Brisket is on probe help

[binnesman]

Brisket is on and wanted to know if probe is in good spot. First brisket ever so don’t beat me up on the trim did best I could lol.

 

[binnesman]

Smoking the beef tallow and using a water pan with apple juice.

 

[indaswamp]

As long as the tip of the probe is in meat and not fat, you should be good. That area is where the point and the flat meet and there is a large section of fat between them. I usually put the probe in the thickest part of the point on the point end....

 

[binnesman]

Indaswap so I should move it down?

 

[thirdeye]

I stick them in the thick part of the flat while avoiding the seam between the flat and point. But I spot check with an instant read, and make the final call on the 'feel' not a temperature.

 

[indaswamp]

thirdeye got ya covered....

 

[SmokinAl]

Yea your gonna wanna check it with an instant read in several spots when you think it is done, and you may have to re-position the probe to the area where the temp is the lowest.
Al

 

[tallbm]

Brisket is on and wanted to know if probe is in good spot. First brisket ever so don’t beat me up on the trim did best I could lol.

Getting a probe correctly placed is almost like an art.
I always suggest people aim for the thickest yet center post portion of the Flat muscle.
The probe placement in Thirdeye's picture is a pretty good example.

The Flat muscle is the problem child and is what needs to be checked thoroughly. The Point muscle will get tender and read hotter sooner than the flat like 99% of the time so it is best to avoid putting your only temp probe into the Point and instead put it in the Flat as discussed.

Finally, I can't stress how difficult it is to get proper probe placement into a brisket. Here is a picture I took where I put 5 different probes (indicated by arrows) aiming for the thickest yet center most spot of the flat muscle but I went in from different angles and parts of the brisket.
Notice how only 1 of the 5 hit the sweet spot and you have various different readings. I follow what the lowest one says and probe at 200F according to the lowest prob.
Again normally I just use 3 probes but I did this to post an example of why people talk about briskets being done at wildly different temps.
I feel the differences in reported temps are easily affected by the difficulty in probe placement:

Just remember the meat is ready when it is is tender and the IT of the meat tell you when to stab all over to check for tenderness :)