Cook times: Packer vs. Flat

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scvinegarpepper

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Feb 23, 2010
188
77
Lowcountry, SC
Hey friends, it's been a while. I've got a question about cook times for brisky. I've cooked my fair share of brisket. But for the last few years, I've only done whole packers. I picked up a 6.5# flat today that I plan on smoking for the 4th. And I'm trying to determine when to start.

When I cook a whole packer, it's definitely an "overnight" smoke for me. I want to have it ready late afternoon/dinner time on Wednesday. So I'm trying to decide if I should start it Tuesday night, and possibly have it ready earlier in the day and keep it wrapped in a cooler. Or, if I can get away with starting it early Wednesday morning. It's just been so damn long since I've cooked a flat, and don't know if I've done a flat only that's over 6 pounds. Thanks for any advice.
 
Been a while since I cooked just a flat, but assuming your cook temp is around 225 I would think five or six hours.
Thanks, friend. Yep, that's about right. I hover between 225 and 250 for the most part. Might just fire this thing up bright and early Wednesday morning and hopefully it'll be good to go for dinner time.
 
I can't speak for flats alone but when I run 275F on full packers I get 50min-1hr a pound. I think you could get away with an early morning attempt and if it starts to linger you can foil it and crank up the temp with plenty of time :)
 
I got this in my e-mail today and it really explains how to smoke a brisket flat.
It is quite long & detailed, but I copied it & hopefully it will all come thru.
It is a lot of reading, but worth the time. You may want to just print it out.
Hope this helps!
Al


Texas BBQ Rub


Case Study – Brisket Flat


July 2018



Here are 2 Case Studies about cooking brisket flats that we promised you. Each Case Study is packed with actionable information. There are some golden knowledge nuggets that relate to everything you cook found in these case studies. So read them and enjoy them.


The first Case Study was a brisket flat that I cooked. Hour by hour we go thru the cooking process with hour by hour internal temperature reads as well as what the brisket flat is looking like as it cooked. We also give you the recipe for the injection I used as well as cooking temps and then the final internal temperature of the brisket.


The second Case Study resulted from one of our subscribers sending me an email and then a telephone conversation I had with him about what went wrong in his cook. We give you the corrections I told him to make and why we made those corrections. He did another brisket a few days later and you can see the result of that in the case study.





Case Study # 1


Here is an hour by hour actual brisket flat cook I cooked.


I purchased a flat from Sam’s Club. It was approximately thick all the way thru the brisket so nice and even for an even cook. The fat cap was about ¼ of an inch thick with some light fat over about 20% of the meat side of the brisket. Nice marbling of the brisket with visual fat running thru the brisket in many of the grains in the brisket.


10 AM - mixed the injection (see below) and injected the brisket. I used about 2/3 of the mix for this step and I reserved the rest for later to add to the brisket when it was wrapped.


Injection used:


2 cups of beef stock purchased at the store

1 stick of unsalted butter

¼ cup of Texas BBQ Rub’s Brisket Rub

1 tsp of table salt

1 tbsp of worchestershire sauce (French’s)


Placed the beef stock in a saucepan and added the stick of butter. Using low heat (don’t want to burn or boil) heated the stock and butter until they were melted. Stirred occasionally to help mix the two together. Added the ¼ cup of Rub, the salt, and the worchestershire sauce and stirred while the saucepan was on the stove until all ingredients were mixed together. I wanted the salts and sugars to melt down and dissolve into the liquid and that took about 15 minutes on the stove at low temps.


I then removed the saucepan and poured the mixture thru cheesecloth to remove all of the larger pieces of spices. This will allow the liquid to flow freely into and out of the injection needle with our clogging. Now I had a good injection ready to go.


I placed the brisket flat still in the cryovac package meat side up in a ½ size aluminum pan. Using the injection liquid I injected the brisket flat while it was in the cryovac package (I just poked the needle thru the cryovac package about every 2 inches on the met side of the brisket flat. You should inject at different depths in the meat and move the needle up while still injecting as you go for each of the needle penetrations. This will get the injection thoroughly inside the brisket. Also inject the sides of the brisket flat. You should see the injection running down the marbling of the brisket as you are injecting it. You might be wondering why we kept the brisket in side of the cryovac package as we were injecting it. By leaving the cryovac package on the brisket and injecting thru the cryovac package as it is sitting in an aluminum pan will keep the injection from going everywhere as you shoot it into the brisket and any overflow will just be captured inside of the cryovac package. We then took this injected brisket and placed it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.


11 AM – We removed the brisket flat from the refrigerator and flipped the brisket over so that the fat cap was now on top and facing us. Use a knife and cut a slit the length of the cryovac bag down the middle of the bag. If you cut into the fat cap it does not hurt a thing but don’t get such a deep cut as to go thru the fat cap and into the meat. Remove the cryovac packaging and place the brisket fat side up in the aluminum pan. Now using Texas BBQ Rub’s Simple 1-2-3 Method put some worcherstershire sauce on the fat cap. Rub that in with your hands and then flip the brisket over so the meat side is now facing up. Again use about a ¼ cup of worchestershire sauce over the meat side of the brisket and then directly over that apply about ½ to ¾ cup of Texas BBQ Rub’s Brisket Rub to the top (meat side) of the brisket. Apply about a 1/8 inch to ¼ inch thickness of the rub and cover the meat side and the sides entirely with the rub that will mix in with the worchestershire sauce that you had applied earlier. We are not going to put any rub on the fat cap as we will cook the brisket fat down on the pit and the rub would just fall off over the cooking time. Remove the brisket from the aluminum pan and place the brisket on the pit fat side down. The temperature of the pit was 225 degrees. Noticed a 10 to 20 degree temperature decline in pit temperature as the cold meat and opening the pit lowered the temp. Did not make any adjustments to the fire as the drop in temperature when the cold meat was added is normal and there is no need to increase the fire trying to catch it back up to 225 degrees. It will take maybe 1 hour or so for the fire temperature to catch up just added the normal amount of wood to maintain temp.


– I did not take an internal temp of the meat as it has not had enough time to really start its climb in temperature. Maintain heat around 225. Had a few variations in temperature from 220 to about 238 but that is normal during cooking and nothing to be concerned with.


– 2 hours into the cook and internal meat temperature is now at 140 degrees. Just been maintaining the heat range and averaged about 220 degrees for this hour. Brisket is beginning to get a brown color to it at this point.


– 3 hours into the cook and internal meat temperature is now at 151 degrees. Fire has been maintained at an average of 225 to 230 degrees.


– 4 hours into the cook and the internal meat temperature is now 164 degrees. Fire has been averaging about 230 degrees. Brisket is looking very nice right now. It is a mahogany colored brown with a very moist look on the outside of the brisket. I will wrap it in a few minutes as I wrap not by temperature but by the looks of the brisket. In other words when I get the color I like on the brisket it is time to wrap it up regardless of the internal temperature of the brisket. At this point when inserting the temperature probe the internal meat of the brisket is still very stiff and has a lot of resistance to the probe being forced into the meat.


At 164 degrees internal temp the brisket is in what many people call the stall (this stall temperature range can be anywhere between 150 to 170 degrees as every brisket is just different in its make up). The stall happens as the brisket collagen begins to break down inside of the brisket and the stall can lasts for upwards to 2 hours where there is no significant increase in the internal temperature of the brisket. Once the collagen breaks down the internal temperature of the brisket will begin to rise and will be rising quicker than what you had observed in the early stages of the cooking.


– 4 ½ hours into the cook. Took two pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil about long and double wrapped the brisket. Carefully poured the remaining injection mix on the sides of the brisket not directly over it as I did not want to wash off any bark build up. The reason for the double wrapping is to prevent any loss of the au jour that we are creating over the remainder of the cooking process if for any reason a hole gets in the first wrap or second wrap of foil. This can happen and you just don’t want to lose the juices that are keeping the brisket moist as it finishes cooking and we also want the au jour we are now creating to use to pour over slices of brisket as they are served or to hold for the next day if we have some brisket left over.


The actual feel of the brisket as I picked it up to move to the wrapping stage was the brisket is now stiff. It has no give in it if you were to hold it in the middle of the brisket. This is what happens to a brisket as the collagen in the brisket starts to tighten and contract in the early stages of the collagen starting to break down. We are on target to have a tender moist brisket as we finish breaking down the collagen and get the brisket tender. This will take another 2 or 4 hours to get where you want to go.


– 5 hours into the cooking of the brisket. Internal temperature of the brisket is now 162 degrees. Actually lost 2 degrees of temperature over the last hour. This occurred because the brisket was off of the pit for about 10 minutes as it was being wrapped up. Don’t make any radical adjustments to the fire of your pit. Don’t throw on more wood or charcoal just because the temperature of the brisket is not climbing at this stage. Maintain the normal fire you have had over the first 5 hours of the cooking process. The brisket can take a couple of hours for the collagen to break apart and become almost a jelly in the meat. This is normal and it occurs in all briskets, whole or flats. Once the collagen breaks apart we will see an increase in the internal temperature of the brisket. In fact the temperature will actually be climbing higher much faster than what we saw in the early cooking stages.


– 6 hours into the brisket flat cook. OK over the last hour the collagen in the brisket has broken and the internal temperature of the meat is 182 degrees. There is still a hard resistance of feel when sticking the probe into the meat so it is not tender at this point. Remember our target temperature is somewhere in the 200 degree range. It could be higher or a bit lower but for almost all briskets it will be higher than 200 degrees. You can see that once the collagen in the brisket breaks apart and becomes like a jelly in the meat we see increases in the internal meat temperature and they are pretty fast rising. I am thinking another hour and we will have an internal temperature of approximately 200 degrees and it will just be about tenderness at that point. Patience is key. This brisket is fully cooked and could be served at this temperature but it just won’t be that tender brisket you are looking for so wait for the good brisket tenderness which should be about an hour from now. Just a note that the temperature in the pit has been about 235 degrees over the last hour. A little over the range I set in my mind early in the planning process but once the brisket is wrapped up a few degrees will not hurt it. This happens as the meat begins to heat up and therefore it does not take quite as much fuel to keep the pit at your target temperature.


– 7 hours into our cook of a brisket flat. Remember we have an internal meat target temperature of around 200 to 205 degrees, but it could be higher and we are going to feel the meat for resistance as we stick the probe into the meat. We are looking for very little resistance on the probe as it is slid into the meat. Almost like sliding the probe into a tub of margarine would be something to compare with. Internal temperature of the brisket flat is now 198 degrees and even though we are close to our 200 degree temperature the meat is not yet tender. Still have some resistance to the probe when it is inserted to get our internal temperature. Another 30 minutes perhaps. This is the reason you cannot cook a brisket based on internal temperatures alone or just a guess on the time of your cook.


– 7 ½ hours after we put the brisket flat on. Internal temperature is now 204 degrees and most importantly the feel of the probe on the thermometer as we pushed it into the brisket is still having some resistance. It is much better than 30 minutes ago but it is not quite there yet. We will give it another 30 minutes or so and do another test. If you are using a meat thermometer that you put in the meat at the beginning of the cook and watch temperatures as the meat is cooking you will not be getting the feel part of this. It is important to not just rely on temperature alone you must feel the meat with some kind of a probe. An ice pick works great. Here is the deal internal meat thermometers will get you in the range but it is the feel of the meat that will get you that really tender brisket.


– It has now been 8 ¼ hours since the brisket flat was put on the smoker. We have run a consistent temperature range of 220 to 240 degrees over the entire cooking process. Internal temperature of the brisket is 211 degrees and the feel of it is good and tender. Take it off the pit and when you pick it up you feel how relaxed the brisket is in your hands. If you pick it up on the edges the middle will collapse and if you pick it up in the middle you will feel the edges dropping. Now we are going to let it rest for 1 hour. If you like to add BBQ sauce you can add it now. I like to place my brisket in an aluminum pan at this point so if any juices start to get out of the wrapping you will have them captured in the pan and it makes for easier clean up.


– 9 hours and 15 minutes from the time we put the brisket on the pit we can now slice it. By allowing the brisket to rest for an hour you are allowing the juices inside of the brisket to redistribute thru the brisket and you are allowing the temperature of the brisket to cool down which will allow for better slices as you cut it. Remove the brisket from the aluminum foil and from the pan and place on a cutting board and slice across the grain of the brisket. Save the juices that accumulated in the foil and in the pan. Set aside and you can use that natural juice to pour over the brisket slices. The grain on the flat only runs in one direction over the entire piece of meat. Cut into ¼ to 3/8 inch thick slices. Add a little au jour over the slices and if you are serving BBQ sauce serve it on the side. This brisket was full of juices and tender. Smoke ring about 3/8 of an inch nice and dark red in color. As you slice you will notice the fat cap on the bottom of the slices. Just cut it off to make really nice pretty serving pieces. That fat cap has done two things for you – first it has protected the meat from the heat coming up from the bottom of the pit during this 8 hour cook and second it has rendered some fabulous tasting juices for you to use to pour over the slices. That juice cannot be bought anywhere at any price you can only make it when you cook a brisket. Enjoy the rewards of the cook brisket with family and friends.


To make the great au jour sauce for the brisket:


After the brisket has rested for the 1 hour drain off the juices in the foil by simply cutting a hole on one of the sides of the foil at the bottom of brisket and draining the juices into a fat separator (if you don’t have one use a large cup or container about 2 cups). Take the fat separator or cup and let it sit for a few minutes and the fat will come to the top. Remove with a spoon and the juices that are left are heavenly on the brisket.


This is just a guide for you. Every brisket is a bit different so cooking times could be a little shorter or longer depending on the brisket flat. Higher cooking temperatures will shorten the overall cooking time but beware the higher the temperature goes the greater chance you will have to end up with a dried out brisket. Most of the guys cooking at high temperatures have years of experience and even then it requires a constant watching of the meat as it is cooking. I will do a high temperature cook in the near future but if you are just starting out cooking brisket try to cook at 220 to 230 degrees as the finished brisket is worth the extra time it takes you to cook. I have been cooking briskets for over 40 years and I still cook briskets low and slow because the finished product is, in my opinion, that much better than the fast cooking methods.



Case Study # 2 – A Customer and I talk about his brisket flat cooking and what went wrong and how we corrected it and made all of the difference in the world for his next brisket flat


I get emails from people all of the time asking me questions relating to cooking on a pit. This was an actual email I got a while ago from a guy (and I am not going to tell you his name but for our discussion we are gonna call him Mac). He is located in the Midwest part of the US.


I know you will get some great information out of this.


So Mac sends me an email right after he had cooked a brisket flat. Here is what his email said:


“Dear Bill:

I just smoked a 4.5 lb brisket at 220 for 6 hours. I rapped it after 4 and used apple wood chunks. It was completely dried out. How long should I cook a 5 lb brisket for and at what temperature.”

Love your products

Thank you

Mac


Pretty cool sounds like he did good on his temperature and the timing was OK as an estimated time when you start. But what happened?


So the first thing that I want you to think about is the information that he provided me was good but was it complete enough for me to answer his question about what happened?

So the first thing I did was to write down the questions I had about the cook that he had not given me in his first email. Here were the questions I needed answers to so I could help him and get him cooking a great brisket.


1. This obviously is a brisket flat not a whole brisket but that is important information for you to know because there are some differences in the cooking of the 2 pieces of meat

2. How accurate are your thermometers – both for reading the temperature of the pit and for reading the temperature of the internal temp of the meat

3. Did you cook fat side up or fat side down

4. Did you inject the brisket flat

5. When you wrapped the brisket flat did you add any moisture to the package for the brisket to work with as it cooks

6. When the brisket had finished cooking – How did the brisket feel and what was the internal temperature of the brisket

7. Was the meat tough

8. What grade of meat did you use


We have covered all of these questions in our Articles to you but there is a lot going on when you actually get out there and start the process. Not knowing all of the answers to these questions instead of writing emails back and forth I picked up the phone to talk to him and not only get the answers to these questions but once I had the answers I would know how to coach him so he can get a good brisket.


Our conversation on the phone answered the questions and here is what we talked about in a nut shell.


Question 1 - this was a brisket flat he picked up at a butcher shop

Question 2 – He used the thermometer on the pit as his guide for his cooking temperature and used a thermapen to get the internal temperature of the brisket

Question 3 – He said there was no fat cap on this brisket. The butcher had trimmed the entire fat cap off of the brisket

Question 4 – He did not inject the brisket flat

Question 5 – He did wrap at 4 hours and he added my BBQ sauce recipe to the package

when he was wrapping

Question 6 – He really could not remember much about the feel but he said the internal temp was 200 degrees

Question 7 – The meat was a bit tough but it was really dried out

Question 8 – The butcher shop told him this was a USDA Choice cut of meat


Now we have the information to get to the problem of why the brisket dried out on him.


So the first potential problem as I talked to him was one that I believe so many people make and it is surely not your fault. This is the fault of the pit manufacturer but you need to be aware of this huge problem.


Here is the big problem with the temperature gauges that come on pits today. And I would guess at least 90 to 95 percent of pits have this problem and you need to be aware of it. The temperature gauges that come on these pits are just not accurate at all. And to make it even worse than that one fact they are all located at the very top of the lid which is one of the hottest places inside of the pit (and we sure don’t cook at the very top of the pit). That is a fact and in my experience you can have temperature differences of 20 to 50 degrees. And the gauges are all showing temperature that are 20 to 50 degrees lower than the actual cooking temp that is happening in your pit. This makes a huge difference in your cooking and it screws up cooking times and because of the additional heat that is actually taking place in the pit it is drying out the meat you are cooking.


Here is the solution. I told Mac to test the temperature of the pit at the cooking grate level. Go to the store and get yourself at least one oven thermometer (2 is better but one will work just fine) and fire up the pit and place the oven thermometer inside the pit on the cooking grate and then read the difference in the cooking temps. And move the thermometer around to different locations so you will see there are variations, hot and cold spots as we call them, inside of your pit. Every pit has hot and cold spots in it and when I mean cold spots it could just be 10 to 15 degrees different in a relative short distance from another place on the pit. Anyway Mac said he would do that and let me know what he found out.


The next day he sent me an email after he had gone to the store and picked up a couple of oven thermometers and fired up his pit and then placed the thermometers inside the pit in 2 locations on the cooking grate. Here is his email a day later:


“Hey Bill, you were 100% correct. I put charcoal in my grill and used the infuser. The smoker/grill said 220 degrees and my two different thermometers read 244 and 242 degrees. I guess I should cook my brisket around 200 using the grill thermometer as my gauge.”


So don’t believe the temperature of the thermometer that comes on these smokers/grills as they are all off. Do what Mac did and what I strongly urge you to do as this is a huge difference in temperatures. And I have seen them as high as 50 degrees off.


Mac had bought a nice little brisket flat but as he said “the butcher had trimmed off all of the fat, there was no fat cap, no fat at all and that is why I could not cook fat side down as you recommend. This was a Choice Grade Brisket according to the butcher.”


Second huge problem he had was no fat cap to place down on the smoker. We have covered the benefits of placing the fat cap down but with no fat cap what can you do. Mac told me when he goes back to get his next brisket flat he is going to tell the butcher to leave the fat cap on the flat. But what happens if you do have one well you can simply put the brisket flat in a ½ size aluminum pan and pour beef broth or beef stock into the pan and around the brisket flat to protect the meat. About ½ inch of broth in the pan will work nicely. Then cook with the brisket in the pan on the pit.


You must add moisture to the wrapping and in this case Mac used our BBQ Sauce recipe to add when the brisket was wrapped. Sauces work but the only problem with sauces is they are tomato based and in high temperatures they can burn and leave a really nasty flavor to the meat. So I use beef broth, beef stock, coke, Dr. Pepper, or my personal favorite is Coke Zero.


Third problem was no injection in the meat. The brisket flat is really pretty lean and with that being said (and we have covered this) you need to inject the brisket flat even if it has a fat cap on it. It is just the way to go with this piece of meat.


The last thing is he was just shy on his internal temp as he cooked to 200 degrees internal. I like 205 as my goal when I start but using the feel of the meat as your guide you may have to cook to temperatures above the 205 degree goal. I have had to cook a brisket up to 218 degrees before I got that nice feel of the brisket which will just give you a nice tender piece of meat.


So Mac made his adjustments and emailed me back a few days later to tell me he cooked the best brisket he had ever tasted. These were small types of adjustments in the overall cooking of a brisket but these small adjustments add up to big time differences in the final piece of meat.


Quick Recap”

1. Check the thermometers on your pit

2. Inject this piece of meat

3. Cook at 220 to 235 degrees

4. Wrap and add moisture to the wrapping

5. Cook until you get the feel of the meat. Around 205 degrees but maybe higher

6. Let the meat rest after cooking and then slice across the grain



Hope you learned something this Article is packed with information.


The big 4th of July cook is here in a day or two so get out there and enjoy the 4th of July with your family and friends.




Bill Cannon
 
I got this in my e-mail today and it really explains how to smoke a brisket flat.
It is quite long & detailed, but I copied it & hopefully it will all come thru.
It is a lot of reading, but worth the time. You may want to just print it out.
Hope this helps!
Al


Texas BBQ Rub


Case Study – Brisket Flat


July 2018



Here are 2 Case Studies about cooking brisket flats that we promised you. Each Case Study is packed with actionable information. There are some golden knowledge nuggets that relate to everything you cook found in these case studies. So read them and enjoy them.


The first Case Study was a brisket flat that I cooked. Hour by hour we go thru the cooking process with hour by hour internal temperature reads as well as what the brisket flat is looking like as it cooked. We also give you the recipe for the injection I used as well as cooking temps and then the final internal temperature of the brisket.


The second Case Study resulted from one of our subscribers sending me an email and then a telephone conversation I had with him about what went wrong in his cook. We give you the corrections I told him to make and why we made those corrections. He did another brisket a few days later and you can see the result of that in the case study.





Case Study # 1


Here is an hour by hour actual brisket flat cook I cooked.


I purchased a flat from Sam’s Club. It was approximately thick all the way thru the brisket so nice and even for an even cook. The fat cap was about ¼ of an inch thick with some light fat over about 20% of the meat side of the brisket. Nice marbling of the brisket with visual fat running thru the brisket in many of the grains in the brisket.


10 AM - mixed the injection (see below) and injected the brisket. I used about 2/3 of the mix for this step and I reserved the rest for later to add to the brisket when it was wrapped.


Injection used:


2 cups of beef stock purchased at the store

1 stick of unsalted butter

¼ cup of Texas BBQ Rub’s Brisket Rub

1 tsp of table salt

1 tbsp of worchestershire sauce (French’s)


Placed the beef stock in a saucepan and added the stick of butter. Using low heat (don’t want to burn or boil) heated the stock and butter until they were melted. Stirred occasionally to help mix the two together. Added the ¼ cup of Rub, the salt, and the worchestershire sauce and stirred while the saucepan was on the stove until all ingredients were mixed together. I wanted the salts and sugars to melt down and dissolve into the liquid and that took about 15 minutes on the stove at low temps.


I then removed the saucepan and poured the mixture thru cheesecloth to remove all of the larger pieces of spices. This will allow the liquid to flow freely into and out of the injection needle with our clogging. Now I had a good injection ready to go.


I placed the brisket flat still in the cryovac package meat side up in a ½ size aluminum pan. Using the injection liquid I injected the brisket flat while it was in the cryovac package (I just poked the needle thru the cryovac package about every 2 inches on the met side of the brisket flat. You should inject at different depths in the meat and move the needle up while still injecting as you go for each of the needle penetrations. This will get the injection thoroughly inside the brisket. Also inject the sides of the brisket flat. You should see the injection running down the marbling of the brisket as you are injecting it. You might be wondering why we kept the brisket in side of the cryovac package as we were injecting it. By leaving the cryovac package on the brisket and injecting thru the cryovac package as it is sitting in an aluminum pan will keep the injection from going everywhere as you shoot it into the brisket and any overflow will just be captured inside of the cryovac package. We then took this injected brisket and placed it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.


11 AM – We removed the brisket flat from the refrigerator and flipped the brisket over so that the fat cap was now on top and facing us. Use a knife and cut a slit the length of the cryovac bag down the middle of the bag. If you cut into the fat cap it does not hurt a thing but don’t get such a deep cut as to go thru the fat cap and into the meat. Remove the cryovac packaging and place the brisket fat side up in the aluminum pan. Now using Texas BBQ Rub’s Simple 1-2-3 Method put some worcherstershire sauce on the fat cap. Rub that in with your hands and then flip the brisket over so the meat side is now facing up. Again use about a ¼ cup of worchestershire sauce over the meat side of the brisket and then directly over that apply about ½ to ¾ cup of Texas BBQ Rub’s Brisket Rub to the top (meat side) of the brisket. Apply about a 1/8 inch to ¼ inch thickness of the rub and cover the meat side and the sides entirely with the rub that will mix in with the worchestershire sauce that you had applied earlier. We are not going to put any rub on the fat cap as we will cook the brisket fat down on the pit and the rub would just fall off over the cooking time. Remove the brisket from the aluminum pan and place the brisket on the pit fat side down. The temperature of the pit was 225 degrees. Noticed a 10 to 20 degree temperature decline in pit temperature as the cold meat and opening the pit lowered the temp. Did not make any adjustments to the fire as the drop in temperature when the cold meat was added is normal and there is no need to increase the fire trying to catch it back up to 225 degrees. It will take maybe 1 hour or so for the fire temperature to catch up just added the normal amount of wood to maintain temp.


– I did not take an internal temp of the meat as it has not had enough time to really start its climb in temperature. Maintain heat around 225. Had a few variations in temperature from 220 to about 238 but that is normal during cooking and nothing to be concerned with.


– 2 hours into the cook and internal meat temperature is now at 140 degrees. Just been maintaining the heat range and averaged about 220 degrees for this hour. Brisket is beginning to get a brown color to it at this point.


– 3 hours into the cook and internal meat temperature is now at 151 degrees. Fire has been maintained at an average of 225 to 230 degrees.


– 4 hours into the cook and the internal meat temperature is now 164 degrees. Fire has been averaging about 230 degrees. Brisket is looking very nice right now. It is a mahogany colored brown with a very moist look on the outside of the brisket. I will wrap it in a few minutes as I wrap not by temperature but by the looks of the brisket. In other words when I get the color I like on the brisket it is time to wrap it up regardless of the internal temperature of the brisket. At this point when inserting the temperature probe the internal meat of the brisket is still very stiff and has a lot of resistance to the probe being forced into the meat.


At 164 degrees internal temp the brisket is in what many people call the stall (this stall temperature range can be anywhere between 150 to 170 degrees as every brisket is just different in its make up). The stall happens as the brisket collagen begins to break down inside of the brisket and the stall can lasts for upwards to 2 hours where there is no significant increase in the internal temperature of the brisket. Once the collagen breaks down the internal temperature of the brisket will begin to rise and will be rising quicker than what you had observed in the early stages of the cooking.


– 4 ½ hours into the cook. Took two pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil about long and double wrapped the brisket. Carefully poured the remaining injection mix on the sides of the brisket not directly over it as I did not want to wash off any bark build up. The reason for the double wrapping is to prevent any loss of the au jour that we are creating over the remainder of the cooking process if for any reason a hole gets in the first wrap or second wrap of foil. This can happen and you just don’t want to lose the juices that are keeping the brisket moist as it finishes cooking and we also want the au jour we are now creating to use to pour over slices of brisket as they are served or to hold for the next day if we have some brisket left over.


The actual feel of the brisket as I picked it up to move to the wrapping stage was the brisket is now stiff. It has no give in it if you were to hold it in the middle of the brisket. This is what happens to a brisket as the collagen in the brisket starts to tighten and contract in the early stages of the collagen starting to break down. We are on target to have a tender moist brisket as we finish breaking down the collagen and get the brisket tender. This will take another 2 or 4 hours to get where you want to go.


– 5 hours into the cooking of the brisket. Internal temperature of the brisket is now 162 degrees. Actually lost 2 degrees of temperature over the last hour. This occurred because the brisket was off of the pit for about 10 minutes as it was being wrapped up. Don’t make any radical adjustments to the fire of your pit. Don’t throw on more wood or charcoal just because the temperature of the brisket is not climbing at this stage. Maintain the normal fire you have had over the first 5 hours of the cooking process. The brisket can take a couple of hours for the collagen to break apart and become almost a jelly in the meat. This is normal and it occurs in all briskets, whole or flats. Once the collagen breaks apart we will see an increase in the internal temperature of the brisket. In fact the temperature will actually be climbing higher much faster than what we saw in the early cooking stages.


– 6 hours into the brisket flat cook. OK over the last hour the collagen in the brisket has broken and the internal temperature of the meat is 182 degrees. There is still a hard resistance of feel when sticking the probe into the meat so it is not tender at this point. Remember our target temperature is somewhere in the 200 degree range. It could be higher or a bit lower but for almost all briskets it will be higher than 200 degrees. You can see that once the collagen in the brisket breaks apart and becomes like a jelly in the meat we see increases in the internal meat temperature and they are pretty fast rising. I am thinking another hour and we will have an internal temperature of approximately 200 degrees and it will just be about tenderness at that point. Patience is key. This brisket is fully cooked and could be served at this temperature but it just won’t be that tender brisket you are looking for so wait for the good brisket tenderness which should be about an hour from now. Just a note that the temperature in the pit has been about 235 degrees over the last hour. A little over the range I set in my mind early in the planning process but once the brisket is wrapped up a few degrees will not hurt it. This happens as the meat begins to heat up and therefore it does not take quite as much fuel to keep the pit at your target temperature.


– 7 hours into our cook of a brisket flat. Remember we have an internal meat target temperature of around 200 to 205 degrees, but it could be higher and we are going to feel the meat for resistance as we stick the probe into the meat. We are looking for very little resistance on the probe as it is slid into the meat. Almost like sliding the probe into a tub of margarine would be something to compare with. Internal temperature of the brisket flat is now 198 degrees and even though we are close to our 200 degree temperature the meat is not yet tender. Still have some resistance to the probe when it is inserted to get our internal temperature. Another 30 minutes perhaps. This is the reason you cannot cook a brisket based on internal temperatures alone or just a guess on the time of your cook.


– 7 ½ hours after we put the brisket flat on. Internal temperature is now 204 degrees and most importantly the feel of the probe on the thermometer as we pushed it into the brisket is still having some resistance. It is much better than 30 minutes ago but it is not quite there yet. We will give it another 30 minutes or so and do another test. If you are using a meat thermometer that you put in the meat at the beginning of the cook and watch temperatures as the meat is cooking you will not be getting the feel part of this. It is important to not just rely on temperature alone you must feel the meat with some kind of a probe. An ice pick works great. Here is the deal internal meat thermometers will get you in the range but it is the feel of the meat that will get you that really tender brisket.


– It has now been 8 ¼ hours since the brisket flat was put on the smoker. We have run a consistent temperature range of 220 to 240 degrees over the entire cooking process. Internal temperature of the brisket is 211 degrees and the feel of it is good and tender. Take it off the pit and when you pick it up you feel how relaxed the brisket is in your hands. If you pick it up on the edges the middle will collapse and if you pick it up in the middle you will feel the edges dropping. Now we are going to let it rest for 1 hour. If you like to add BBQ sauce you can add it now. I like to place my brisket in an aluminum pan at this point so if any juices start to get out of the wrapping you will have them captured in the pan and it makes for easier clean up.


– 9 hours and 15 minutes from the time we put the brisket on the pit we can now slice it. By allowing the brisket to rest for an hour you are allowing the juices inside of the brisket to redistribute thru the brisket and you are allowing the temperature of the brisket to cool down which will allow for better slices as you cut it. Remove the brisket from the aluminum foil and from the pan and place on a cutting board and slice across the grain of the brisket. Save the juices that accumulated in the foil and in the pan. Set aside and you can use that natural juice to pour over the brisket slices. The grain on the flat only runs in one direction over the entire piece of meat. Cut into ¼ to 3/8 inch thick slices. Add a little au jour over the slices and if you are serving BBQ sauce serve it on the side. This brisket was full of juices and tender. Smoke ring about 3/8 of an inch nice and dark red in color. As you slice you will notice the fat cap on the bottom of the slices. Just cut it off to make really nice pretty serving pieces. That fat cap has done two things for you – first it has protected the meat from the heat coming up from the bottom of the pit during this 8 hour cook and second it has rendered some fabulous tasting juices for you to use to pour over the slices. That juice cannot be bought anywhere at any price you can only make it when you cook a brisket. Enjoy the rewards of the cook brisket with family and friends.


To make the great au jour sauce for the brisket:


After the brisket has rested for the 1 hour drain off the juices in the foil by simply cutting a hole on one of the sides of the foil at the bottom of brisket and draining the juices into a fat separator (if you don’t have one use a large cup or container about 2 cups). Take the fat separator or cup and let it sit for a few minutes and the fat will come to the top. Remove with a spoon and the juices that are left are heavenly on the brisket.


This is just a guide for you. Every brisket is a bit different so cooking times could be a little shorter or longer depending on the brisket flat. Higher cooking temperatures will shorten the overall cooking time but beware the higher the temperature goes the greater chance you will have to end up with a dried out brisket. Most of the guys cooking at high temperatures have years of experience and even then it requires a constant watching of the meat as it is cooking. I will do a high temperature cook in the near future but if you are just starting out cooking brisket try to cook at 220 to 230 degrees as the finished brisket is worth the extra time it takes you to cook. I have been cooking briskets for over 40 years and I still cook briskets low and slow because the finished product is, in my opinion, that much better than the fast cooking methods.



Case Study # 2 – A Customer and I talk about his brisket flat cooking and what went wrong and how we corrected it and made all of the difference in the world for his next brisket flat


I get emails from people all of the time asking me questions relating to cooking on a pit. This was an actual email I got a while ago from a guy (and I am not going to tell you his name but for our discussion we are gonna call him Mac). He is located in the Midwest part of the US.


I know you will get some great information out of this.


So Mac sends me an email right after he had cooked a brisket flat. Here is what his email said:


“Dear Bill:

I just smoked a 4.5 lb brisket at 220 for 6 hours. I rapped it after 4 and used apple wood chunks. It was completely dried out. How long should I cook a 5 lb brisket for and at what temperature.”

Love your products

Thank you

Mac


Pretty cool sounds like he did good on his temperature and the timing was OK as an estimated time when you start. But what happened?


So the first thing that I want you to think about is the information that he provided me was good but was it complete enough for me to answer his question about what happened?

So the first thing I did was to write down the questions I had about the cook that he had not given me in his first email. Here were the questions I needed answers to so I could help him and get him cooking a great brisket.


1. This obviously is a brisket flat not a whole brisket but that is important information for you to know because there are some differences in the cooking of the 2 pieces of meat

2. How accurate are your thermometers – both for reading the temperature of the pit and for reading the temperature of the internal temp of the meat

3. Did you cook fat side up or fat side down

4. Did you inject the brisket flat

5. When you wrapped the brisket flat did you add any moisture to the package for the brisket to work with as it cooks

6. When the brisket had finished cooking – How did the brisket feel and what was the internal temperature of the brisket

7. Was the meat tough

8. What grade of meat did you use


We have covered all of these questions in our Articles to you but there is a lot going on when you actually get out there and start the process. Not knowing all of the answers to these questions instead of writing emails back and forth I picked up the phone to talk to him and not only get the answers to these questions but once I had the answers I would know how to coach him so he can get a good brisket.


Our conversation on the phone answered the questions and here is what we talked about in a nut shell.


Question 1 - this was a brisket flat he picked up at a butcher shop

Question 2 – He used the thermometer on the pit as his guide for his cooking temperature and used a thermapen to get the internal temperature of the brisket

Question 3 – He said there was no fat cap on this brisket. The butcher had trimmed the entire fat cap off of the brisket

Question 4 – He did not inject the brisket flat

Question 5 – He did wrap at 4 hours and he added my BBQ sauce recipe to the package

when he was wrapping

Question 6 – He really could not remember much about the feel but he said the internal temp was 200 degrees

Question 7 – The meat was a bit tough but it was really dried out

Question 8 – The butcher shop told him this was a USDA Choice cut of meat


Now we have the information to get to the problem of why the brisket dried out on him.


So the first potential problem as I talked to him was one that I believe so many people make and it is surely not your fault. This is the fault of the pit manufacturer but you need to be aware of this huge problem.


Here is the big problem with the temperature gauges that come on pits today. And I would guess at least 90 to 95 percent of pits have this problem and you need to be aware of it. The temperature gauges that come on these pits are just not accurate at all. And to make it even worse than that one fact they are all located at the very top of the lid which is one of the hottest places inside of the pit (and we sure don’t cook at the very top of the pit). That is a fact and in my experience you can have temperature differences of 20 to 50 degrees. And the gauges are all showing temperature that are 20 to 50 degrees lower than the actual cooking temp that is happening in your pit. This makes a huge difference in your cooking and it screws up cooking times and because of the additional heat that is actually taking place in the pit it is drying out the meat you are cooking.


Here is the solution. I told Mac to test the temperature of the pit at the cooking grate level. Go to the store and get yourself at least one oven thermometer (2 is better but one will work just fine) and fire up the pit and place the oven thermometer inside the pit on the cooking grate and then read the difference in the cooking temps. And move the thermometer around to different locations so you will see there are variations, hot and cold spots as we call them, inside of your pit. Every pit has hot and cold spots in it and when I mean cold spots it could just be 10 to 15 degrees different in a relative short distance from another place on the pit. Anyway Mac said he would do that and let me know what he found out.


The next day he sent me an email after he had gone to the store and picked up a couple of oven thermometers and fired up his pit and then placed the thermometers inside the pit in 2 locations on the cooking grate. Here is his email a day later:


“Hey Bill, you were 100% correct. I put charcoal in my grill and used the infuser. The smoker/grill said 220 degrees and my two different thermometers read 244 and 242 degrees. I guess I should cook my brisket around 200 using the grill thermometer as my gauge.”


So don’t believe the temperature of the thermometer that comes on these smokers/grills as they are all off. Do what Mac did and what I strongly urge you to do as this is a huge difference in temperatures. And I have seen them as high as 50 degrees off.


Mac had bought a nice little brisket flat but as he said “the butcher had trimmed off all of the fat, there was no fat cap, no fat at all and that is why I could not cook fat side down as you recommend. This was a Choice Grade Brisket according to the butcher.”


Second huge problem he had was no fat cap to place down on the smoker. We have covered the benefits of placing the fat cap down but with no fat cap what can you do. Mac told me when he goes back to get his next brisket flat he is going to tell the butcher to leave the fat cap on the flat. But what happens if you do have one well you can simply put the brisket flat in a ½ size aluminum pan and pour beef broth or beef stock into the pan and around the brisket flat to protect the meat. About ½ inch of broth in the pan will work nicely. Then cook with the brisket in the pan on the pit.


You must add moisture to the wrapping and in this case Mac used our BBQ Sauce recipe to add when the brisket was wrapped. Sauces work but the only problem with sauces is they are tomato based and in high temperatures they can burn and leave a really nasty flavor to the meat. So I use beef broth, beef stock, coke, Dr. Pepper, or my personal favorite is Coke Zero.


Third problem was no injection in the meat. The brisket flat is really pretty lean and with that being said (and we have covered this) you need to inject the brisket flat even if it has a fat cap on it. It is just the way to go with this piece of meat.


The last thing is he was just shy on his internal temp as he cooked to 200 degrees internal. I like 205 as my goal when I start but using the feel of the meat as your guide you may have to cook to temperatures above the 205 degree goal. I have had to cook a brisket up to 218 degrees before I got that nice feel of the brisket which will just give you a nice tender piece of meat.


So Mac made his adjustments and emailed me back a few days later to tell me he cooked the best brisket he had ever tasted. These were small types of adjustments in the overall cooking of a brisket but these small adjustments add up to big time differences in the final piece of meat.


Quick Recap”

1. Check the thermometers on your pit

2. Inject this piece of meat

3. Cook at 220 to 235 degrees

4. Wrap and add moisture to the wrapping

5. Cook until you get the feel of the meat. Around 205 degrees but maybe higher

6. Let the meat rest after cooking and then slice across the grain



Hope you learned something this Article is packed with information.


The big 4th of July cook is here in a day or two so get out there and enjoy the 4th of July with your family and friends.




Bill Cannon
Heeeey buddy! That was a fantastic read. But, I can't believe they didn't list the weight for the brisky in case 1. They didn't did they?! I read and re-read the beginning a few times to make sure I wasn't missing it.

Also, injecting it still in the cryo packaging is freaking brilliant!! I will definitely be doing that. Can't tell you how many times I've squirted marinade clear across my kitchen. Thank!
 
Heeeey buddy! That was a fantastic read. But, I can't believe they didn't list the weight for the brisky in case 1. They didn't did they?! I read and re-read the beginning a few times to make sure I wasn't missing it.

Also, injecting it still in the cryo packaging is freaking brilliant!! I will definitely be doing that. Can't tell you how many times I've squirted marinade clear across my kitchen. Thank!

Your right, I didn't see any mention of size, only uniform thickness.
If he got it at Sam's, I would think it would be a 6-7 pound brisket.
But with the way he cooked it, I think it would apply to any size.
The only difference would be overall cook time.
Al
 
Your right, I didn't see any mention of size, only uniform thickness.
If he got it at Sam's, I would think it would be a 6-7 pound brisket.
But with the way he cooked it, I think it would apply to any size.
The only difference would be overall cook time.
Al
Thanks, Al. I'm not around as often as I once was, but per the usual, you're spot on with great advice. I think I'm gonna roll with this in the morning. I'll get the Weber setup tonight with my charcoal fuse/ring and have everything in place so I can light it first thing in the am. Thanks!
 
Great read!! Im just wondering if the injection was cooled before injecting.....I. not too clear on that step. Would you want to inject with a warm fluid??
 
Thanks, Al. I'm not around as often as I once was, but per the usual, you're spot on with great advice. I think I'm gonna roll with this in the morning. I'll get the Weber setup tonight with my charcoal fuse/ring and have everything in place so I can light it first thing in the am. Thanks!


Just saw this, and was wondering how you made out Wednesday.

If you're interested, below is a link to one of mine:
A 3.75 pound Brisket Flat.
230° Smoker Temp.
Took about 10 hours.

Link:
Brisket Flat


Bear
 
Great read!! Im just wondering if the injection was cooled before injecting.....I. not too clear on that step. Would you want to inject with a warm fluid??


If you're going right in the Smoker, Warm is Fine.
If you're not going to smoke or cook it right away, cool the injection first. Then Refrigerate.

Bear
 
Just saw this, and was wondering how you made out Wednesday.

If you're interested, below is a link to one of mine:
A 3.75 pound Brisket Flat.
230° Smoker Temp.
Took about 10 hours.

Link:
Brisket Flat


Bear
Hey friend, everything turned out well. 6.5# flat, took about 8 hours at 225-250, IIRC. Once I hit the plateau, I wrapped it and moved to an oven to open up smoker space for some wings. Honestly, this was one of my better briskets. Brisky porn:
ElXmuwL.jpg
 
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