First Time Brisket on My Weber Smokey Mountain

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gary g

Newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2015
11
11
Happy Tuesday Everyone!

I've had my Weber Smoke Mountain smoker for just over a year. I've done okay with Pork. - Chicken - well, not so much, still working out the kinks in that one! (that's a thread for another time!)

I'm excited that I am finally smoking my first brisket tomorrow. I've been wanting to do one for a while, but the only ones I've seen have been $45 - $60 bucks at Wally World and their club brother across the parking lot. Seems kinda pricey.....(maybe I'm just cheap!)

To my surprise, they had some smaller ones last weekend and I picked up a 5lb Brisket Flat for $23. Still not a great deal but....

I've spent the past couple of days reading through the forums here and watching a few youtube videos and I'm still not totally confident I'm going to nail this but I'm gonna give it a shot. It's also going to be about 70 degrees-pretty happy about that! (I did several smokes over the winter in below freezing temps and it sucked!)

A couple of questions -

I planned on smoking at 225. For a 5 lb brisket I'm hoping for about an 8-10 smoke to get it to an internal temp of 205 (ish). Does that sound about right?

Also,

Looking for a good rub recipe. I have a decent one that I've tweaked for pork but I kinda think it will be too sweet for the beef.

Also, to foil or not to foil. I saw a youtube video where this British BBQ guy smoked the brisket for 2 hours then put it in a foil pan with some beer - said you could use cola too. then covered it with foil for the rest of the time. Any thoughts on this - or is this just a British thing! :) (no offense to any Brits who might be reading this!)

Finally - Woods -
I use apple for like everything! Anytime I've used anything else I get complaints from the family that it's too smokey tasting.
I have few handfuls of hickory chips, some chunks of apple, and a new bag of Mesquite that I was saving for my next Chicken endeavor.

What say you on this topic????

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Gary
 
I have a dream of perfecting the flat. Only because quality flats are readily available in my area and they are easy to handle. The problem is they are easy to dry out. I would focus on adding and maintaining moisture as much as possible. The best briskets I have done involve a period of smoke and then wrapping. The usual advice is wrap at 165. A lot of guys pan them. I am torn on panning at this point, but I am also a relative newbie, so I am sure they will be along to explain that technique. When I wrap, I add a mop - type sauce of butter, beef stock, worcestershire sauce, and maybe some Accent (msg). A 5 lb brisket is easy to dry out, so I would stay on top of it.

The last one I did, I marinated it in some beef broth, etc. and that worked pretty well. Another technique I am interested is putting a rack over the meat and putting the fat trimming on it, so the fat renders over the top of the meat.

As far as a rub goes, I am all about quality meat, quality heat and salt and pepper. That's it. I did add a little garlic and onion powder to the mix for the last flat I did, and I am not sure it made a huge difference. I really think the heat and the meat are the two most important factors, at least for eating bbq at home. Competition bbq is a different animal.

Anyway, enough blather! Good luck with your cook!

Keith

edit: here is recent flat cook I did: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/244850/baby-flat-quick-weekday-cook
 
Last edited:
Everybody has their own way of smoking a flat.

This is how I do it.

Trim most of the fat off, dust it with Montreal Steak seasoning.

Put it in a pan with a can of beef stock, or French onion soup.

Put trimmed fat on a rack above the brisket to self baste it.

Smoke at 225 until 205 or probe tender.

If you want you can cover the pan with foil at 170 or so, but I don't. I like the thick bark.

Hope this helps.

Al
 
Well, We're smokin'!

Fired up the WSM about 6:30 this morning. Got it to settle in at 225 and got the brisket going.

I decided to go with salt (combination of sea salt and table salt - that's all I had on hand!) & fresh ground pepper instead of a rub - I also had a little montreal steak seasoning left so I threw some of that on there too!

I'm coming up on the 3 hour mark. It's just under 5lbs so I'm figuring this will take 8-9 hours. Dinner is not until 6 so I have a little wiggle room but I would really like it to rest at least an hour.

I'm thinking about probing it and putting it in a foil pan with a little beef broth and covering the pan with foil at the 4 hour mark and then wrapping it in foil when it hits 170 and then pulling it at 190 -195 (ish). - or I just may forget about the foil pan thing and wrap it at 170. I'm just thinking that the beef broth may help keep it moist.

decisions, decisions!

Stay Tuned!
 
7:30 pm - Dinner is over. Everyone said the Brisket was good - not amazing - but good. I also smoked a couple of racks of ribs and reheated some pulled pork from a previous smoke.  Basically we ended up with a combo BBQ plate!  The Ribs and Pork were pretty tasty! (Basically I wanted to cover my bases in case the Brisket totally sucked!).  It's my son's birthday today so there were more folks here than usual for dinner. He also worked on a competition BBQ team a few summers ago, so the boy knows good BBQ.

So, here's what I ended up doing with the brisket.

At 4.5 hours, I put the Brisket in a foil pan, added 1 cup of beef broth and covered it. Meat Temp was 156. Smoker Temp was 225

Within an hour, it jumped to 172.

Pulled it out of the foil pan, wrapped it in foil with a little bit of the juice from the pan.

Within another hour, it jumped to 196.

Pulled it from the smoker, wrapped it in towels. Don't have a cooler (long story) but put it in a cardboard box to keep it hot and to let it rest.

6.5 hours total smoke time.

Let it sit for 3.5 hours before I cut and served it.

Very tender, a little on the dry side - pulled apart easily but didn't have much moisture.

I'm a little disappointed. There's always next time!

Smoke meat is good food!

Gary
 
There's always a need for pic's as well!:biggrin: Glad it mostly turned out for you,and you could of just covered the pan with foil instead of removing and wrapping if you wanted.
 
hello everyone, i cooked my first brisket 2 weeks ago on my 22.5 wsm and it turned out fantastic.

i started it of by rubbing it withe paprika salt and black pepper the night before. in the morning i started the coals off at about 10.15am once the temp was up to 225 i put the brisket on oh i did use the water pan and used boiling water i let it cook up until 165 then wrapped it until it reached 200 i did not use any mops or sauces, i basically left it cooking and went shopping when i got back it was still sitting at the same temp
i am new to this ive had the wsm about 3 weeks but did have an offsett last year that i think is to much hard work not to put it down as i did some fine food on it
 
 
hello everyone, i cooked my first brisket 2 weeks ago on my 22.5 wsm and it turned out fantastic.

i started it of by rubbing it withe paprika salt and black pepper the night before. in the morning i started the coals off at about 10.15am once the temp was up to 225 i put the brisket on oh i did use the water pan and used boiling water i let it cook up until 165 then wrapped it until it reached 200 i did not use any mops or sauces, i basically left it cooking and went shopping when i got back it was still sitting at the same temp
i am new to this ive had the wsm about 3 weeks but did have an offsett last year that i think is to much hard work not to put it down as i did some fine food on it
I see this is your first post, so at your leisure could you please go over to Roll call & introduce yourself.

That way we can all give you a proper welcome.

BTW Your brisket looks delicious!

Al
 
Yeah, I always forget about the pic thing! Will take some for sure next time!
 
hello everyone, i cooked my first brisket 2 weeks ago on my 22.5 wsm and it turned out fantastic.
i started it of by rubbing it withe paprika salt and black pepper the night before. in the morning i started the coals off at about 10.15am once the temp was up to 225 i put the brisket on oh i did use the water pan and used boiling water i let it cook up until 165 then wrapped it until it reached 200 i did not use any mops or sauces, i basically left it cooking and went shopping when i got back it was still sitting at the same temp


i am new to this ive had the wsm about 3 weeks but did have an offsett last year that i think is to much hard work not to put it down as i did some fine food on it

Good looking Brisket!

Start your own Thread, that way people can comment on it more personally to you and award you Points!
 
Consider injecting the brisket next time. That will allow you to get the flavor and moisture all the way into the beef. Even if it is just seasoned beef broth to keep the natural beef flavor it will help.
 
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