My first brisket...my experience

[bgaviator]

after much delay, I finally decided to try a brisket on the Kamado Joe. A brisket point to be exact. Found just the point at Trader Joe’s, which is perfect because I’m just feeding three people, and from what I understand the point is much more forgiving, so that’s what I wanted to try for my first cook. The brisket weighed 3.08 lbs at a cost of just over $15. I am unsure of the grade as the package didn’t say, but visually it looked to me like it had good fat marbling

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this cook. I’ve seen many videos and threads about wrapping. Foil or butcher paper. (Well, I don’t have butcher paper on hand, so that’s not even an option). Or should I just go naked? What kind of rub to use? Well, I went to Kroger the previous day to get some supplies and picked up some foil pans in case I decided to wrap. I also picked up two kinds of rub and I would make a game day decision on which one to use. I picked up a Private Selection 5 pepper/5 salt rub as well as a packet of Twisted Q Texas Bold.

I got the KJ started at just before 11am using a mix of oak and cherry, with a little more oak than cherry. I think I used 6-7 pieces of wood total. I decided to smoke at 225°. I had no idea how long this would take at these temps, but someone on a Facebook group suggested on between 6-8 hours. I used my CyberQ Cloud to hold temps steady at 225 and set a timer for 6 hours.

I made a game day decision to try the 5 pepper/salt blend and cook unwrapped

3 hours in I was at 148° internal and the bark still really hadn’t formed yet. My meat actually stayed in the upper 140s for quite a bit. Is it possible to hit a stall at that temp?

At about the 5 hour mark I was nowhere near to being done and dinner was going to be approaching soon. I decided to bump the cook temp to 250°. I let it go for another two hours and it still wasn’t where I needed it to be but it was almost there. At this point it was too late to eat this brisket for dinner, as from my research you should let brisket rest before slicing into it. I decided to bump the cook temp to 275° to get this thing done.

At 8 hours of cooking, my internal probe was showing 198° and I decided to probe it with the Thermapen. It was like butta. And the bark formation was excellent. I pulled it off and wrapped it in some foil, then around a towel and into my small igloo cooler. I had to get to bed in another hour so this is as long as I had to let it rest before wanting to sample a piece and then get it into the fridge.

Both my wife and I sampled it...it was awesome. Moist and tender. Light smoke that wasn’t too overpowering. Just right. My only gripe is that it seemed a tad overly salty. Maybe the salt content of that rub I used was just too much of a salt ratio compared to the pepper? Maybe the 5 different types of salt it contained may have made the rub too salty? I dunno. It was good, but that’s the only gripe I had about the rub.

I wrapped it back in the foil and put in fridge to cool. This morning I will vacuum seal it. We plan on heating it tonight for dinner. I have a sous vide unit, so I’ll probably reheat that way.

After my first cook, I wanted to share my experience and ask some questions of the community.

1. How do you feel about cooking at 275° the entire cook? Would I get more predictable cook times without any degradation to quality? I’d love to be able to speed up the process (I know wrapping can help too).

2. Is brisket rub typically pretty salty, or is it just the blend I used? If I make my own rub, would you go slightly heavier on pepper as opposed to salt? What are some of your favorite commercial rubs available?

3. When resting a brisket...what is the minimum amount of time to rest? I figured an hour, but maybe I’m wrong? Also, if you’re not needing to hold it for hours for like a later dinner or party, is there even a need to hold it in a cooler? Or could you just rest on the counter tented with some foil for an hour if you’re planning on eating it fairly soon after it comes off? Or just hold in an oven set at 170°?

4. What are recommended temperature and time settings for reheating via my sous vide? This will only be the second time I’ve used the sous vide unit so I’m still learning. Thanks all. I know this was a long post. Enjoy some pics I took of the cook!

 

[bgaviator]

Oh in case anyone was wondering what the package looked like from Trader Joe’s..

 

[mike243]

Looks great to me, I have used the twisted rub and thought it was good. Back off the rub amount on the other to knock some of the saltiness down, I will let others tell about time/temps as they have a lot more cooks than I have with briskets

 

[bgaviator]

Yeah I think I often times tend to overdo it on applying my rubs

Looks great to me, I have used the twisted rub and thought it was good. Back off the rub amount on the other to knock some of the saltiness down, I will let others tell about time/temps as they have a lot more cooks than I have with briskets

 

[thirdeye]

You have some serious bark going on.

1. Cooking hot and fast on a brisket that small will work, you just have to be very careful about drying it out, and most people will wrap around 150° internal, with some beefy juice, and continue cooking it tender. These points are in the 6 to 7 pound range, and they have just about the color I want before moving to the wrapped step.

2. One of the simplest brisket rubs is 50:50 salt and cracked pepper with some cayenne added for a kick. The trick is adding just enough to suit your taste.

3. You could get by with resting brisket for an hour, but longer is better. 3 or 4 hours is my usual time.... however, one that small will cool faster during the rest, so you may need to put a fire brick wrapped in foil in your hot box, or cycle the brisket into a 180° oven during the rest. If you wanted to rest in the oven only, don't let the foil juices cook away.

4. I can't help with sous vide temps, but when reheating barbecue in a hot water bath, (like a Nesco roaster) I heat the water to 200° and drop my vacuum bags into that.

 

[fivetricks]

Store made rubs almost always contain too much salt.

 

[bgaviator]

You lost me on the fire brick thing. I’m not understanding...

you may need to put a fire brick wrapped in foil in your hot box

 

[bgaviator]

I’m not sure what the ratio of salt to pepper is in this Kroger blend unfortunately. It’s not all black pepper either. Looks like some dried bell pepper from the ingredient list. Maybe the salt ratio is high in this mix compared to the pepper?

 

[bgaviator]

I think one thing I enjoy about the Kamado is how moist of a cook environment it is. I took a peek at the meat when it was kinda stalled in the upper 140s, and there was no real bark formation yet. The surface was still very wet. I thought I read something that said good bark formation may not occur until 180°. If I would have wrapped the meat at 150, I would have had no bark at all. I’m not sure when mine officially formed as I didn’t look at it again until it was in the 180s, but it was formed by then. Maybe it is different for different kinds of smokers?

just have to be very careful about drying it out, and most people will wrap around 150° internal, with some beefy juice

 

[thirdeye]

A fire brick is what chimneys or kilns are built with. Larger smokers use them in the fire box for insulation. They take longer to heat up than a house brick, but they stay warmer longer. So you wrap one in foil, and heat it up then transfer it to your hot box as a gentle heat source. A gallon of hot water will do the same thing, but it takes up more room.

I guess the taste test will be your best bet to tell how salty your blend is. Maybe mix a teaspoon of it with a teaspoon of pepper and try that?

Bark formation is a combination of heat, smoke, surface moistness, the Maillard reaction and the rub. Because some things dissolve in water and other things dissolve better in fat, the rub can play a big role depending on the amount and type of sugar. A high sugar rub can make a darker bark, but you run the risk of the sugar burning, plus sugar is not typically used on beef. Yes, a kamado does keep things moist, but I also wonder if the amount of salt in your rub was drawing moisture out of the meat? I've cooked on Big Green Eggs for 15 years and although I don't like heavy Texas style bark on briskets, I get pretty decent bark from them. I wind up misting most of the heavy meats I cook on the Egg....

Another thing to consider, when you do a wrapped finish, this will soften your bark. Wrapping in paper holds the bark better that foil, but foil seals better and takes less time (at my elevation) to cook the meat tender.

 

[TNJAKE]

Nice job

 

[Winterrider]

Bark looks fantastic. As far as warming SV, couple hrs @ 160 or so should be fine.

 

[zwiller]

LIKE. I think you have a winner there.

My thoughts:
1. Heck yeah, 275F. Franklin, Mixon, Me, you name it. Team 275F.
2. Ditch store bought rubs and nearly all commercial rubs and could not be happier. Not sure what place does it but there is famous CenTx cue place that does SPG and once I tried it I was hooked.
3. Resting times all over the place but most are a few hours at minimum. Franklin does like 10-12hr. I think you need to cooler it so the heat is retained. Holding in an oven works but I found it overcooked it a bit. I don't really think you need to rest if not eating same day as the "rest" comes when you reheat.
4. Just reheated some pastrami I did in August via SV. Impressed. Started frozen and gave it an hour at 135F. Worked well but think another hour would have been better but an hour might be fine for you since not frozen. Longer times might work better and I plan to play with it. Bark is gonna take a hit but don't anticipate that being a big deal since the overall results will be good.

 

[thirdeye]

At Franklin's they rest on the counter so the cooking is stopped then move into Alto-Sham holding ovens for that 8 or 9 hours.

 

[bgaviator]

Well I reheated the brisket via sous vide tonight. 155° for a couple hours. It was...incredible. My family loved it. My son asked for a second..and third helping, which NEVER happens with anything. I’m so pleased it came out well. Other than experimenting with different rubs, I’m not sure I would change a think except for maybe cooking at 275° from the start.

 

[bgaviator]

The cutting of it looks like a hack job. I don’t have great knives nor did I know which direction to really cut the point section.

 

[thirdeye]

The cutting of it looks like a hack job. I don’t have great knives nor did I know which direction to really cut the point section.

The points pretty much disregard all slicing standards. It's so tender you just go with the flow.

 

[jcam222]

Looks fantastic!! I think a lot of store bought commercial rubs are too salty. Salt is usually the cheapest component and keeps cost down. Look at them and in many salt is the first ingredient. I tend to make my own for that reason. I think you could cook a point fine at 275F. Rest time of an hour is perfectly fine.

 

[thirdeye]

Here are some photo's of a point I sort of butterflied, it was a practice run for a competition last year and I was trying to decide on turning in burnt ends or not.

 

[bgaviator]

I’m not sure I could have gotten my point in such perfect cubes like that. Mine was shredding apart every time I went to cut it. I got some chunks, but it was mostly shredding on me. My knives do suck though...
I’ve seen a couple different vids on making burnt ends, which confuses me. Malcom Reed has a video where he says he only puts them back on smoke for 15-20 mins after they’re sauced and cubed up. A lot of other videos seem like you put them on for another hour or two. Who is right?