Overnight Brisket

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GizmoRulz

Newbie
Original poster
Aug 19, 2022
2
1
Hello Forums. New smoker here attempted to cook a brisket overnight. Brisket was on the smoker for 5 hours before I wrapped it and went to bed. After I wrapped it the internal temp dropped but got back up to160 and the smoker temps fluctuated between 215 and 230. When I got up 6 hours later the temp had dropped more than anticipated. Smoker temp was 130 - 145 and the brisket was at 131 and 136 at two different spots. With all that being said… is this thing still safe to eat? Lit more coals and brisket temp shot right back up to 165+ within 30 minutes of waking up.
 
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Hello Forums. New smoker here attempted to cook a brisket overnight. Brisket was on the smoker for 5 hours before I wrapped it and went to bed. After I wrapped it the internal temp dropped but got back up to160 and the smoker temps fluctuated between 215 and 230. When I got up 6 hours later the temp had dropped more than anticipated. Smoker temp was 130 - 145 and the brisket was at 131 and 136 at two different spots. With all that being said… is this thing still safe to eat? Lit more coals and brisket temp shot right back up to 165+ within 30 minutes of waking up.
Its ok, take it to internal 195-205, pull it off, cover and let it rest. It will be good.

HT
 
hi and welcome to the forum from Minnesota, enjoy your time here!! as others will mention, get yourself a remote temp probe that has a high/low temp alarm feature. this will alert you when the smoker is not in the range you set.
 
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I don’t know how you guys can go to bed with a brisket on the smoker I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. There’s no method or automatic equipment I would put that much trust in. That’s just me I know there have been hundreds of successful overnight brisket cooks on here but also enough stories like this one.

I’d sooner hold overnight and reheat the next day if it came to that.
 
Welcome from Colorado.

Your fine to keep going. Something to consider is that if you are going to wrap it anyway, just preheat your oven and slip the brisket in there for the night. Once wrapped heat is heat and no smoke could get to the meat anyway. Makes life simple this way and the outcome very predictable.
 
hi and welcome to the forum from Minnesota, enjoy your time here!! as others will mention, get yourself a remote temp probe that has a high/low temp alarm feature. this will alert you when the smoker is not in the range you set.
Last one i did i started at 3:30 am, so not quite an overnight but that was basically the last time i slept for the night(morning). It went fine but i always had 1 eye on the thermo. Definitely a long weekend cook so you can recover😉

Corey
 
Another in a long list of posts about problems with an overnight smoke. In this case you'll be fine but it easily could not have turned out that favorable. Please get yourself a good reporting thermometer with two specific probes that can monitor both meat IT and grate temps. It must also have an alarm function to warn you when something is not within the settings you gave it.
 
Your call but I'd be careful. That's a cool temp for an unknown period of time.
 
As long as you did not inject the brisket, you'll be fine. Brisket is considered whole intact muscle. Thus, it is sterile on the inside unless injected.
Any cooties on the outside of the brisket were killed off in mere seconds at 165°
 
My only problem would be letting it go for 6 hours wrapped... I think it would have been WAYYYYY over cooked at that point... Once wrapped it usually only takes a couple of hours to get to the 200 degree range ...

What kind of smoker were you using for it to lose temps like that ??
 
I do overnight smokes in my WSM without any problem. But, I'm at that advanced age where I rarely sleep more than 3-4 hours without having to get up and you know. It's easy to check how the smoker is plugging along and make any adjustments, if necessary.
 
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Thanks for all the feedback. I definitely might of gotten a little carried away thinking I would be able to do the over night brisket without issue. Guys at work talk about doing over night all the time so I got caught up in it. Plus with two babies at home long cooks during the day get me in trouble. I have a Oklahoma Joe bronco. When I added more charcoal in the morning I found that half of my charcoal basket did not burn with the hot stuff I added before I fell asleep. There were just a couple of chunks smoldering and a handful that never lit. As far as the time window for my sleep I went down just after midnight. Smoker was 225 and brisket was 160 then. At 5:40am (actually thought I was going to wake up earlier than that) the temps were at 130s -140s as stated in the beginning.

This was actually my first brisket so a lot of learning happened with this one.
 
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