New Year Eve BBQ

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JBCWCHS06

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Jul 30, 2022
129
108
Going to smoke some stuff this weekend for a New Years Party since we are expecting some nice weather and a bit of a warm up. Going to give another try on brisket in my pellet smoker. I bought a rack to raise the brisket from the fire pot but it makes the meat to close to the top of the smoker and is burning the outside of meat a bit. I saw on YouTube someone stated to cook it between 185-210 if it's sitting on the bottom rack. Would that temp allow the meat to get a good bark and cook with drying out but get a good fat render. Also has anyone seasoned their brisket a couple of hours beforehand almost like a dry brine and would that help with a pellet smoker cook. Also thinking of a salt pepper and either garlic or Lowry's rub but was wondering what ratio of what spice I should use. Thanks for all the help.
 
New Years brisket, great idea! There’s a lot to unpack in your questions, giving the type of smoker you have and some pictures could help provide more targeted advice. But I’ll do my best to give some general advice.

I have a Traeger, and i just throw it on the grates and let it go, usually at 250-275. You can do the lower temps, but my opinion and many others, is that 185-210 doesn’t do anything for you but extend the cook dramatically. It could also be dangerous if you’re injecting or puncturing the whole muscle. I’ve never had a problem with burning? How burned does your brisket get? Is there a heat deflector over your pot? You could wrap your brisket in butcher paper or foil once IT of the flat hits 165ish. That would help with your burning problem, it also stops smoke hitting your meat, though you could wrap with smoked beef tallow to help bump flavor. Not sure how you did this before, but some people think that the fat cap should always be up, but that layer of fat should be where the most amount of direct heat is hitting your meat. On my pellet smoker the fat is pointed down because that’s where the heat is the most intense. For my offset the fat cap goes up.

On the rendering question there is more than a few things happening with a brisket, you have the internal rendering of collagen that starts happening at around 160 that makes the brisket flat moist and tasty, this is the happy zone where the magic happens up until that final probe where you get the butter consistency we all strive for, usually between 200-210 IT. Then there is the denaturation of the fat and proteins that starts at lower temps, I think around 130? That’s when your fat cap is dissolving and basting the meat. Not all fat will dissolve though, trim your fat down to about 1/4 inch and trim off any hard fat, or Deckle too, that won’t render or be tasty.

On the seasoning question, most would highly recommend trimming and seasoning the brisket 24 hours out, that lets the salt absorb into the meat. I normally use about 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt to each pound of meat, others use less or more. I recommend starting with a simple Dalmatian rub (Equal parts K. Salt & Cracked Pepper) or Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic rub (SPOG). SPOG basic recipe would be 2 tablespoons each K. Salt and Cracked Pepper, 1 Tablespoon each Granulated Onion and Granulated Garlic, you could also put in a Tablespoon of Paprika for color. I’ve never tried mixing Lowry’s in with a a rub, but I think it has a high enough salt content that you’d probably want to use it solo. There is an abundance of off the shelf rubs out there that are really good, just read the ingredients and see what catches your attention. But, I’ve become really happy with just the salt and pepper.

Last bit of advice, you could cook this a day out, then reheat in oven. There are lots of threads here on how to do that. I don’t like doing that as much. If I did a brisket this new years at 225 cooking temp, I’d start the night before, around 8 or 9. That way I know It’ll be done before the next evenings festivities, then wrap it, after letting it rest uncovered for about 20 minutes inside, and stick it in a cooler with towels until it’s ready to serve. Don’t start it the morning of, that’s just rolling the dice.

Here’s a Brisket I posted a while back. Sorry, not a lot of detail in the description, and I did smoke this one at 220, but in the picture you can see fat side is down towards pot, and the point is towards the hotter part of my grill…. Not that the second part is obvious.


Good luck! I hope this helps, if not, give a bit more details and we’ll see how we can help more!
 
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Well there is kind of a picture to show my pellet smoker during my last brisket cook. I got a foldable rack to put in my smoker but it's too small and flimsy for anything heavy. But it's an even embers pellet smoker it's got the
New Years brisket, great idea! There’s a lot to unpack in your questions, giving the type of smoker you have and some pictures could help provide more targeted advice. But I’ll do my best to give some general advice.

I have a Traeger, and i just throw it on the grates and let it go, usually at 250-275. You can do the lower temps, but my opinion and many others, is that 185-210 doesn’t do anything for you but extend the cook dramatically. It could also be dangerous if you’re injecting or puncturing the whole muscle. I’ve never had a problem with burning? How burned does your brisket get? Is there a heat deflector over your pot? You could wrap your brisket in butcher paper or foil once IT of the flat hits 165ish. That would help with your burning problem, it also stops smoke hitting your meat, though you could wrap with smoked beef tallow to help bump flavor. Not sure how you did this before, but some people think that the fat cap should always be up, but that layer of fat should be where the most amount of direct heat is hitting your meat. On my pellet smoker the fat is pointed down because that’s where the heat is the most intense. For my offset the fat cap goes up.

On the rendering question there is more than a few things happening with a brisket, you have the internal rendering of collagen that starts happening at around 160 that makes the brisket flat moist and tasty, this is the happy zone where the magic happens up until that final probe where you get the butter consistency we all strive for, usually between 200-210 IT. Then there is the denaturation of the fat and proteins that starts at lower temps, I think around 130? That’s when your fat cap is dissolving and basting the meat. Not all fat will dissolve though, trim your fat down to about 1/4 inch and trim off any hard fat, or Deckle too, that won’t render or be tasty.

On the seasoning question, most would highly recommend trimming and seasoning the brisket 24 hours out, that lets the salt absorb into the meat. I normally use about 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt to each pound of meat, others use less or more. I recommend starting with a simple Dalmatian rub (Equal parts K. Salt & Cracked Pepper) or Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic rub (SPOG). SPOG basic recipe would be 2 tablespoons each K. Salt and Cracked Pepper, 1 Tablespoon each Granulated Onion and Granulated Garlic, you could also put in a Tablespoon of Paprika for color. I’ve never tried mixing Lowry’s in with a a rub, but I think it has a high enough salt content that you’d probably want to use it solo. There is an abundance of off the shelf rubs out there that are really good, just read the ingredients and see what catches your attention. But, I’ve become really happy with just the salt and pepper.

Last bit of advice, you could cook this a day out, then reheat in oven. There are lots of threads here on how to do that. I don’t like doing that as much. If I did a brisket this new years at 225 cooking temp, I’d start the night before, around 8 or 9. That way I know It’ll be done before the next evenings festivities, then wrap it, after letting it rest uncovered for about 20 minutes inside, and stick it in a cooler with towels until it’s ready to serve. Don’t start it the morning of, that’s just rolling the dice.

Here’s a Brisket I posted a while back. Sorry, not a lot of detail in the description, and I did smoke this one at 220, but in the picture you can see fat side is down towards pot, and the point is towards the hotter part of my grill…. Not that the second part is obvious.


Good luck! I hope this helps, if not, give a bit more details and we’ll see how we can help more!
Well there is picture from my last
New Years brisket, great idea! There’s a lot to unpack in your questions, giving the type of smoker you have and some pictures could help provide more targeted advice. But I’ll do my best to give some general advice.

I have a Traeger, and i just throw it on the grates and let it go, usually at 250-275. You can do the lower temps, but my opinion and many others, is that 185-210 doesn’t do anything for you but extend the cook dramatically. It could also be dangerous if you’re injecting or puncturing the whole muscle. I’ve never had a problem with burning? How burned does your brisket get? Is there a heat deflector over your pot? You could wrap your brisket in butcher paper or foil once IT of the flat hits 165ish. That would help with your burning problem, it also stops smoke hitting your meat, though you could wrap with smoked beef tallow to help bump flavor. Not sure how you did this before, but some people think that the fat cap should always be up, but that layer of fat should be where the most amount of direct heat is hitting your meat. On my pellet smoker the fat is pointed down because that’s where the heat is the most intense. For my offset the fat cap goes up.

On the rendering question there is more than a few things happening with a brisket, you have the internal rendering of collagen that starts happening at around 160 that makes the brisket flat moist and tasty, this is the happy zone where the magic happens up until that final probe where you get the butter consistency we all strive for, usually between 200-210 IT. Then there is the denaturation of the fat and proteins that starts at lower temps, I think around 130? That’s when your fat cap is dissolving and basting the meat. Not all fat will dissolve though, trim your fat down to about 1/4 inch and trim off any hard fat, or Deckle too, that won’t render or be tasty.

On the seasoning question, most would highly recommend trimming and seasoning the brisket 24 hours out, that lets the salt absorb into the meat. I normally use about 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt to each pound of meat, others use less or more. I recommend starting with a simple Dalmatian rub (Equal parts K. Salt & Cracked Pepper) or Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic rub (SPOG). SPOG basic recipe would be 2 tablespoons each K. Salt and Cracked Pepper, 1 Tablespoon each Granulated Onion and Granulated Garlic, you could also put in a Tablespoon of Paprika for color. I’ve never tried mixing Lowry’s in with a a rub, but I think it has a high enough salt content that you’d probably want to use it solo. There is an abundance of off the shelf rubs out there that are really good, just read the ingredients and see what catches your attention. But, I’ve become really happy with just the salt and pepper.

Last bit of advice, you could cook this a day out, then reheat in oven. There are lots of threads here on how to do that. I don’t like doing that as much. If I did a brisket this new years at 225 cooking temp, I’d start the night before, around 8 or 9. That way I know It’ll be done before the next evenings festivities, then wrap it, after letting it rest uncovered for about 20 minutes inside, and stick it in a cooler with towels until it’s ready to serve. Don’t start it the morning of, that’s just rolling the dice.

Here’s a Brisket I posted a while back. Sorry, not a lot of detail in the description, and I did smoke this one at 220, but in the picture you can see fat side is down towards pot, and the point is towards the hotter part of my grill…. Not that the second part is obvious.


Good luck! I hope this helps, if not, give a bit more details and we’ll see how we can help more!
Yeah thanks all that was very helpful. It's an Even Embers Pellet Smoker. It does have the heat deflector plate. I even bought a collapsible upper rack for it but it's too flimsy to really hold anything and makes it too close to the top and that heat from the top burns my meat a bit. But there's a picture of the grill from my last brisket cook to get a picture of the grill. I end up overcooking it it seems it kind of crumbles apart but has one strip of really tough meat in the flat but have seen a lot of people saying to just test the flat and not really probe the point because it will get done alot faster then the flat. Even debating pulling it around 195-200 this time
 

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https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/the-“point”-of-beef……pure-goodness.317974/

This is a just a point cut but this is how I do all my briskets now (I've tried many many ways). You can put your brisket on early morning and have it for dinner (the rest temp is 150-180). This method gives great brisket consistently (texture and timing) which is my book makes a statement. The rub on page two of the above post is now my FAVORITE for brisket and plate ribs. I worked on the flavor combinations in the rub for about 6 months till it was right....

I also don't pre-dry bine anymore just what is in the rub that I do just before, I salt it during/after the cut. It uses less salt and adds more flavor. I learned this from Gorgon Ramsey cookbooks. The other trick is to spoon a little bit of the rendered tallow over the slices before you served them (BAM BAM)......

Good luck and hope it turns out.
 
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Which way are you going? I’m curious?
Well I ended up getting the meat and it was actually just a brisket flat. So might inject it with beef broth and Worcestershire Sauce and put a rub on it and through it on the smoker after a very light trim
 
Honestly was a bit worried about cooking this brisket but honestly turned out to be the best one I've cooked. Might cook it lower for a little longer next time to get a little bit more of the fat rendered but didn't over cook it. It was juicy and passed the bend test as well. Also cooked 2 center cut pork loins and a log of bologna to make sure we had enough for everyone.
 

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