brisket

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I have never smoked a brisket but I just bought one and i will smoke it next week.. I hear its the toughest meat to smoke, any suggestions on how to cook, or prep it? Should I marinade it? How long should I marinade it and in what? What kind of rub? I hear a mustard based rub is good for a brisket, just wanting some ideas from u all. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
 
Btw, its a 2 pound brisket so its not that big. I read that I should smoke it about an hour and a half per pound.

Another thing I am reading on here is that people are using water pans while smoking brisket... is that just for a certain type of smoker or what? Or do u put a pan full of water on the grill? Im a bit confused. This is my smoker, do I need a water pan or not?
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rub; 1/2 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup black pepper, 2 tablespoon garlic powder. Apply rub a couple hours before smoke. 1 tip on rub; when you think you have put enough rub on the brisket, put some more! Not sure about the time per pound, depends on wrap no wrap etc. cook till internal temp is 195-200ish and feels tender with probe. slice against grain and enjoy. i am assuming it is part of a flat. Good luck. next time try to find the whole thing. Will cook better and have leftovers for sammaches.
 
A good start might be reading Barbecue Brisket – An XI Step Program.

You're making your life much harder and lowering the probability of good results by using such a small piece. My immediate suggestion is that you use the piece you have for something else and find yourself a packer cut.

On the other hand, a small piece will be somewhat quicker.

Cook times are highly problematic both with brisket and small offsets; more problematic still with a small brisket in a small offset; and even more problematic since you didn't say what temp you'll be using it and whether or not you can keep it steady.

When the brisket hits an internal of 150F+ it's quite likely you'll run into a phenomenon called "the stall." Without a lot of information, no one can even begin to guess how long it's going to take for the temp to start moving again once it really slows down. Could be quite awhile.

Don't try and time "ready" and "dinner" too closely. Make your best estimate and allow at least a three hour rest. Get yourself a cooler to hold your resting meat, wrap it in cling wrap while it rests, and it will stay hot enough for service for a very long time.

Small brisket or large, injecting is a very good idea. I'm currently trimming the fat all the way down to the red as a way of getting seasoning and bark on both sides. But as long as you keep steady temps and wrap, a fat cap won't make much of a difference either way. Neither will whether you go fat cap up, down, or flip.

I wrap, but don't mop. Actually, I put the meat on a donut rack in a sheet pan, put a little liquid in the pan, and wrap the whole shebang.

The most important thing for any beginning pitmaster to remember is NO PEEKING. Small offsets like yours are particularly sensitive to an open door. So, NO PEEKING!

Good luck and NO PEEKING,
BDL
 
Ok so here's the pics of the finished brisket. It had a really good flavor but it was not tender at all. I need more practice.

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I need more practice.
Was it "not tender" and really chewey? Or was it "not tender" and crunchy?

Chewey, it needs to cook longer. Crunchy, it's overcooked.

In my experience, a tiny brisket like that is lots harder to cook than a larger one. I won't cook a brisket smaller than 10 pounds, but I like them about 15 pounds.

It does look good, though.

BOB
 
Looks like some pink in that 2nd pic, not done. I like don't mind do'n small flats(5-10#) as I will foil them. Next time when the internal temp hits about 160-170 put it in an alum foil pan, cover with foil and wait till the them reads about 195. Then check every 1/2 hr or so by push'n the temp prob in the flat. When that prob slides in nice and easy, give or take, then your good to go. Pull it out and let it rest(loose'n foil and kinda tent it) for 30-60min.

Takes practice, if it was easy then it wouldn't be so much fun and so dang good. :)
 
U guys are right it was undercooked. I think if I foiled it right when I thought it was done I coulda cooked it an extra 30-60 mins. It was good flavor and juicy but a bit too red and chewy. Ill get more practice on it hopefully next week ill smoke a brisket. This time ill get at least a 5 pounded this one was only 2 pounds.
 
I'd say go with the full packer too. When the temp probe (sometimes I use the blunt end of a skewer) slides in and out with very, very, very, very little resistance set it in a cooler for 1, 2, 3 hours. Don't worry about it getting cold. It will still be hot when you pull it out.
 
dollarbill said:
I'd say go with the full packer too. When the temp probe (sometimes I use the blunt end of a skewer) slides in and out with very, very, very, very little resistance set it in a cooler for 1, 2, 3 hours. Don't worry about it getting cold. It will still be hot when you pull it out.


Why is this? Does it rest better in a cooler?
 
BOSTN BEANER said:
dollarbill said:
I'd say go with the full packer too. When the temp probe (sometimes I use the blunt end of a skewer) slides in and out with very, very, very, very little resistance set it in a cooler for 1, 2, 3 hours. Don't worry about it getting cold. It will still be hot when you pull it out.


Why is this? Does it rest better in a cooler?

Seems to help it to steam and soften up. I double wrap in heavy duty foil. I use a foil pan when I feel lazy, with double foil on top. Alot of people use the pan method tho and get good results.
 
I take mine to 200-5 ... then like mentioned before use some type of probe as a gauge for tenderness. Then wrap in foil and let rest for up to 2 hours.

:edit ... for big flats/packers.
 
dollarbill said:
Seems to help it to steam and soften up. I double wrap in heavy duty foil. I use a foil pan when I feel lazy, with double foil on top. Alot of people use the pan method tho and get good results.
Bill, you're saying meat "steams" when wrapped and resting in a cooler? With no water or heat source to make steam? I don't get it. Please explain.

Boston Beaner said:
Why is this? Does it rest better in a cooler?
The process which takes brisket from beyond well done to tender and juicy involves protein denaturing.

Protein molecules are long strands. When the meat proteins get hot the strands wrap around each other and tighten up, making the meat firmer. You're familiar with this if you "touch test" your steaks when you grill them. As it goes from raw to rare to medium rare to medium to well it gets firmer and firmer.

Brisket has a lot of certain classes of proteins called collagens. The "connective tissue" which is something you hear a lot about in barbecue is mostly made up of collagens. Brisket also contains lipids -- which may or may not be considered collagens themselves -- mostly depending on whether the bio-chemist is a food scientist or not. But let's not go there. Some of the lipids are bound to the collagens and some are distributed throughout out the meat.

When the collagen molecules reach a certain temperature, they start to unwind and relax. As they relax the meat begins to soften and tenderize. When they fully relax they can "gelatinize" and/or become quite liquid and "lubricate the meat." Their loss of structure is a big part of the what makes brisket lose its toughness. The collagens also release bound lipids. Meanwhile, at about the same temperature the newly unbounded lipids as well as those which were also present but free, become a very rich, moist substance with strong "lip smacking" properties.

The longer the meat is held at and above the threshold temperature, and the higher above the threshold temp, the more complete the processes of collagen denaturing and lipid break down... But only up to a point. Both "low and slow" cooking, and the wrapped rest can be taken too far.

Holding the meat for an appropriately long period, well wrapped, in a "tight" cooler, extends the cooking process in a very gentle way, keeping the temp up, but not allowing it to increase. This allows the denaturing and break-down processes to work thoroughly as they make the brisket tender and juicy.

At a given cooking temperature, larger briskets take longer to go through the processes -- which is one of the primary reasons that bigger briskets taste better. There are others as well. You don't absolutely need a full packer to do a good job, as long as your piece of point or flat is big enough. 4 lbs is marginal, 2 lbs way too small. Given your lack of experience and the unforgiving nature of your equipment (small offset), you should be doing everything you possibly can to make things easier -- and that means a larger cut.

You also seem not to understand what "wrapping" (during the cook) will do for you. If you want to know... ask.

In the meantime, the primary hurdles with smoking anything well in a small offset such as yours -- for most beginners -- are fire management and keeping a tight pit. There's really no excuse for under-cooking, so in your case you can add lack of a probe to those two. Get yourself a Maverick (aka Redi-Check) 73 or Maverick 732 and that will help with the first and third.

Try not to open the fire chamber or cook chamber doors, except when absolutely necessary. In the case of brisket, you should only open the cook chamber door when you take the brisket out to wrap and unwrap. I'm serious about NO PEEKING. It's a tough lesson, but also the most important thing a beginning barbecuer can do to advance towards actual mastery.

Keeping a water pan in the cooking chamber -- either under the meat or between the fire chamber bulkhead and the meat -- is also helpful. If and when cool dry air gets into the cook chamber, it won't tend to strip away as much moisture from the food if the humidity is quickly replaced. Also, moist, humid air conducts heat more efficiently, and your brisket will cook more evenly and require less turning. A water pan won't actually make your pit tight, but will at least help it ACT tighter.

Besides the water pan and some useful thermometers, if you haven't done so already you want to think about a charcoal basket inside your firebox, lowering your flue, a "manifold" over the firebox inlet, etc. In short, "the basic mods."

I had more than thirty years using small offsets before switching to my Backwoods earlier this summer. Outside of super cheap bullets like the ECB, a small offset -- very specifically including your CB -- is one of the least forgiving, most difficult types of pits on the planet. You can make them work consistently well, but to do so you have to give yourself every possible advantage.

Hope this helps,
BDL
 

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