Brisket/Chuckie foiling question (Now with qview!)

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

garand555

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Apr 17, 2011
107
11
Albuquerque
I may be cooking one of the two tomorrow along with a butt and picnic that I'm going to put on, though it maybe just the flat for the brisket. I don't live in a bbq state, so getting the cuts that are oh-so-suited for bbq can be a bit more challenging. Flats are common around here. Packers...not so much. I got rather happy because my local Albertsons recently started selling picnics for $1.39/lb.

Poking around these forums, a lot of people foil their briskets at 165. Do the folks who foil their briskets foil their chuckies too? I know with ribs, foiling boils down to personal preference, so I am guessing that it is also personal with brisket as well? I'm kind of an anti-foiler out of laziness, but I don't want to end up doing the bbq equivalent of dividing by zero. I've cooked briskets before, both in the oven and in the ground, but never in the smoker.

Oh, and BTW, when following the advice on here, I have yet to turn out anything that didn't come out really good, even when it was a first try.
 
I always foil my chuckies. No matter which type I have. Seems to speed up the process and braise the meat to keep it moist. The longer you can wait to foil, the more bark you will achieve too. Chuckies tend to go to 210º for me, if I want to easily pull them. Around 180 to 185º for sliced.
 
Alright then, so it sounds like you guys have experienced the results of not foiling and aren't as impressed. If I do a chuckie, I'd like to pull it, so 205 or so seems to be what a lot of people like to bring it up to. Flash says 210, so obviously there is a bit of wiggle room here. Every single person (including myself) that will be eating this really likes a lot of bark, so would you guys recommend going up higher than 165 to foil?
 
[quote name="smokinstevo27" url="/forum/thread/106416/brisket-chuckie-foiling-question#post_631322"]
Just eyeball it. Don't take it too high but wait until you see good bark formed. If you go to early you get bark mush.
[/quote]

Mush BAAAD! Fortunately my smoker recovers its temperature exceedingly fast, so I can afford to check often once the probe starts reading 165 or so. The downside is that it requires more attention. There's an upside to that extra attention though. Beer.
 
I'm similar to Flash.

I pull Chuckies between 205˚ & 210˚, and always pull chucky meat.

I pull a Brisket flat at 195˚ to 200˚ for slicing, and 210˚ for pulling.

I foil around 165˚.

I have one of each (step by step) in my signature below my posts.

Bear
 
Well, I put a butt, picnic and a chuckie on at 6:30am MST. I'll foil the chuckie, but not the butts. I also have a mess of beans on below it all so that it may catch some pork drippins. It's riding the TBS @208 and slowly rising. Putting beans on like that makes the smoker take longer to come to equilibrium, but it also makes large temperature swings very unlikely. On one of the pieces of pork, the rub came off one of the sides when I removed the plastic wrap, but I decided that it'll still taste good anyway. Smoke 'n meat and all.

The chuckie should be done in plenty of time to eat today, the butt probably will, and I'm betting that the picnic won't. But you know how stubborn those swine can be. I'll foil the chuckie once a nice bark has formed as advised here.

Pics will be inbound later today in another thread. I figure because there is more pork than there is beef, I'll put it in the pork section.

Thanks for the help!

PS - Having the first batch of charcoal in the smoker prior to 5:30AM on a weekend is a good excuse to have double my normal amount of freshly roasted press brewed coffee.
 
Last edited:
I was going to start another thread in the pork section since there is more pork, but this is my first chuckie so I'll just post it all here. The butt and picnic are still chugging away, but the chucky is already all gone. It was 4.65lbs and I spent 12 hrs on it. Despite my love of bark, I was real light on the rub because this time I wanted to taste more of the roast itself.

No pics of me prepping the meat, it starts in the smoker. The rub was just something that I threw together myself. Again, this isn't a bbq state, so I would have to start searching to find store bought rubs. It's easier just to make one myself.

First pic: You can't see the chuckie. It's in the back. I happen to like my beans with the drippins, though some of you don't.




Foiled the chuckie @165 with apple juice, teryaki marinade and one garlic clove.




The chuckie done. I took it out at 205. I was going to go higher, but then I went "DERP!" and realized that the boiling point of water at my altitude is around 203, not the 212 that most people are used to. Good thing I snapped, because it was just starting to dry out. Most was moist and tender, but I'm betting that would not have been the case had I gone up to 210. Also, good thing I foiled as per the advice of this thread, else it would have been jerky. Sorry that the camera didn't like the lighting conditions.




Let it rest as long as everybody would let me (not long enough,) then pulled it. Also pictured is the au jus. We didn't use any finishing sauce because what bearcarver had posted in his how to looked pretty good to me. Because of the lighting, you can't really see the smoke ring. It wasn't super deep (about 3/8") but it was very distinct and the smoke flavor was just strong enough to complement the flavor of the roast. I chose not to go for a super strong smoke flavor and used a combo of peach and apple. The peach is mainly because I like the way it smells when it is burning. Chef's privilege.




Here's my plate. Beans with Lemitar extra hot green chile, a simple salad and some pulled chuck on an onion bun that I later drizzled some au jus on.




The butt is now at 190, and surprisingly, the bigger picnic is catching up to it. I'll remove it, let it rest, then pull it tonight. I guess since I started in this thread, I'll finish posting pics from this smoke in this thread even though it's pork. More inbound later tonight.

Thanks for the advice guys, this turned out great!
 
Last edited:
I tasted the picnic and there's something off about it, but the butt is superb. No pics of the picnic due to the offness of it, and the pics of the butt where I tried to take care of the bad lighting didn't turn out, but I do have a couple.

Just starting to pull the butt:




Pulled:





I'll be eating well for a while. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the picnic. I'm just sensitive to some things that some people don't notice and don't get sick over. It's the kind of thing that would stop me from eating pulled pork at a bbq joint while everybody else is chowing down. I can't describe it better than that.
 
Last edited:
Again, thanks guys. I probably would have dried that one out way too much had I been left on my own.

And no Bear, you don't need to say more. That 4.65lb (uncooked weight) chucky was gone rather quickly, and it were only 6 people eating it. One of them is on a diet and didn't take a whole lot of anything and another normally doesn't load up large portions of anything. Normally. I would have followed your tutorial thread to a T, but I didn't have everything listed on hand, so I just used what was easy and added the garlic clove because I like garlic and it seemed like it ought to work. That got eaten too.
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky