As I noted in the Big Brisket thread I offered to smoke a large one for "the girls weekend" for my wife and her wild and crazy girlfriends (well, at this age not too much wild and crazy happens any more.) I know they appreciate good BBQ and my goal was to cook my largest brisket ever but that didn't happen. When I went to pick out a brisket the largest I found was an 18.3 lbs prime grade brisket. I'd only cooked one other prime before but I've done dozens and dozens of select grade as well as many choice grade. What the heck - few dollars more, let's see what the "master" brisket boy can do with this.......
Just over 18# with 3.3 lbs of trim. Over 90% of what I trimmed was fat and there was still plenty left on the brisket for cooking. My thought was to remove a lot of the fat I typically leave on a select grade since the prime grade was so well marbled. Seemed to make sense? I trim all my briskets but this one looked really good as I cleaned it up.
I brush a light coat of olive oil on then a generous amount of Meat Church Holy Cow rub on the brisket. These being such big chunks of meat and I don't inject. Not to the point that it cakes but in my experience the influence of the rub will only affect the bark. It's not going to affect the internal flavor much at all except for that bit that includes the center with the outer bark.
With the Yoder 640 loaded with Lumberjack 100% Hickory pellets I fire it up set at 250 deg. Since I've had some recent success with Au Jus while cooking prime rib I decided to try and catch some drippings from this brisket and maybe experiment with my quest to make a drippings BBQ sauce. I've been trying to make this type of gravy/sauce based on the old Po Sams BBQ sauce he made when he was serving BBQ out of that old shack in Colbert, Oklahoma back in the late 60's through the 70's. It was unique to anything I've ever had and unfortunately it appears the exact recipe died with him.
I put the big pan below the brisket put in a couple of cups of beef stock with some onions & garlic (I'm almost 100% positive Sam didn't make his sauce this way but I've tried many things so far and none of them has work - this one didn't either......) the Onion makes for a great aroma while cooking.
Brisket on @ 9 pm - Yoder loaded with pellets - set on 250. I used 3 probes - 1 in flat, 1 in point, 1 in cooker. After 14 hours my drippings project is not working the way I want and it's blocking heat to the brisket, the brisket temps are running lower than I wanted at this point so I pull the dripping pan out and I wrap the brisket in pink butcher paper. I analyze every cook I do and I should have wrapped a few hours sooner but that's about it. Couple of areas on the point just a bit over done but not my much. I did up the temps for the last 2 hours to 300 and to my amazement when I pulled the brisket after 18 1/2 hours in the cooker the flat & the point both were at 201. I only see about 10% of my briskets finish with both flat & point finishing at the same temp. Maybe I'm learning my cooker after 2 years and a bunch of cooks? Maybe I just got lucky ........ I'll take lucky :)
The results were nothing short of brisket nirvana. As I unwrapped the brisket from the butcher paper I had very little sticking to the paper which tells me I had not burnt it to the point of sticking (a common issue I see). So I cut it in half - flat - point. The pick below says everything. juice running out. Tender, moist. The monster smoke ring that the Yoder does on every long smoke.
This final pic is where I cut the point in half. That piece in the middle was my test piece. I'm not one to rave about something I've cooked but out of all the briskets I've ever cooked and/or been a part of cooking or eating I can say I personally have never had a better piece of brisket in my life. It's just that good. The nice salty flavor of the bark, the perfect amount of hickory smoke, the absolute delicious & succulent meat that only comes from the point. So I quickly wrap the flat and half the point for the girls and wrap them in towels and into my meat storage cooler. They're eating in a few hours. I kept the other half of the point, I cut it in half and sent it with a couple of our friends to try and just made myself a good ole' sliced beef BBQ sandwich with sauce & pickles for dinner. It was perfect.
My wife got home late last night and her comments were the same as mine. Needless to say the girls tore that brisket up!!! Brisket was just great.
Thanks for looking and keep those smokers rolling! It's all about Smoking Meat!
Just over 18# with 3.3 lbs of trim. Over 90% of what I trimmed was fat and there was still plenty left on the brisket for cooking. My thought was to remove a lot of the fat I typically leave on a select grade since the prime grade was so well marbled. Seemed to make sense? I trim all my briskets but this one looked really good as I cleaned it up.
I brush a light coat of olive oil on then a generous amount of Meat Church Holy Cow rub on the brisket. These being such big chunks of meat and I don't inject. Not to the point that it cakes but in my experience the influence of the rub will only affect the bark. It's not going to affect the internal flavor much at all except for that bit that includes the center with the outer bark.
With the Yoder 640 loaded with Lumberjack 100% Hickory pellets I fire it up set at 250 deg. Since I've had some recent success with Au Jus while cooking prime rib I decided to try and catch some drippings from this brisket and maybe experiment with my quest to make a drippings BBQ sauce. I've been trying to make this type of gravy/sauce based on the old Po Sams BBQ sauce he made when he was serving BBQ out of that old shack in Colbert, Oklahoma back in the late 60's through the 70's. It was unique to anything I've ever had and unfortunately it appears the exact recipe died with him.
I put the big pan below the brisket put in a couple of cups of beef stock with some onions & garlic (I'm almost 100% positive Sam didn't make his sauce this way but I've tried many things so far and none of them has work - this one didn't either......) the Onion makes for a great aroma while cooking.
Brisket on @ 9 pm - Yoder loaded with pellets - set on 250. I used 3 probes - 1 in flat, 1 in point, 1 in cooker. After 14 hours my drippings project is not working the way I want and it's blocking heat to the brisket, the brisket temps are running lower than I wanted at this point so I pull the dripping pan out and I wrap the brisket in pink butcher paper. I analyze every cook I do and I should have wrapped a few hours sooner but that's about it. Couple of areas on the point just a bit over done but not my much. I did up the temps for the last 2 hours to 300 and to my amazement when I pulled the brisket after 18 1/2 hours in the cooker the flat & the point both were at 201. I only see about 10% of my briskets finish with both flat & point finishing at the same temp. Maybe I'm learning my cooker after 2 years and a bunch of cooks? Maybe I just got lucky ........ I'll take lucky :)
The results were nothing short of brisket nirvana. As I unwrapped the brisket from the butcher paper I had very little sticking to the paper which tells me I had not burnt it to the point of sticking (a common issue I see). So I cut it in half - flat - point. The pick below says everything. juice running out. Tender, moist. The monster smoke ring that the Yoder does on every long smoke.
This final pic is where I cut the point in half. That piece in the middle was my test piece. I'm not one to rave about something I've cooked but out of all the briskets I've ever cooked and/or been a part of cooking or eating I can say I personally have never had a better piece of brisket in my life. It's just that good. The nice salty flavor of the bark, the perfect amount of hickory smoke, the absolute delicious & succulent meat that only comes from the point. So I quickly wrap the flat and half the point for the girls and wrap them in towels and into my meat storage cooler. They're eating in a few hours. I kept the other half of the point, I cut it in half and sent it with a couple of our friends to try and just made myself a good ole' sliced beef BBQ sandwich with sauce & pickles for dinner. It was perfect.
My wife got home late last night and her comments were the same as mine. Needless to say the girls tore that brisket up!!! Brisket was just great.
Thanks for looking and keep those smokers rolling! It's all about Smoking Meat!
