New guy from SE FL

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scrub175

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
11
14
PSL Florida
Hi all. I'm new to the forum and new to smoking as well. I lurked here a few weeks to prepare for smoking a turkey for Thanksgiving. Thank you for making this a friendly and ultra informative place. One could simply lurk and never post, but that would be an injustice to all the fine folks here that spend their time perfecting their craft and sharing that with others. I have to say i was a pretty good griller but the tools and techniques for smoking, even though it's and entirely different process and skill set, lends itself perfectly to improving how I grill. The tools utilized in smoking have been useful in grilling as well with a better overall finished product.

So far in my short career i smoked a whole chicken (beer can), sausage, and a boston butt roast for my first smoke. It went ok. My second smoke was corned beef brisket that again was ok. Third was the turkey that turned out exactly how I had planned and studied from resources like this forum and links to others from here. Tomorrow will be another brisket but its a whole flat as the butcher shop didn't have a full brisket with point and flat.

My tools of the trade were intitally a brinkmann charcoal smoker single door hand me down. Having used it once I saw the need to remove a variable of non constant cooking temp so I opted for the masterbuilt elite sportsman 40" propane smoker. At this point I got a cheap instant read from publix that has a temp seek time of about 4-5 sec I mean minutes...after reading this forum and researching temp probe systems I went with the iGrill2 with additional probes for the chamber and meat to make a total of 4 probes. I also ordered the lavatools themawand. also had to get some protection for my hands so I got some high temp silicon gloves from amazon.

Anyway I gotta run and prep my brisket for tomorrow. Any questions please feel free to ask and see ya around the school yard.

Thanksgiving in south florida




Old school

 
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Welcome to the site Scrub.  I lived in Port Salerno / Stuart for about 14 years.  Still miss it, some.

Congratulations on your new smoker.  Thats a great shot of the loaded smoker. 
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Welcome to the site Scrub.  I lived in Port Salerno / Stuart for about 14 years.  Still miss it, some.



Congratulations on your new smoker.  Thats a great shot of the loaded smoker. 
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Thank you kindly. Yup been down there in that area many times. Love to eat at Shrimpers. It's so beautiful down here, I tried to leave but couldn't.


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Thank you very much. So far so good.

Well made it through the stall. Took a while but at least I had time to get some chores done while I waited.

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Thank you kindly. Yup been down there in that area many times. Love to eat at Shrimpers. It's so beautiful down here, I tried to leave but couldn't.


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It was a woman.

I've missed south Florida every year for 25 or so, now.  (Especially when winter hits).

The gal is long gone.

It sounds like your brisket smoke is going real good.  Did you wrap after the stall?

Looking forward to finished pic's.
 
I hear ya...

So no I didn't wrap after the stall, well not the entire brisket. I wrapped the thin end but it still got over cooked so next time yes wrap after the stall.

Thank you for the help and support. Feel free to critique away as well.

320e299cee5e5fae864bee41b72a0943.jpg


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Mike5051, thank you!

@bluefrog, thank  you neighbor!

I had leftovers for lunch and wow it was good. 
 
I hear ya...

So no I didn't wrap after the stall, well not the entire brisket. I wrapped the thin end but it still got over cooked so next time yes wrap after the stall.

Thank you for the help and support. Feel free to critique away as well.

320e299cee5e5fae864bee41b72a0943.jpg


30fcff9523e1c8174663d024262d64e6.jpg



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Good looking slices.  Like Mike said,  "The bark and ring look great".  I have not smoked a lot of brisket but have wrapped all of them so far.  I have had mixed results with the flat every time.  I have gotten the flats to "pull apart" done but still dryer than I had wanted.  I am fairly convinced that my results come from meat quality,  (USDA grade).

I could be wrong.  Experience will eventually yield the answer, I think).
 
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Good looking slices.  Like Mike said,  "The bark and ring look great".  I have not smoked a lot of brisket but have wrapped all of them so far.  I have had mixed results with the flat every time.  I have gotten the flats to "pull apart" done but still dryer than I had wanted.  I am fairly convinced that my results come from meat quality,  (USDA grade).

I could be wrong.  Experience will eventually yield the answer, I think).
Good learnings there, thank you. I was wondering how you can get to the cut temp of 195 or the pull temp of 205 and not make jerky. the physics just didn't add up to me. The charred end has a great flavor but is somewhat dry, but the middle was money.

Incidentally I used to live in Southport NC (well near there, Boiling Spring Lakes), as I saw you are coastal NC.
 
 
Good learnings there, thank you. I was wondering how you can get to the cut temp of 195 or the pull temp of 205 and not make jerky. the physics just didn't add up to me. The charred end has a great flavor but is somewhat dry, but the middle was money.

Incidentally I used to live in Southport NC (well near there, Boiling Spring Lakes), as I saw you are coastal NC.
Looks like I confused things a little.  What I meant by "pull apart" is that the meat is easily pulled apart, if you wish, but will still stay together, like this photo shows.  I wasn't actually referring to "pulling" the brisket.  Sorry for the confusion.


The meat needs to cook till the connective tissues break down, which will give you moisture as long as you wrap and rest the meat once you get to probe tender.  That temp is pretty high with brisket.  Usually a little above 200*.  Your charred end might have been a little overdone if the middle of the flat was good.

I looked up Boiling Spring Lake.  It looks like it should be worth a day trip to check it out.  I am up around Beaufort & and Morehead City, but out on the edge in the marshes.  (Probably 4 to 5 hours from BSL.
 
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Looks like I confused things a little.  What I meant by "pull apart" is that the meat is easily pulled apart, if you wish, but will still stay together, like this photo shows.  I wasn't actually referring to "pulling" the brisket.  Sorry for the confusion.


The meat needs to cook till the connective tissues break down, which will give you moisture as long as you wrap and rest the meat once you get to probe tender.  That temp is pretty high with brisket.  Usually a little above 200*.  Your charred end might have been a little overdone if the middle of the flat was good.

I looked up Boiling Spring Lake.  It looks like it should be worth a day trip to check it out.  I am up around Beaufort & and Morehead City, but out on the edge in the marshes.  (Probably 4 to 5 hours from BSL.
I understand. that's a good looking brisket there... Check out southport, neater things there.
 
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I understand. that's a good looking brisket there... Check out southport, neater things there.
Thanks.  It looked a little better than it was .  (It was a touch dry.  Great flavor and fine with sauce).

Thanks for the tip on Southport it is a really fine looking town. 
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