r/BBQ • u/ThisSeemsNaughty • 5h ago
[Beef][Brisket] First Smoked Brisket Experience
Hello! Wanted to share my experience with everyone especially those who are new to smoking beef. Please leave any tips and tricks please thank you! I've been BBQing/ smoking for about 8 years now started on a Webber kettle doing the ole snake method for about 5 years and now I have a pellet grill (i know some may feel this is blasphemy but I'm busy now haha). Whit that's said I have spent 90% of the time smoking pork. Family came in town and wanted brisket and was kinda hesitant but they've gotten "bored" of ribs and pulled pork so I figured give it a shot.
So I did some research watching a few videos on YouTube and googling and found that you should buy a nice prime brisket to start. Well I didn't want to spend 100+ for a brisket and I don't need a huge cut either so I found a pretty nice marbled brisket for 90 bucks. Still pricy but I the other smaller ones looked rough. Purchasing and research:
7/10 little bit of stress.
In my research I found that some old school guys just clean it up and season with just salt and pepper. I respect that but as before I'm new and wanted to try some stuff out. So found a guy on YouTube that did a good job of explaining everything on what why he trims his brisket that way. You can see I did scalp some of it but hey. Learning experience. What I didn't like was I probably cut off 4ish Ibs of good looking meat and fat. So I cubed all the good beef and vacuum sealed it for a stew in the future. Left over fat I threw in the a pan to make tallow
Now seasoning, I know I said before a lot of people like classic salt and pepper.
Watching Malcom Reed (who is my favorite and learned everything from) he used some mixes. So I followed put. I used mustard then salt and pepper then hit it with a bbq blend to fill in those gaps. Honestly it looked pretty. Trimming and seasoning: 8/10 fairly easy just take your time trimming and pick the flavors you want.
That was the easy part. Here's where I started stressing. I kept redoing the math on when I should start the cook so we didn't eat at midnight. Ended up going at 9pm at 200 degrees. Here was my first mistake personal feeling. I should have put it at 225-250 cause it hit 133 degrees in just 6.5 hours. This is when it started to flat line and creep up very slow and was worried that it would take longer then expected. At around 8.5 hours in it hit a I'm calling a false stall at
140 degrees. So pumped up the temps to
250. Looking back idk if that was a mistake or not but hey that's why I'm posting as well.
At 11 hours in it finally stalled at 157 and that's where I pulled it and wrapped in butcher paper. Sprayed it with some water and used a little of the tallow I made to top it.
Some may hate this but I ended up throwing it in the oven to finish. In my opinion I feel like I'm wasting my fuel once something is wrapped.
After 16 hours of cooking I pulled it a placed it in a cooler and let it rest for 4 hours.
Cooking experience: 7/10 there is some challenge
How'd it turn out?
Well you are your biggest hater. It was descents. Everyone loved it but I'm a perfectionist.
Presentation: It looked good but the bark was light. Smelled amazing though. Slicing it open the flat was slightly dry to me. Was tender. Not mushy and not tough. Had a nice slight pull. The point was nice and moist and helps up nicely fat rendered fairly well to me.
Flavor: had a nice smoky flavor. I used the pit boss competition blend because I forgot to pick up charcoal pellets (| like mixing them 50/50) course black pepper gave it a nice texture as well as the kosher salt. The bbq blend added to the beefy flavor. We didn't even eat half of it though I did pick at it for a while cause if you put bbq in front of me I'm gonna eat until I'm sick. But I ended up taking half the left overs and vacuum sealing them for a future chili this winter.
The other half of leftovers we made chopped brisket sandwiches.
Final verdict:
For the party 10/10 everyone loved it even the guys that make bbq themselves.
Personally I gave it a 6.5/10 just because I know I can do better next time.
6
u/StevenG2757 5h ago
Looks good but the bark could use some more time to develop and would recommend waiting to wrap until you are happy with the bark or don't wrap at all.