Just joined the forum recently after buying a Smokin-It #3 electric smoker. I wanted to try a brisket (never cooked one before) and followed several different ideas that I found on the forum, the website, etc. - thanks for sharing the info.
Trimmed fat cap to 1/4 to 1/2 although there wasn't much to trim. I was going to set the pieces on grate above and let drip but decided to just lay them on top of the meat (I did fat cap down). 7.5 lb brisket from Sams Club. Scored the fat cap, rubbed with cheap yellow mustard and applied 50/50 mix of Plowboy's BBQ Yardbird Rub and McCormick Cowboy Rub. Temp held at around 156 and then I made a little boat out of foil for it to sit in, flipped it back to fat side up and poured around a cup of apple juice around it and then wrapped it tight. I let it get to 202-203 and then I checked it out...
To my surprise, being a complete rookie to smoking, the apple juice along with the juice that came out of the meat as is cooked was all collected in the foil (of course) but it was more than I expected - probably 3/4" of juice that it was cooking in. At this point I was about 15 hours in at a temp fluctuating withint 30 degrees of 225. I decided to get it back out of the foil to try and firm the bark back up but I got to damn impatient to weight and sampled a little bit... mmmm good! I pulled it out, pour the juice out and put it back in on foil but this time opened up and let it dry it for about 30 minutes - which I could have probably gone about 45-60 more minutes with a spritz or two but oh well... maybe next time.
I combined the remainder of the end of a few bottles of bbq sauce left in the fridge, mixed in some worchestershire, some of the juice that I collected from what it was submerged in from the foils, black pepper, corse salt, and some dry garlic and onion flakes that I found in the spice cupboard. I heated it all up, made a sandwich, poured on some of my bbq sauce, added a couple spoons of slaw that I had my wife pick up at KFC and chowed down. The wife actually gave me five! Nice!
Pretty simple stuff
15 1/2hrs later. It was actually so moist before putting it back in that I had to use a big spatula to lift it without breaking it into pieces.
It rained like crazy during part of this so I put my temp sensor in a bag and cut part of the side away from a plastic container we had so protect my thermostat control and keep any rain from going in the exhaust smoke hole.
That pink is not the smoke ring. I was curious if I would get anything at all using an electric smoker (used hickory by the way) but below the fat was a faint other color but I don't know if it was actually a smoke ring or not but it tasted good to me.
The end result.
Trimmed fat cap to 1/4 to 1/2 although there wasn't much to trim. I was going to set the pieces on grate above and let drip but decided to just lay them on top of the meat (I did fat cap down). 7.5 lb brisket from Sams Club. Scored the fat cap, rubbed with cheap yellow mustard and applied 50/50 mix of Plowboy's BBQ Yardbird Rub and McCormick Cowboy Rub. Temp held at around 156 and then I made a little boat out of foil for it to sit in, flipped it back to fat side up and poured around a cup of apple juice around it and then wrapped it tight. I let it get to 202-203 and then I checked it out...
To my surprise, being a complete rookie to smoking, the apple juice along with the juice that came out of the meat as is cooked was all collected in the foil (of course) but it was more than I expected - probably 3/4" of juice that it was cooking in. At this point I was about 15 hours in at a temp fluctuating withint 30 degrees of 225. I decided to get it back out of the foil to try and firm the bark back up but I got to damn impatient to weight and sampled a little bit... mmmm good! I pulled it out, pour the juice out and put it back in on foil but this time opened up and let it dry it for about 30 minutes - which I could have probably gone about 45-60 more minutes with a spritz or two but oh well... maybe next time.
I combined the remainder of the end of a few bottles of bbq sauce left in the fridge, mixed in some worchestershire, some of the juice that I collected from what it was submerged in from the foils, black pepper, corse salt, and some dry garlic and onion flakes that I found in the spice cupboard. I heated it all up, made a sandwich, poured on some of my bbq sauce, added a couple spoons of slaw that I had my wife pick up at KFC and chowed down. The wife actually gave me five! Nice!
