How Long to Cook a Brisket or The Misconception of the 1 to 1.5 hour rule

[bigjeffm]

I had a super stubborn prime 12 lb brisket I smoked overnight Saturday. Got my WSM going at 6:30 PM Saturday, cooked at 230-250 for 5 hours, wrapped in pink butcher paper at 162 degrees and went to bed with the temp slowly rising.

Woke up at 3 AM and the brisket was at 181 with the 22" WSM at 266 degrees. I dialed it back some and when I woke up the WSM was at 225 and the brisket had dropped to 167. I've seen temperature drops when the smoker got cold. I had set an alarm on my ET-133 if the smoker got below 205 but it never went off.

I cranked the heat up some and didn't get this brisket finished until after 3 PM, 21.5 hours after starting it.

It came out chewy around the edges and a little on the dry side with the flat meat. Gotta figure out the overnight temperature with it starting to cool off overnight.

 

[gary s]

Verify your temp gauges are reading correctly. From the pics it looks way over cooked to me

Gary

 

[bigjeffm]

I used my ET-733. Will have to check to make sure the probes aren't going bad.

Thanks

 

[gary s]

I used my ET-733. Will have to check to make sure the probes aren't going bad.

Thanks

Sometimes you can get a Bad Brisket but it looked pretty dry and the bark looked really black. That is why I am thinking a temp problem.

Gary

 

[humdinger]

I concur gary, it looks dry. Especially that third pic/close-up of the slices. that's why I use toothpick test on Brisket. No more probe issues to worry about.