7 Days Without Brisket Makes One Weak
Posted by TFG on May 18th, 2008
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.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Photos?
May 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
brisket looks real nice,but you gotta have a hellavu lot of patience,or a hellavu lot of beer to go 18hrs. looks like it might be worth the effort though.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Instead of adding to your cholesterol load–or, better yet, in addition to–you should have first set off on a nice, one-mile walk this morning like I did. And listened to the birdies and felt the morning breeze before turning on the MP3 player. Then you’d get to feel all righteous when you ate all that delicious fat and grease.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I just started drooling.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Dick, I did get a nice 5-mile bike ride the night before. Besides, I never have and never will feel bad about eating brisket.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Can you, um, mail those?
May 20th, 2008 at 11:09 am
What kind of wood for the brisket?
Where do you take the temperature? My smoker came with a gauge set in the upper wall. I bought a cheapy gauge that sits directly on the grate and think I am getting better results.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Five miles? I’m impressed. Indulge yourself silly.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Interesting, I was taught to start the brisket in the foil and then put the smoke on for the last 3 or 4 hours at minimal temp. This post reminded me of a near riot started when the the winner of the brisket portion of the cook off at Crowell was accused of cooking his brisket in his RV oven and then throwing it on smoke for the last hour.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Wes, I use oak since it’s native and I’ve got about a half-cord in my backyard. I always start by adding some mesquite chunks for the first hour or two, because I like the tang of it. I usually go for 210-220 on a brisket and an hour per pound. I think the internal temp is supposed to be 185? The only problem with the cheapy guage is that you have to open the chamber, which let’s face it, over 14 hours, ain’t that big a deal. It’s just a thing with me, though, and why I love having an offset firebox.
Mike, I’ve never heard of that technique — it’s always been “heavy smoke, early” in my experience. But that’s the beauty of brisket…there’s a lot of good ideas to make some cheap meat taste good and tender.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Concerning thermometers, I bought one at one of the local BBQ supply stores that is a wireless gadget with a remote sensor. Let me just say that this is the best invention since someone looked at a cow and thought “Mmm brisket.” It has an alarm on it that you can set to tell you when the temperature gets either too hot or too cold. It saved me last Memorial day when I put a brisket on at 1 AM and then fell asleep on the couch. In the meantime, a May thunderstorm came through and started pissing on my parade. If that alarm hadn’t gone off, I would have been starting all over again. Instead, I just rolled the smoker inside the garage and the temp started going right back up.
I’m sure it’s cheating to the purists but damn it, I smoke my briskets all night, it’s not like I’m sticking them in the oven. I highly recommend the little gadget. Here’s a link to one that’s the same brand.
So how’d the “in foil/in the ice box” turn out? I’ve got a bash scheduled for Sunday and I’d be interested in trying that out if it worked out for you.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The ice chest trick worked great. Highly recommended. I thought I’d posted that but it was sitting in my draft folder. Definitely give it a shot, though. Go get a cheap styrofoam one you can throw away or line it with something, because the grease is hell.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I’m going to have to swing by San Antonio when the Asylum Street Spankers come throuugh.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Best Brisket is made in California, Son.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
You keep saying that — tell me what a California Mexican living in Manhattan knows about brisket.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Brother, that’s one fine-looking brisket! Question regarding the mesquite chunks: do you use the ones that come in a bag at Ace Hardware, or do you just get ‘em locally? And if they’re the bag variety, do you bother to soak ‘em for awhile first? I’ve done both with mesquite and hickory…in my experience soaking them doesn’t seem to make em last much longer than just tossin’ em in dry… btw, I did pork shoulders on Sunday…hickory and the old apple tree from my backyard..came out great
May 30th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I buy the stuff in a bag at the walmart, but I just dump it in a bucket outside. I can say that soaked or unsoaked, they do the same thing when it comes to mesquite, which is smoke up the place. Mesquite is too strong for a whole anything, besides a skinny little steak or a whole chicken, so I just use it for the first few hours on my big meat. I mix it with oak, since I got a cord of oak. Oak is kinda like pecan - real mild, but I think the heat lasts longer than pecan.
I don’t think soaking anything makes one bit of difference. This stuff cooks for 15 hours, so all it is is make more steam to lower your temps. Who needs that? I use mesquite early in the smoke for the tang. Personal prefence. Lots don’t like mesquite, but then, I cook for me.
One day I’ll get some hickory, but I’ve eaten so much hickory-smoked stuff, I ain’t gonna miss it if I die before I do. Me, I think it’s over-rated. Far as I’m concerned, the perfect smoke is a pecan bed with mesquite early. You do have to tend a pecan fire, though.
I could talk this shit all night long. Sorry.