Excellent Flat, Terrible Point

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357mag

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Jun 21, 2010
149
65
Piedmont Triad of NC
I had some friends over for supper Thursday and cooked up a brisket. It was a 10 pounder and the flat was excellent but the point was terrible. The point which usually is like eating meat flavored butter was tough and somewhat dry. The flat was tender, moist and flavorful. I have never had a point turn out bad and the flat come out good. Here are the details:

I slathered with mustard and rubbed thoroughly the night before the cook. After 24 hours in the fridge, I put it on the smoker at 235°. This was at 10pm Wednesday night. I had a huge water pan in there with about a gallon of water since I planned on going to bed and getting up at 6am to check things out. I went to bed at midnight after getting the temp stabilized at 240°. It was supposed to get cold, down in the low 40s so I figured that the temp might drop some before I got up. Much to my surprise, the temp rose to 260°. A little high but not bad. Around 8am it started raining hard so I took the brisket out of the smoker and put it in the oven. Oven temp was 250° and the IT of the brisket was 185°. I put it in a foil pan with about a cup of beef broth and worchestershire sauce and covered it with foil. By 10am it had reached an IT of 200° and I took it out to rest. An hour later I started to separate the point from the flat so I could slice it up and make burnt ends from the point. This is where I knew there was a problem. Normally I can just about pull the point off of the flat without any problem, but this time I could not get the point off without using a knife. I was panicking. I was afraid the whole brisket was a loss. The point was tough and fiberous. The connective tissue had not broken down. Much to my surprise the flat was tender and juicy. Everybody raved over the brisket and the dog was overjoyed that she got most of the point to eat.

So has anybody ever had something like this happen to them?
 
Last edited:
If the point was tough and fiberous it was not done.

The fat connecting the point and flat being not broken down would also lead me to believe the same.
 
I suppose that is possible. The flat was on the bottom and perhaps got most of the heat and got done sooner than the point. I've just never had this happen before. I guess it just goes to show you, each piece of meat is different.
 
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