Smokette even if you lose power when it comes back your unit just kicks right back in working. It's sorta weird putting something in overnight and not watching it but you know what it works. I get raccoons in my area and whenever I'm smoking something overnight, I've even see the SM150 moved a little bit, them going after the drip pan under it.

A trimmed flat would be better cooked in a baking bag - not really suitable for smoking. Learned that even draping bacon over the thing didn't really help. Nothing like those layers of fat throughout the meat to self baste as it's cooking.