First time home brisket smoker help

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RikeSilvermist

Newbie
Original poster
Jul 5, 2020
10
0
Ok so I used to work in a bbq place nearby and have never had trouble like I am at home. I bought a nice brisket for a party, about 14 or 15 lbs, I was smoking low and slow all day and all night and the point is stalling at about 130 and has been for hours. I have a water bath in the bottom of the smoker, wrapped the meat early this morning and it still wont go past 130. I am using an Oklahoma Joe offset smoker using a blend of lump charcoal and hickory logs.
 
A couple things to check.........if you've been sitting at 130 for that long your pit isn't nearly as hot as you may think it is. You need to verify pit temp with an ambient probe and don't rely on the guages. OR your probe in meat could be bad and you need to test that to verify.
 
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A couple things to check.........if you've been sitting at 130 for that long your pit isn't nearly as hot as you may think it is. You need to verify pit temp with an ambient probe and don't rely on the guages. OR your probe in meat could be bad and you need to test that to verify.
Just checked them like I would a regular thermometer with ice water and they checked out. I bought a 4 probe digital and have one by the meat to check the actual temp and one inside at the point.
 
so this is what I have setup
 

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You said you been smoking all night and morning then it's been at 130 for several hours afterwards......how many total hours you been cooking?
 
now it's been smoking since about 10 am yesterday and it's about 1 pm now. I looked up the size and it said it could take about 22hours because of the size but now I'm past that point.
 
nope, salt rub for a day, then a dry rub before putting it on. I have a water pan in there and two drip pans and have sprayed it every so often with ACV before I wrapped it early this morning.
 
I'm no food safety expert but 27 hours to reach 130° could be a safety issue. There is no real feasible reason your brisket shouldn't be closer to target temp by now other than a pit temp issue. But you say probes are good. Maybe keep smoking and wait around for someone else to chime in. I'm sure several have seen this thread
 
I'm no food safety expert but 27 hours to reach 130° could be a safety issue. There is no real feasible reason your brisket shouldn't be closer to target temp by now other than a pit temp issue. But you say probes are good. Maybe keep smoking and wait around for someone else to chime in. I'm sure several have seen this thread
it's wrapped and someone advised that I cut it in the center, if I do that won't it destroy the meat?
 
So I think I figured out where I went wrong, each smoker is unique and works differently, mine seems to need a bit of a higher temp, about 250-275. Also I didn't trim my brisket so there is a lot of fat to render off of it and that my be what was taking it so long.
 
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