Smoked brisket....

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big daddy ben

Newbie
Original poster
Apr 22, 2015
3
10
I need help!!!! I smoked a brisket for the first time yesterday , and it turned out not good. Part of the brisket was stringy, and the other half sort of tough. I kept my smoker at around 250, and I used oak. I marinated and used a dry rub afterwards, but still not a lot of flavor!!! Any advice? What did I do wrong??? im not even sure im posting in the correct area. 
 
I plan to smoke a 12 lb brisket this weekend for about 24 hours, which means I will start about 4:00 pm on Saturday for a 6:00 pm Sunday dinner. My question is if I double it to 2 12 lb briskets, will that double the time required? I will be using a Masterbuilt 40" electric smoker with mesquite chips. Any thoughts on the time to start?
 
Hello merrymanb.  It's like cooking two turkeys in the oven.  It will not double the time but it will increase the cooking time.  How much?  
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  Cook to the IT not a time.  I can say 24 hours should not be needed.  Have a read of the link above.  Good luck.  Keep Smokin!


Danny
 
 
I need help!!!! I smoked a brisket for the first time yesterday , and it turned out not good. Part of the brisket was stringy, and the other half sort of tough. I kept my smoker at around 250, and I used oak. I marinated and used a dry rub afterwards, but still not a lot of flavor!!! Any advice? What did I do wrong??? im not even sure im posting in the correct area. 
Would love to have a lot more details about the process you used.  Best guess off the top of my head is that your brisket was undercooked.  WRT the part that was stringy, sounds like you might have sliced it with the grain instead of across the grain.
 
I plan to smoke a 12 lb brisket this weekend for about 24 hours, which means I will start about 4:00 pm on Saturday for a 6:00 pm Sunday dinner. My question is if I double it to 2 12 lb briskets, will that double the time required? I will be using a Masterbuilt 40" electric smoker with mesquite chips. Any thoughts on the time to start?
Unless you are smoking with a chamber temp of 180 degrees or less, that brisket shouldn't take 24 hours.   Doubling the thermal mass in the smoker will not double the time, unless you stack the briskets one directly on top the other..  It will increase the amount of fuel needed to hold your desired chamber temp.
 
Hello and thank you for the response i trimmed most of the fat cap down to about a 1/4". I used a brine of beer, beef broth, garlic, and several seasonings for 24 hours. I took the brisket out of the brine and let rubbed it heavily with a seasoning mix I found online. I wrapped it and let it sit out for 4 hours as instructed. I got my smoker to around 250 to 270, and successfully kept it there throughout. It was a 10# brisket and i smoked it for 10 hours... After about 3 hours i started basting it and after 2 more hours i rubbed it again with my seasoning mix and wrapped in foil. From there i would open and mop with a beer and beef broth mix every hour and let it smoke for another 5 hours. I temped it at 190 and pulled it off and let it rest. A portion of the brisket was stringy and the other portion was {not tough} , but not tender either. From what i have read string means it was over cooked and tough means that it wasnt smoked long enough. What did I do wrong? I am trying to perfect this process. Any help would be great. My rub consisted of chili powder,garlic powder, white pepper, turbinado sugar, kosher salt, cumin, cayenne, and a few other spices. 
 
 
Hello and thank you for the response i trimmed most of the fat cap down to about a 1/4". I used a brine of beer, beef broth, garlic, and several seasonings for 24 hours. I took the brisket out of the brine and let rubbed it heavily with a seasoning mix I found online. I wrapped it and let it sit out for 4 hours as instructed. I got my smoker to around 250 to 270, and successfully kept it there throughout. It was a 10# brisket and i smoked it for 10 hours... After about 3 hours i started basting it and after 2 more hours i rubbed it again with my seasoning mix and wrapped in foil. From there i would open and mop with a beer and beef broth mix every hour and let it smoke for another 5 hours. I temped it at 190 and pulled it off and let it rest. A portion of the brisket was stringy and the other portion was {not tough} , but not tender either. From what i have read string means it was over cooked and tough means that it wasnt smoked long enough. What did I do wrong? I am trying to perfect this process. Any help would be great. My rub consisted of chili powder,garlic powder, white pepper, turbinado sugar, kosher salt, cumin, cayenne, and a few other spices. 
You need to cook until a toothpick slides in like a hot knife through butter. Brisket can be done from 190 to 212 and beyond. The trick to perfect brisket is to probe test it after 190 every so often. If you were opening the smoker that much and doing all that stuff I am going to say it was undercooked. You don't really need to add all that flavor to beef. It has a great flavor all its own and basting and bathing and all that stuff is just wasting heat every time you open the door. Rub it, smoke it until toothpick tender wrap and rest. Perfect brisket every time.
 
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Let your friends cut the fat off of their serving of Brisket. Leave the fat cap in place. If it is a really large brisket, you may need to "harvest" the flat before the tip. Since it can come to the ideal temperature first.
 
 
Hello and thank you for the response i trimmed most of the fat cap down to about a 1/4". I used a brine of beer, beef broth, garlic, and several seasonings for 24 hours. I took the brisket out of the brine and let rubbed it heavily with a seasoning mix I found online. I wrapped it and let it sit out for 4 hours as instructed. I got my smoker to around 250 to 270, and successfully kept it there throughout. It was a 10# brisket and i smoked it for 10 hours... After about 3 hours i started basting it and after 2 more hours i rubbed it again with my seasoning mix and wrapped in foil. From there i would open and mop with a beer and beef broth mix every hour and let it smoke for another 5 hours. I temped it at 190 and pulled it off and let it rest. A portion of the brisket was stringy and the other portion was {not tough} , but not tender either. From what i have read string means it was over cooked and tough means that it wasnt smoked long enough. What did I do wrong? I am trying to perfect this process. Any help would be great. My rub consisted of chili powder,garlic powder, white pepper, turbinado sugar, kosher salt, cumin, cayenne, and a few other spices. 
Heh, now I see why it took so long.  Each time you open the smoker, you lose a lot of heat and it takes time for the chamber temp to come back up.   Also, each time you mopped it, you cooled the brisket down. 

Stringy brisket could be one of two things, either it's overcooked, or it was sliced along the grain.  Briskets have 2 parts called the flat and the point.   The grain for each of these runs in different directions.   If you started at one end of the brisket and sliced the whole thing in nice parallel lines, some of your slices might not have been against the grain.

When you cook a brisket, don't judge it to be done based on internal temp as some briskets might be done at 190, others at 195, yet others at 200 or more.    The way to tell if a brisket is done is to take a probe and poke the brisket at various spots on the thickest part of the flat.  When the probe goes in and out with no resistance, like a knife through room temp butter, the brisket is ready.

 
Thank you all for your help. I am going to try again, and use you suggestions. Again thanks for all the feedback.

On another note does anyone have a good rub for the brisket.as someone stated above it seemed like a lot of different spices for not a whole lot of extra flavor. 
 
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