Brisket struggles

[CJDrums]

put a 8.7lb prime flat on the Traeger this morning at 6am. It has been in the fridge soaking up the rub for about 12 hours. Temp set at 250, I put it on and I hit 170 degrees within a pinch over two hours. That seems odd to me. I’m now at a little over 4 hours and it’s at 186 degrees. It’s been here 182-186 for about an hour and a half....

After hitting 170 so fast, I turned it down to 170. Wrap? No wrap? I have a foil tin I was going to put the brisket in it with Worcestershire and beef broth. Thoughts?

 

[smokerjim]

some people wrap some don't, I would say you will have to put the heat back up though to get it to 200-210 internal once you hit around 200 start probing to check for tenderness.

 

[pigbark]

How did it go ?

 

[illini40]

How did it turn out? How long did it take to finish up?

 

[CJDrums]

Got lucky! So it jumped up in temp so fast, I was afraid it was going to over cook. There wasn’t much of a stall at all. It got up to about 180 and kinda stayed there for about an hour then jumped up to 192. Yikes! That was only about 4 hours in. I grabbed a foil pan, put the brisket in it with beef broth and Worcestershire and the liquid brought temps back down to 177. It stayed there for about an hour. I turned heat back to 250 and rode it out. Never wrapped it. This is the best meat I’ve ever done! I used garlic salt, pepper and a pepper-crushed coffee rub. All total, this meat was 8.69 pounds and it was about a 7 hour and 45 minute ride. I did wrap in foil and a towel and threw it in my Orca cooler for about 2.5 hours. Was amazing!

 

[gmc2003]

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Judging by your reaction and pics you definitely WON. Nice Job. Meat just seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes. You just never know how it's going to react.

Point for sure
Chris

 

[smokerjim]

we got a winner, looks great

 

[pigbark]

Winner Winner Brisket Dinner..

looks good man..

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!
Good to hear it all came out well.

Getting proper placement of the temp probe in a brisket is not an easy thing. I run 3 probes in my briskets and I try to get in the thickest yet center most portion of the flat to get the best reading.
Why 3 probes? Because I usually only get 1 placed in the sweet spot hahahaha.

I honestly think this is why people find some extreme differences in when they report their brisket being done.
I run a HeaterMeter PID controller that has 1 smoker probe and 3 meat probes and it graphically tracks and records all my temps. I'm amazed every time I do a brisket and see how often 1 probe is leading in Internal Temp (IT) and then loses the lead to another probe or the probe that was lagging behind the others for most of the smoke turns out to read higher at the end. It's like a wild horse race and then in the end I usually have 1 probe in the ballpark of 201-203F while the others are a little or A LOT higher lol. The tenderness test usually passes when the lowest temp probe is in the sweet spot of brisket temp tenderness (200-205F).

Each piece of meat is different of coarse but knowing how quirky a brisket temp rises and how easy it is to NOT get in the right spot really helps when working to ensure the meat comes out goooooooood :)

So you know I'm not pulling your leg about my smoker recordings the following is a recorded smoke I have posted the image of before. I think it's a pork butt smoke but you get the idea :)

chuckieSmoke.png

• tallbm
• Jun 24, 2017

 

[dannylang]

man that brisket looks great. cjdrums
dannylang