August 20, 2011 - Last Sunday, after much consternation, I finally decided to try the Big Kahuna....Brisket. Anyone who spoke with me leading up to the cook knew I was extremely nervous. Everything I had read would say "Brisket is unforgiving" or "if you don't do it right, it will come out as shoe leather". Wow. Talk about motivation!! At any rate, I had one sitting in the freezer that was waiting for the right time and I finally decided to pull the trigger.
On Saturday night, I started prepping the brisket. Pre-trimmed, it was 10.17 pounds. It came from Costco. I trimmed off 18.3 ounces of fat, which left me with just over a nine pound hunk of meat.
I injected the brisket with low sodium beef broth ( about 1 cup) and saved the rest for later (see below). I then brushed the brisket with oil and used the following mixture of rub:
1/2 cup Paprika
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
3 Tbsp Garlic Powder
3 Tbsp Onion Powder
2 Tbsp Oregano
2 Tbsp Salt
1 Tsp (+ a touch more) of Cayenne Pepper
I then rubbed the brisket on both sides, wrapped it in Saran Wrap and foil, and placed it in the fridge to marinate overnight.
I began the process of firing the smoker at 5:45 am. All that I had read was that a good sized brisket could take anywhere from 9-12 hours to prepare, and since we had guests arriving around 6pm, I needed to make sure it was complete. I removed the brisket from the fridge and the internal temperature was 53 degrees prior to placing on the smoker. I used a meat tenderizer prior to placing on the smoker to first, tenderize the meat, but also to push the rub mixture down into the meat prior to the cook. Here is a shot after marinating all night:
For smoke wood, 2 parts hickory to 1 part cherry. The first smoke wood was on at about 6:45am (the hour between firing and getting wood on...well, that is an aside that I shall share below). The smoker had reached 220 degrees, and the meat went on. I did not flip, mop or spritz during the entire smoke. Below is a table of temperatures and times:
| Time | Smoker Temp | Internal Meat Temp |
| 6:55am | 220 | -- |
| 7:25am | 235 | -- |
| 8:00am | 225 | -- |
| 8:45am | 275 | 141 |
| 9:00am | 255 | 147 |
| 9:15am | 230 | 151 |
| 9:30am | 245 | 154 |
| 10:15am | 205 | 158 |
| 10:30am | 215 | 158 |
| 10:45am | 245 | 159 |
| 11am | 245 | 158** |
| 12:55pm | 250 | 200 OFF |
My remote thermometer worked very well this time. Behind the thermometer in the picture below is a tower of vodka, which we marinated with blackberries for 10 days. Wow, is that stuff good!
At 7:45am, I added two more hickory and one more cherry chunks of wood. In total, I used 4 hickory and 2 cherry.
**At 11am, since the internal temperature had reached approx 160, I removed the brisket from the smoker and placed it in an aluminum pan with the rest of the beef broth, then wrapped the pan in aluminum foil. I had read about this process, which is called "the crutch". It is done for a couple of reasons. One, it helps to speed along the cooking process by creating a moist humid environment for the meat to cook and two, it keeps the meat from drying out. One analogy that I read was once the brisket reached 160, it "hangs" and can hang for hours until breaking through and then proceeding on up to 200. During the hang, it is like an athlete...it sweats. Well, the sweat in this case is the moisture within the brisket. This process worked very well, as you can see and the brisket made its way on up to 200 degrees in just a couple hours.
I have to admit, I was thinking that it would take until about 2pm after using the crutch, so the hour earlier was welcome.
Once the meat reached 200, I removed it from the smoker, wrapped it in old towels and placed it in a cooler to keep it hot. This process also allows for the brisket to re-absorb some of the juices that were in the pan. I left it in the cooler until the internal temp on the meat was about 175 and I then transferred it into the oven at a temp of 185 in order to hold the temp of the meat, not cook it. Since we were having guests over, this was necessary.
I had shut down the vents on the smoker to cool it off....I then had to bring it back up to smoke some sausages. They are so easy to do, and good that you almost have to do them every time you smoke :) I used Werner's Kielbasa again as well as their Italian sausages. YUM! For this, I used one chunk hickory and one chunk pecan.
When I sliced the brisket, as you can see, it wasn't a very good "competition presentation" as I don't think I sliced it the correct way to see all the marbling, etc. The smoke ring was okay...could have been better. I took the point muscle and some of the left over flat and chopped that up for chopped beef sandwiches, and boy were those tasty. The brisket was not dry, had good flavor and was enjoyed by all who ate it.
So, for all the stress and worry, it turns out that it wasn't so bad after all. If I could do one thing different, I would have brought the smoker down to the bottom grate and just put a little sear on the outside of the brisket prior to letting it rest. This would have given a nice crust on the outside. The outside bark was okay, but could have been a little firmer and the sear would have provided that.
Okay, so on to the story of the lag between firing and getting the meat on. Typically when I fire the smoker, I will put a nice amount of briquets in the lower ring of the smoker then separately will fire about a half to two-thirds of a charcoal chimney. Once the coals in the chimney are good and orange, I will dump them over the top of the unlit coals and then assemble the smoker and allow it to come up to temp. This day was no different. I fired the chimney, as I always do, on the sidewalk about 10 feet from where I put the smoker. I had just come back out from getting a cup of coffee, walked down the steps off my deck, and set my coffee down so that I could go pick up the chimney and dump it over the unlit coals. No sooner than setting the coffee down, I hear (and see) this HUGE EXPLOSION that shot the charcoal chimney about 6 feet up in the air and scattered the HOT coals all over the place...in my yard, on the sidewalk, etc. Fortunately, none of them hit me, but this explosion happened at about 6:20am. I am quite surprised none of my neighbors (or my wife) heard it. Talking to my neighbor later that morning and looking at the aftermath, the best explanation that we could come to was that we had been having rain in the days leading up to the cook and that there must have been trapped moisture in the concrete. When the heat from the chimney got so great, it boiled the trapped water and caused it to erupt. Pretty cool from a science perspective, but man, did it scare the hell out of me. I am just glad that I took an extra few seconds somewhere along the way as I could have easily been right over top of it when I popped. That could have been very, very bad. As you can see from the picture below, it left a nice mark in the sidewalk, by blowing off the top finish layer of the concrete.
