This man inspired me to buy a brisket last night and smoke it today. I’m probably going to do more like 14 hours of smoke, though 18 would be optimum. I started at 5:30, as in

• Slapped the crap out of the alarm clock
• Tried to get out of bed and stumbled into the wall
• Hit the coffeemaker start button
• Went outside to inspect the smoker
• Went back inside to put on some pants
• Went back outside to set up the firebox and start the charcoal
• Got one swig of hot black coffee down and hit the Aim-N-Flame
• Put out my eyebrows with a crusty kitchen towel that’s been laying here since November
• Scared the crap out of myself by trying to walk through the sliding glass door and seeing my reflection and thinking “WhoTF is that in the kitchen?“
• Got the smoker up to about 350
• Put el brisketo on
• Sat down and started looking at what happened on the internets overnight
• Went back to check the temps and airflow, shut the vents to drop the temp from 450
• Started another pot of coffee
• Success - we’re running at 210-220

I am quite not a morning person. I should be — it’s gorgeous to watch the sun come up, and to enjoy the birdies singing. And I as I slide down the age slope toward that inevitable dirt nap, I can’t sleep any longer than six hours, anyway. But good lord, all that stumbling around, the groggy non-functional brain, the itchy eyeballs…blech.

I’m still trying to get a handle on this dang smoker after 10 months. I can get the little things right, like ribs, pork loin, chicken, etc., but I still don’t have a good feel for my briskets. Last time I smoked, I did two briskets, one for me and one for my partner. He loved his, I was less than happy with mine.

I’ve got two competing philosophies here: one is to just make the best brisket I can, and the other is to make the best brisket I can with nothing but wood and smoke. The first school of smoke, the Pragmatic School, says that you should just go ahead and wrap your brisket in foil after 4-6 hours, and let it cook the rest of it’s allotted time, which you could just as easily do in the oven so you don’t have to mess with the firebox no mo’. The second school of smoke, which we’ll call the Purist’s School, is that foil should never enter the picture — it’s low heat, and lots of smoke, and if you can’t do that, just turn in your apron, and go eat at Dickie’s or Bill Miller’s.

As of now, since I fancy myself a manly man, I’ve moved more to the Purist School (which way, by the way, lies utter madness), but I’m going to try a trick that an old pitmaster told me once. He’s from the Purist School, but at the end of his cooking, he wraps el brisketo in foil and puts it in an ice chest and lets it sit overnight. Apparently, the foil / ice chest combo lets the temps drop slowly enough that there’s still some cooking going on internally, but it’s no longer starting to burn up on the outside. So, that’s what I’m going to try — we shall see.

UPDATE: Photos have been requested:

The Official TFG Smoker

The firebox on the Official TFG Smoker

King Brisket

Only three or four more hours to go.