Smoking Brisket: The Topic

[snowangel]

OK - with such ringing endorsements, I'll give it a go!  I have no yellow mustard...but 2 versions of my own based on andiesenji's homemade mustard. Do I have to go to the store - or can I use my own?

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If the versions are not close to yellow mustard, get thyself to the local stop and rob and get some! I think it needs the yellow stuff.

[Marlene]

The deed is done. Shhhh. Father's Day, here we come.

[snowangel]

The deed is done. Shhhh.  Father's Day, here we come.

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Congrats! Trust you also stocked up on wood chunks, Kingsford briquettes and that you'll have an un-trimmed brisket or bone in butt on hand for Father's Day. Also trust that you will take over some of the smoking duties!

[Taboni]

Mark's sauce looks killer, and I will try it but a Carolina mustard based sauce on brisket?? Might raise a few eyebrows among the family here.

[Marlene]

The deed is done. Shhhh.  Father's Day, here we come.

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Congrats! Trust you also stocked up on wood chunks, Kingsford briquettes and that you'll have an un-trimmed brisket or bone in butt on hand for Father's Day. Also trust that you will take over some of the smoking duties!

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No, I don't have any of those things yet, but I'm working on them! And of course, I'm going to learn to do the smokin' too!

[lcdm]

dry rubbed and left them whole. I'm having trouble keeping the temp up. you think I should  ditch some of the water in the basin? put some more fuel in the smoker? they look really good. should I quit with the wood now that it's been 8 hrs? or just keep it going?

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I hope you are feeling better.

How did the smoking turn out?

[Marlene]

Just received word that the smoker is on backorder, so it's unlikely to be here in time for Father's day. Oh well, we can always make it a Canada Day celebration! Just gives me more time to get the right supplies.

[Luckylies]

dry rubbed and left them whole. I'm having trouble keeping the temp up. you think I should  ditch some of the water in the basin? put some more fuel in the smoker? they look really good. should I quit with the wood now that it's been 8 hrs? or just keep it going?

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I hope you are feeling better.

How did the smoking turn out?

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whew! can you believe I'm finally feeling just a bit better. not great just not sicko-icko. The brisket turned out tres fantastique! it was moist and very smokey and had a wonderful leverl of all of the flavors I love. I wish I had cut off th eflat a bit earlier than the point, but it really was not that dry and besides the people who like lean meat usually err towards drier stuff anyhow so foo on them and next time I'll cut it off.

here's what I did.

I used the aforementioned Minion method (kingsford charcoal). Worked like a charm, had it not been my first time. I could have left the smoker going on it's own sans atention for 10 hrs. no dips or spikes (really)

I rubbed with paprika, br. sugar, garlic powder, black pepper and salt.

I put hot water and magic hat # 9 in the water bath. I filled the thing to the top and lined it with tinfoil for later cleaning. threw in some woodchips (couldn't hurt?)

I used woodchips cause that's what I had. I started with hickory soaked in more beer and threw in a few handfuls when ever I felt like it needed it about once an hour for the first 6 hrs. Then switched to mesquite and added them whenever I wanted to impress passersby with my cool smoker. I dabbed the briskets with applejuice every hour or so.

In the last half hour I swabbed them with some bbq sauce I made and froze a few weeks ago.

Thats pretty much it. I watched the meat temp as well as the smoker temp the whole time and pulled the briskets when they hit 180.

I served them with potato rolls, extra sauce, coleslaw, potato salad etc. There was very little left.

Thank you beautiful smoker goddesses for you unwavering support and attention to detail. Without you- fifi and marlene I would have been a hunk of charcoal.

next week butts.

[snowangel]

next week butts.

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Glad you are feeling better and the advice helped. If you think brisket rocked, just wait until you do butts. Please report on your butts here.

[Marlene]

The deed is done. Shhhh.  Father's Day, here we come.

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Congrats! Trust you also stocked up on wood chunks, Kingsford briquettes and that you'll have an un-trimmed brisket or bone in butt on hand for Father's Day. Also trust that you will take over some of the smoking duties!

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I can't seem to find butt here, but I did pick up two bone in pork shoulders today. Will that do? Assuming the smoker arrives in the next week or so.

[Dave the Cook]

I can't seem to find butt here, but I did pick up two bone in pork shoulders today.  Will that do?  Assuming the smoker arrives in the next week or so.

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Yes. They're the same thing.

[Marlene]

Shows what I know. Luckylies, thanks for the compliment, but I'm a smoking virgin at this point! While we wait wistfully for our WSM to be delivered from backorder hell, and needing something to give to hubby on Father's Day, Ryan and I picked up this book Smoke and Spice, to give him something to read up on.

The shoulders are in the freezer, waiting for the WSM.

[Abra]

Ok, I'm ready to join the eG Smoker Goddesses. Thanks to Emma, I've found and read both this and the butt threads, and now I'm almont ready to tackle smoking with my new offset firebox Smokin' Pro. It has a huge cast iron grate, so I might be able to do butts and briskets all at once. Sigh.

That Minion method looks quite far out, one of those things I would never have figured out on my own. I did see a comment in the method description about off flavors from ignition - do any of you experience that?

[Luckylies]

Nope, no off flavors at all. Also my temp held for quite a while with very little fiddling. What wood have you decided on Abra? oak?

[Abra]

Well, now that I've read through all this I see that people are mainly using wood chunks for smoke flavor and briquets for the heat, whereas I'd assumed that the actual wood burning was both the heat and the smoke agent.

So, if it's just a smallish amount for smoking, I think I can probably find it in bags. I'd been envisioning whole logs of fruit or nut wood, which would be much more problematic. But the famous Santa Maria tri-tip, which is much like brisket, is cooked entirely over red oak, and that's a specific part of its flavor.

Uhm, it's off-topic a bit, but I have a turkey in the fridge that I was planning to smoke, until I saw the smoker's directions to inject it liberally first. Maybe a turkey shouldn't be my first smoking attempt? I don't think I want to get into injecting - unless brining would work the same way?

[Dave the Cook]

Brining and injecting aren't the same thing, but often they have the same purpose: to keep the meat from drying out and to add flavor. For the first, brining is clearly a superior method (and often tenderizes, as well, something that injecting doesn't attempt to do), because it affects the entire bird, whereas injecting is limited to wherever you inject.

For the latter, it depends on what you're after. Brining is limited in the sorts of flavors that it can deliver. If it isn't water soluble, the brine can't carry it; and even if it is water soluble, the technique depends on biochemical effects and rules that can prevent flavor adsorption. Injecting, on the other hand, is only dependent on the size of the needle that you use. Whatever will go through it is fair game as a flavoring agent, though you won't get real penetration of flavor into the meat. Think of it as a sauce, administered internally and before cooking.

Regardless, injecting isn't mandatory. Consider the smoker's "directions" to be suggestions, and follow them or not, according to your taste and objectives.

[ronnie_suburban]

For pork, chicken and turkey I definitely prefer brining. I think it makes a big difference. Your mileage may vary.

=R=

[Dave the Cook]

There's no reason you can't do both. You can use the brine to deliver salt (and maybe sugar, depending on what you're after), and injection for oil- and/or alcohol-soluble flavor compenents.

[hjshorter]

I have nothing of substance to add to this thread, but wanted to say that the title is one of my very favorites.

[lancastermike]

Ok, I'm ready to join the eG Smoker Goddesses.  Thanks to Emma, I've found and read both this and the butt threads, and now I'm almont ready to tackle smoking with my new offset firebox Smokin' Pro.  It has a huge cast iron grate, so I might be able to do butts and briskets all at once.  Sigh. 

That Minion method looks quite far out, one of those things I would never have figured out on my own.  I did see a comment in the method description about off flavors from ignition - do any of you experience that?

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The Minion method was developed for Weber Smokey Mountain cookers. In your offset cooker you may indeed be able to fire up with wood alone. It depends mostly on the construction of your cooker and it it it built to take a 100% wood fire. I use a WSM and wood chunks for my smoke and fire it with Kingsford . I did a butt yesterday and it was wonderful. I use the Minion method and cannot discern any off flavors. Perhaps others may, but in a WSM for any extended cooking time it is really the best way to go

[Abra]

When I do a turkey on the Weber, I pretty much always do brine it. I was just wondering whether the long, slow heat of the smoker, combined with the leanness of the turkey, would be making more of a jerky than one would actually wish for.

I think I'll cook the turkey some other way and do a butt or two for my maiden voyage on the smoker, so as to be sure of success.

I wish I knew about the wood vs. briquets thing for the firebox. The instructions clearly suggest that you'll be burning wood in it, but I'm wondering, after reading all of the above, if that's actually the best way, given the temp control issues.

[Dave the Cook]

I retrofitted the side firebox to my Smokin' Pro two weeks ago. I haven't done any long-term smoking, but I can provide some preliminary information.

A full chimney of quality charcoal briquets in the firebox with the vent wide open will heat the smoking chamber to about 200 F, and hold it there for quite a while. I really wanted to get it up to 225, though, so I added two dry hickory chunks, each about 4 x 4 x 1-1/2. They caught fire easily, and while they burned, the chamber went to 225. Once they were out, the temp dropped back to 200.

There are two good things about this: the first is that it's easy to maintain a steady temperature, and the sidebox arrangement is buffered by design, so peaks are easily avoided. The second is that you can employ a charcoal-plus-hardwood combination, with each used to its best advantage.

The bad things: getting a steady temperature higher than 200 requires some fussing. Either you have to keep feeding wood chunks, or you have to load up on briquets. The problem with briquets is the voluminous ash. I'm not sure that you'll be able to get through a ten-hour session without encountering an ash-disposal issue.

What I'll try soon is a switch from briquets to hardwood charcoal, which I usually reserve for straight grilling, where high temperature is paramount. It burns hotter, lights more easily, leaves practically no ash, and the flavor is better than briquets. Supplement the charcoal with raw wood for additional flavor. This seems like the best combination of easy fire maintenence, temperature control and high-flavor results.

Edit: the conversion of Super Pro (one of these) to Smokin' Pro (one of these) was a matter of fifteen minutes with a rubber mallet, a screwdriver and a socket wrench (pliers would work, too). If you have a Super Pro and you've been putting off conversion because it seemed complicated or time-consuming, rest easy. If I can do it, anyone can. I got the side firebox at Lowe's for $50.

[Abra]

Interesting, Dave. I'll look forward to hearing about how you deal with the ash question. I usually don't use briquets, and it's been so long since Idid that I'd forgotten all about ash as an issue. I guess it's more of a hassle than with the Weber, since there's no place for them to drop out of the firebox. Hmm, I'll have to mull over the options.

[Dave the Cook]

I wonder if you could replace the grate in the firebox with something that had a finer mesh (in other words, the bars would be closer together). Then you could do your burn on that, and the ashes would drop into the drawer at the bottom of the firebox. You could dump ashes into a metal bucket any time you wanted.

[Abra]

After reading the Col Klink eGCI class (thanks, Luckylies!) I'm going with burning wood. My smoker is on her maiden voyage right now, with 14 pounds of pork butt. I'll post about my (hopeful) success on the Behold my Butt thread. Uh, it's pouring rain here, just to add to the general merriment.