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Smoking Brisket


MJAlltheWay24

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Bought a 11 lbs brisket at Kroger the other day, they had quite a sale. I've never smoked one before and I'm going to today. I decided that I'm going to cut it half because it's just my wife and I, plus that gives me two times to practice.

 

Basically just seasoned with a little salt and pepper and getting ready to throw her in. Sounded like it would take 1 hour and 15 minutes for every pound. Ready where I shouldn't get discouraged during "the stall".

 

Anyone else smoke a brisket before? What flavor chips do you prefer?

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I normally do full packer briskets on my Camp Chef pellet smoker. I trim it up, inject with beef broth, and coat it with mustard and whatever rub I want to use. I set the smoker to 220 and let it run up to about 160 degrees, which takes anywhere from 5-8 hours depending on size, spritzing it with a mix of bourbon and apple juice every hour or so. I then wrap in butcher paper and keep smoking it until it gets up to around 200 degrees at which point I test it with a probe. If the probe slides in easily, it’s done. This can be anywhere from 205-210 degrees. Pull it off the smoker, let it rest for an hour or so and slice.

 

The biggest issue with brisket is the quality of your meat. What you typically find at Walmart and Kroger isn’t high quality and is tough to get great results. It’s still good but I didn’t I didn’t believe that it made a difference until I ordered a brisket from Snake River Farms. Way more marbling, much juicier and more tasty finished product.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Just got a 13lb-er. Going to trim it and season it on Saturday morning. It'll hit the smoker at 6 am Sunday.

 

I think I might be ordering a Waygu brisket to smoke for Memorial day weekend. I'm a little nervous to try because they are so expensive, and I've heard they are easy to screw up.

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I think I might be ordering a Waygu brisket to smoke for Memorial day weekend. I'm a little nervous to try because they are so expensive, and I've heard they are easy to screw up.

 

I just buy the Kroger briskets. With the right seasoning and smoke I can get them to turn out pretty good. Maybe one of these days I'll try a more expensive cut.

 

The primary seasoning I use is a 5 Salt and 5 Pepper seasoning made by Private Select.

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How'd it turn out?

 

Sorry, I never responded. It was pretty good for my first time but I feel like it could be a lot better. Going to push some seasoning on it next time.

 

What would happened if I didn't wrap it in foil at 165 degrees?

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I think I might be ordering a Waygu brisket to smoke for Memorial day weekend. I'm a little nervous to try because they are so expensive, and I've heard they are easy to screw up.

 

Its hard to screw up anything Waygu, even brisket. Brisket in general is a tough piece if meat and was always dirt cheap until the people in Texas figured out the proper way to cook it. Now its as expensive as better cuts of meat like prime rib and ribeye. But I wouldn't worry too much with ruining a piece of Waygu if you have experience cooking large pieces of meat.

 

To me thats the thing with brisket. Its really not that difficult to cook, it just takes a lot of time to do it right. The quality of the cut of meat is what makes it phenomenal or average, imo.

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Sorry, I never responded. It was pretty good for my first time but I feel like it could be a lot better. Going to push some seasoning on it next time.

 

What would happened if I didn't wrap it in foil at 165 degrees?

 

It would stall and take longer to cook, but you would get a better bark on the outside. What I've found works best is finding a really well marbled cut of it and if you are going to wrap it to speed things up use pink butchers paper instead of foil, then let it cook for that last hour or so out of the wrap.

 

If you buy from a butcher they will most likely give you enough of the pink butchers paper to wrap it up good, assuming they have it. I've had great results too without wrapping at all, it really depends on the cut of meat, as well as the grill you are using. The less airflow the better its gonna turn out, kamado style grills can make a great brisket without wrapping it at all, due to very little airflow, they essentially create their own moisture.

 

Edit: Another tip if its a whole brisket is to separate the point from the flat unless you want to make burnt ends from the flat. It will cook much quicker than the point.

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It would stall and take longer to cook, but you would get a better bark on the outside. What I've found works best is finding a really well marbled cut of it and if you are going to wrap it to speed things up use pink butchers paper instead of foil, then let it cook for that last hour or so out of the wrap.

 

If you buy from a butcher they will most likely give you enough of the pink butchers paper to wrap it up good, assuming they have it. I've had great results too without wrapping at all, it really depends on the cut of meat, as well as the grill you are using. The less airflow the better its gonna turn out, kamado style grills can make a great brisket without wrapping it at all, due to very little airflow, they essentially create their own moisture.

 

Edit: Another tip if its a whole brisket is to separate the point from the flat unless you want to make burnt ends from the flat. It will cook much quicker than the point.

 

Thanks for the tips JD. The bark wasn't as crispy as I would like and I figured it was because of foil, so the next time I was thinking about not wrapping it. Glad you confirmed what my thoughts were.

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Thanks for the tips JD. The bark wasn't as crispy as I would like and I figured it was because of foil, so the next time I was thinking about not wrapping it. Glad you confirmed what my thoughts were.

 

If you can find the pink butchers paper give that a try before you go no wrapping at all. It speeds things up and gives you a nice bark as well. Its kind of a compromise between the other two options.

 

The other thing is that foil won't cook as evenly, the outside of the brisket will cook much quicker and become tough, even though its moist, if that makes any sense. The pink butchers paper doesn't overcook the outside like foil does, but does speed up the cooking process while allowing some of those juices to drip out, which helps save the bark.

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If you can find the pink butchers paper give that a try before you go no wrapping at all. It speeds things up and gives you a nice bark as well. Its kind of a compromise between the other two options.

 

The other thing is that foil won't cook as evenly, the outside of the brisket will cook much quicker and become tough, even though its moist, if that makes any sense. The pink butchers paper doesn't overcook the outside like foil does, but does speed up the cooking process while allowing some of those juices to drip out, which helps save the bark.

 

I’ve done many briskets, done foil, butcher paper and no wrap at all. I’ve gotten beat results with butcher paper. Not wrapping at all is good, but it adds a lot of time to the cook.

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