Well I tried smoking my first brisket this weekend. FAIL! I had decent bark and flavor, but it was pretty damn dry.
I started with a 17# packer. It went in whole last night around 6:00 pm. I seasoned it using nothing but SPOG (used cracked pepper).
Smoked with a mixture of hickory and pecan in my MES. Smoker temp held pretty constant 225-235 for the whole smoke. I was not planning to wrap or use the crutch, for a first timer, I think that was a mistake. Everything was progressing rather well and I was suprised that there seemed to be be no lengthy stall. It just cooked through. Up until this point in time the flat and point were only a couple of degrees apart, then they really started to gap apart. Around 185 I opened up the smoke to check the progress and decided to separate the flat and point and wrap them in foil. There was a lot of shrinkage overall. I pulled both just past 200, wrapped them in towels and placed them in the cooler for a couple of hours. The flat was drier than I had hope for and so was the point, even though it was much more tender. The flavor was good, but I need to do better on the next one.
I started with a 17# packer. It went in whole last night around 6:00 pm. I seasoned it using nothing but SPOG (used cracked pepper).
Smoked with a mixture of hickory and pecan in my MES. Smoker temp held pretty constant 225-235 for the whole smoke. I was not planning to wrap or use the crutch, for a first timer, I think that was a mistake. Everything was progressing rather well and I was suprised that there seemed to be be no lengthy stall. It just cooked through. Up until this point in time the flat and point were only a couple of degrees apart, then they really started to gap apart. Around 185 I opened up the smoke to check the progress and decided to separate the flat and point and wrap them in foil. There was a lot of shrinkage overall. I pulled both just past 200, wrapped them in towels and placed them in the cooler for a couple of hours. The flat was drier than I had hope for and so was the point, even though it was much more tender. The flavor was good, but I need to do better on the next one.