Brisket help.

[dollarbill]

I've got a brisket in the FE. It is at 165* degrees. When I went to check temps the thermopen practically melted into the flat. Is it possible this thing is done at 165*? I've never seen this happen. Thanks.

 

[swampsauce]

I would check the thermopen. I dont see hoe it could be done at that temp. If thermopen is accurate, I would say you hit a fat vein. But that is just my opinion...

 

[dollarbill]

I would check the thermopen. I dont see hoe it could be done at that temp. If thermopen is accurate, I would say you hit a fat vein. But that is just my opinion...

Well PeeDee. I'm an idiot. I just went out to check and make sure I wasn't in a fat vein and guess what, I decided last night to cook these ones fat cap up. That would splain the melting in part. Thanks for the help.

HAs anyone ever noticed a difference cooking fat cap up or down? I know a guy who swears by fat cap up. This is only the second time i've tried it. thanks.

 

[bigwheel]

I do em all fat down. That leaves the lean side more prone to get crusted up and get some good flavor in it and gives an area to apply mop/sop. If you put the fat up it sorta keeps the lean part in a sheltered position and never does get itself barked up much. Now some of this depends on the heat distribution of the pit. My normal routine is heat source on the bottom and then a water pan which makes the bottom of the brisket catch mostly real high moisture laden air and dont develop much character. Now if a person wants to start it fat up and flip it after a couple of hours..I dont have any problemos with that. Normally when a brisket passes the poke test at 165 it means the poker is drunk

 

[boar_d_laze]

Don't really have my brisket technique down for the new cooker, but I'm trimming my briskets pretty close these days to get rub, ring and bark on both sides.

If you inject and wrap, you don't have to worry about drying out, too much.

Last brisket I made, and the first in the Fatboy, was a packer cut CAB, fairly close trim, but not wrap and cooked without injection or mopping. It was cooked at 250 until it stalled, then I raised the temp to 275.

The flat was okay -- but just okay. Not dry, but not real moist either.

It appears the Fatboy's water pan and overall tightness help, but not quite enough to dispense with the tricks entirely.

Next brisket -- and I've got another one just like the other one wet aging -- will be pumped and wrapped.

Speaking of cookers, I find a lot of low and slow is very equipment dependent. If your rig is drafty, has some preferred temp, isn't well tuned, or whatever... you're going to have to adjust. Sometimes you do that in how you prep the meat, sometimes in which little gags you do or don't use, and sometimes in your cooking techniques themselves.

BDL

 

[bigwheel]

Well thanks for that input sir. Very informative. Old bohunk fella from down in the Hill Country I have cooked with and against a few times in the past is totally anti brisket fat. Time he gets done trimming on a packer there aint "none" in sight. Always comes out with a superlative product. Now he do wrap and is highly mop/sop oriented. He has a secret one which he makes up in gallon glass jugs. He will give you all you want just dont axe for the reicpe Its a waste of breath.

 

[boar_d_laze]

Big,

My last cooker -- a Bar B Chef offset -- got me off mopping. It was as much a NO PEEKING rig as possible. Open the lid and you lost all the humidity, so no matter what you did to the meat what you mopped on the meat when the top was up, it ended up making everything drier. True for a great many smokers, especially the beginners' models, so I recommend against mopping to people starting out.

Not sure if that's true for the Fatboy or not. Lots of fooling around to do, some of it possibly requiring beer.

BDL

 

[LarryWolfe]

A brisket is 'done' when it's tender, not by a specific temperature or if it's cooked fat up or fat down. IMO, the less you mess with a brisket, the better it will turn out. Cook in the smoke, fat up until it's formed a nice bark. Then foil and continue to cook until tender.

 

[Puff1]

I do em all fat down. That leaves the lean side more prone to get crusted up and get some good flavor in it and gives an area to apply mop/sop. If you put the fat up it sorta keeps the lean part in a sheltered position and never does get itself barked up much. Now some of this depends on the heat distribution of the pit. My normal routine is heat source on the bottom and then a water pan which makes the bottom of the brisket catch mostly real high moisture laden air and dont develop much character. Now if a person wants to start it fat up and flip it after a couple of hours..I dont have any problemos with that. Normally when a brisket passes the poke test at 165 it means the poker is drunk

I learned this method from a retarted......'scuse me .......a retired public servant person a few years back. The mop was and is still the best when I cook at home in the crib....so to speak.
I wonder whatever happened to him? :?

 

[bigwheel]

Well I was taught many moons ago that door fanning made tough meat so I certainly see your point especially on top opening offset type cookers with no additional moisture being introduced through a water pan. I dont think you will run into that particular issue with the Fatboy. Dont it have outward opening doors and a water pan? My big pit is thusly equipped and its a total different ball game from a top loader. Heat dont drop much when the door is open and what little humidity might be lost is quickly replaced from the water pan stores. Judicious mopping with small amounts of the right mop which is kept hot (where it dont slow down the cooking process) adds some great layers of flavor and improves the color. Now speaking strictly brisket here. That is about all I bother to mop.

Big,

My last cooker -- a Bar B Chef offset -- got me off mopping. It was as much a NO PEEKING rig as possible. Open the lid and you lost all the humidity, so no matter what you did to the meat what you mopped on the meat when the top was up, it ended up making everything drier. True for a great many smokers, especially the beginners' models, so I recommend against mopping to people starting out.

Not sure if that's true for the Fatboy or not. Lots of fooling around to do, some of it possibly requiring beer.

BDL

 

[bigwheel]

I think that guy ran off and joined the Circus or maybe the French Foreign Legion. I forget which right now.

I do em all fat down. That leaves the lean side more prone to get crusted up and get some good flavor in it and gives an area to apply mop/sop. If you put the fat up it sorta keeps the lean part in a sheltered position and never does get itself barked up much. Now some of this depends on the heat distribution of the pit. My normal routine is heat source on the bottom and then a water pan which makes the bottom of the brisket catch mostly real high moisture laden air and dont develop much character. Now if a person wants to start it fat up and flip it after a couple of hours..I dont have any problemos with that. Normally when a brisket passes the poke test at 165 it means the poker is drunk

I learned this method from a retarted......'scuse me .......a retired public servant person a few years back. The mop was and is still the best when I cook at home in the crib....so to speak.
I wonder whatever happened to him? :?

 

[BigAL]

Brisket is a true test of patience.

 

[boar_d_laze]

Well I was taught many moons ago that door fanning made tough meat so I certainly see your point especially on top opening offset type cookers with no additional moisture being introduced through a water pan. I dont think you will run into that particular issue with the Fatboy. Dont it have outward opening doors and a water pan? My big pit is thusly equipped and its a total different ball game from a top loader. Heat dont drop much when the door is open and what little humidity might be lost is quickly replaced from the water pan stores. Judicious mopping with small amounts of the right mop which is kept hot (where it dont slow down the cooking process) adds some great layers of flavor and improves the color. Now speaking strictly brisket here. That is about all I bother to mop.

You're probably right. I just haven't reached that stage of fooling around with Backwoods pit yet.

I've only done one brisket in it. That was just trim, rub, throw it in, and let it cook. No injection, no wrap, just to see how all that extra Backwoods' tightness and humidity worked.

It worked a lot better than my "tuned" Bar-B-Chef (with water pans), but not well enough to keep cooking that way. Hell! Wait a minute! It was a CAB brisket, how bad could it be? Let's just say it could have been better.

I also messed around with the temp profile, taking it into the stall at 250, then bumping it up to 275, which busted through the stall and moved the internal up fairly steadily. That's something I used to in the offset, but think the beef might have been happier at a steady temp in the Fatboy.

Since there's nothing like too many variables, I used real high quality briquettes for heat -- even though I'm pretty sure I'll settle on lump in the end.

Like I said, it's going to take lots of beer to get this all nailed down.

BDL

 

[bigwheel]

Quite a few of the comp folks in this area use the BWS's but don't much think many of them utilize the nekked brisket routine. Have heard some of the pellet poopers can cook one to mush unwrapped but never had one to toy around with. Had a chum who could do it with a custom built waterized offset. He cooked directly above a 15 gallon SS water trough. Real cool system cuz all the gunk go in the water and when it come time to clean up you just pull the plug and all the grease and water drain off into the grass. Now bet it would work to cook a butt on the top rack and let it dribble on the lean side of the brisket on a lower rack. Have come out with some edible nekked models using that strategy. You can also pile rib trimmings and fat which has been trimmed off the brisket up there too. Happy experimenting