Whole Beef Brisket Wet-to-Dry Smoke Chamber

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woodcutter

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Jul 2, 2012
3,308
163
Marathon Wisconsin
I finally got around to trying a whole brisket packer. While growing up my family didn't have brisket around very much. If we did have some it was used for stews. After reading numerous threads and hearing how brisket can turn out tough and is easy to dry out, I tried forluvofsmoke's Wet-to-dry-chamber method. Dave Omak recently tried it and had favorable results and Eric's Q-views convinced me to give it a try.

I started with a whole brisket packer for Sam' Club 16lb 3 oz.


I started trimming the brisket and thinking finally some nice fat for sausage. I took almost all of the fat cap off. I continued reading posts while doing this whole and thought I made huge mistake. 4 lbs 2 oz fat removed.


I used Bilbo's rub modified a little.

1/2 cup paprika
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated garlic (1/4 cup powder)
6 tablespoons granulated onion (Same amount for powder)
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
( I substituted 1 Tbs of black pepper for cayenne)
 

I set the smoker up with brisket, drip pan and water pan and red oak hunks.


At 3 hours the smoke was diminishing so I reloaded 2 more hunks and noticed 3/4 of the water was used. IT was 122

At 8 hours the IT was 156 and the water pan was dry. The smoker walls dried and the brisket started to closed it pores and was starting to form bark.

This was the stage I was most impressed with Eric's wet-to-dry method. The brisket ended up taking 17 hours. Here is what I had at 8 hours. The brisket was almost 1/2 through the entire marathon smoke with zero moisture loss. In fact as the brisket IT was raising it had to push liquid through the top.


It stalled at 160 and stayed there for a few hours.

10 hours 160

11 hours 160

12 hours 160

13 hours it started to slowly climb and was at 167.

14 hours 172 and here is where I removed the point from the flat.

I removed the point and let it rest then refrigerated.

The rest of the brisket stayed in the smoker until it reached 180. It was then wrapped in foil and towel and placed in a cooler. It was in the cooler for 4 hours and cooled to 140. I set the tin foiled brisket in the oven with Green Bean Bake until the it Was 194. Rested then sliced.

Even with most of the fat removed the brisket was very tender and very juicy and had an excellent bark.

The one huge mistake I made was pulling the chip out of the camera and not putting it in for the money shots. If I turn on the camera with out the chip there is one finished picture remaining and I don't know how to get it loaded on the computer.

Thank you Eric for a very well thought out smoking process.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/...o-dry-smoke-chamber-q-view-method#post_987809

I was able to pull these pictures from my cameras hard drive with a USB cable.



 
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Ah, them pesky stalls, gotta love 'em, huh?

Sounds like you took the flat a bit further for tenderness by passing it through the oven after resting. Must have been WICKED tender, I suspect...LOL!!! That is one benefit of lean trimmed, you get some fat to stock the freezer for sausage grinds. I use my brisket trimmings for chicken salami...adds a nice background flavor to the thigh meat, and I get the fat content I want by starting with lean thighs. Whole brisket is around 30% of salvageable fat, so it does add up fast.

You're welcome for the method...glad you got a chance to give it a shot and find out what it's all about.

PM me if you need to figure out what to do with your camera card. You may need to cut some pics and paste to your computer hard-drive, transfer to a thumb-drive or CD-R...there's some options for you anyway, if you can't get a hold of another card for the camera. We have 5 or 6 for the one I use, and I always cut/paste from the card to the computer when I'm cooking...save them on the hard-drive, a thumb-drive and the forums, so I have 3 ways to store them as redundancy/back-up...no worries about crashes for me.

Eric
 
I took 3 pictures without the card being in the camera. It must have a very small amount of storage. There is one picture on my cameras hard drive. I will try usb cable today. (added to end of post 1)
 
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I was able to pull the 3 pictures from the cameras hard drive with the chip out and USB cable. They were added to post 1. I think it was the too soon old and too late smart syndrome again!
 
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Lots of folks have been doing briskets this week.  Love seeing all of the different methods.  Looks good!

Kat
 
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