First Brisket - lil guy and not much fat

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ameskimo1

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Sep 7, 2013
222
43
Michigan's little Bavaria
So the local butcher had a 4 lb brisket without much fat and I thought gosh how hard could that be....especially my first one. 

Put a salt, pepper, and garlic powder rub on it last night, in she goes this morning. Sorry the pics are out or order, but were smoking primarily oak with 1 chunk of hickory and then some peach chips just to make the hood smell nice for a while.

Lots of water in the pan due to lack of fat and running 225-250. Will check it before church and likely wrap it when we get home. Briskets are easy, right?






 
We are about to find out . . .  
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Well, all in all this worked out pretty well. A bit of a brain fart - pulled at 182 instead of 190 and wrapped it in the cooler. I caught it at 178 and put it back on the heat to just over 190. After resting i pulled the thermo at 160 and juice shot out like a geyser.

Put it back in and let it rest to about 100 when we returned home again. Its juicy, fairly tender, and very juicy but I think it needs to render a bit more. Tomorrow I'm going to chop it and let it spend the afternoon in the crock pot, finish with some sauce, and serve with mac & cheese.


 
So this morning I was getting ready for the crock pot, took a slice across the grain and this actually turned out pretty good. Probably another 30 minutes or so on the heat would have done the trick. Nice smoke flavor at the edges but I'd like to see it go deeper and just a little bit of chew, still pulled apart nicely. I've definitely paid for worse brisket. No crock pot, now slicing dinner samiches. 

I'll call it a success, especially for the first time around.

 
I made a brisket last year that apparently was a "trimmed" brisket and had almost no fat (was all I could find at the time.

Came out beautifully:


But, because there was so little fat, one of them was just "OK" and the other one was tough. Flavor was good but I was disappointed that they came out too dry. I may have also cooked them too long.
 
Ghunt that has a great ring on it. I'll be trying this again, I also liked the smaller 4 lb size of this one, seems easy to manage and fit nicely into the smoker. Thinking I'll do two of these next time.
 
Thanks! Like I said it looked purdy but wasn't quite as great to eat. Yours looks good! I definitely need to try it again :)
 
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