First Brisket on my Pit Barrel Cooker

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the aporkalypse

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 1, 2013
27
28
Las Vegas
Been looking forward to this cook all week, Found a smallish (11.25 Lb.) whole packer brisket at the grocery, got it home, trimmed it up, separated the point from the flat and rubbed it overnight with Jeff's rub. Started the cook 10:15 A.M. Mopped them once at 139 degrees with Texas BBQ juice mop sauce then yanked them at 152 degrees and foiled each with a half cup of mop sauce for another hour or so. The two hunks cooked 5hrs 35 minutes in total. I pulled them from the PBC at 205 degrees IT and wrapped them in an old bath towel then left them for 3 hours or so in an Igloo cooler until dinner time at 6:30ish. Sliced it up and served with the wifeoid's mac and cheese and a snappy IPA. It was delicious.

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Looks pretty tasty! Would it not fit whole on the rack or is it how they recommend cooking a brisket?
 
Looks pretty tasty! Would it not fit whole on the rack or is it how they recommend cooking a brisket?
The guys at PBC Co., in their video, cook the whole thing and hook it twice before hanging it on the rods. I split the point from the flat and hung them separately based on some advice from amazingribs.com. They write, "Separating the muscles doubles the surface area and creates more bark. It can also speed up cooking, knocking about 1/3 of the time off the time for cooking a whole packer. If you separate the muscles and remove most of the fat, on a 13 pound packer you can expect about 5 pounds of flat, 4 pounds of point, and four pounds of trim."  It worked great. This was easily the best brisket I've ever cooked and perhaps in the top 2 or 3 that I've ever tasted. Their numbers were pretty much spot on too. I started with a 11.25 lbs., trimmed just over 4 Lbs. of fat off and cooked the remaining 7 lbs. or so in just over 5 hours on my PBC.
 
I almost bought a PBC. Went with a WSM instead, I was learn of hanging. But a brisky on last night about 1:30-2:00 now it's 11:30 IT 180*:grilling_smilie:
Extra bark is nice I'm hoping to do some burnt ends time will tell.
 
I almost bought a PBC. Went with a WSM instead, I was learn of hanging. But a brisky on last night about 1:30-2:00 now it's 11:30 IT 180*:grilling_smilie:
Extra bark is nice I'm hoping to do some burnt ends time will tell.

I also have a WSM. Coupled with the expandable smoking rack allows me to emulate PBC style cooking but also let's me go low for sausage, bacon, snack sticks, jerky, etc.
 
I almost bought a PBC. Went with a WSM instead, I was learn of hanging. But a brisky on last night about 1:30-2:00 now it's 11:30 IT 180*
grilling_smilie.gif

Extra bark is nice I'm hoping to do some burnt ends time will tell.
I hear you brother... when it came time to upgrade from the ECB that I learned on, it was literally neck and neck between the PBC and WSM 22.5. While skeptical of hanging meat vertically on hooks from rebar, I went with the PBC based on ease of use. Trust me when I tell you that there nothing quite like it. You just fire it up, bring it to temp, load it up and go. No fussing with vents and dampers,  no worrying about the cooker's IT. All I keep an eye on is the meat's IT. This is especially nice when cooking for a crowd as I can spend my time tending to them instead of a BBQ rig. I almost feel guilty, as if I'm getting away with something, because I know that there are guys and gals out there slugging it out for 12 to 14 hours cooking a brisket that I can do in under half the time. Thing is, I still want a WSM. I'm afraid that pitching the expense to the wifeoid will be a losing battle though since the PBC performs so well. Good luck with your cook. Burnt ends sound awfully good.
 
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