Success and failure with Qview

[chowderpants]

Well, they cookout was Saturday, and here's how it all went

On Friday night, my buddy and I got the rubs put on the meat and into the fridge for an early rise on Saturday. On the menu was

an 8lb brisket



and a 8.5 lb pork Butt



Here's some pics as the rub was being applied





Here's a pic of the end of the brisket.. I was impressed by the marbleing (which may or may not have led to the outcome below)



We got them into a 225 degree smoker at 5:30 AM. While we were waiting, I put together something for lunch. This is my first attempt at a fattie

First was a Italian sausage one with bacon, bbq sauce, cheddar cheese and jalapenos with a little Tony Chachere's More Spice sprinkled on there for good measure



The other was inspired by BBQ Engineers entry into the Fattie Throwdown

Chicken breast, Buffalo sauce, bleu cheese



Here they are all rolled up and cooked (225 smoker until they had an internal of 165 degrees)



I had to try the bacon weave and it went fairly well. These things looked SO good. We cut into them around 1:00 pm and here's what we had:

Buffalo Wing (guess I forgot to take a pic of the bacon bomb!)



The brisket cooked very fast compared to the others that I've done, but I took multiple temps with the probe and it was at 200 internal. Was in the smoker for 6.5 hours. I foiled it and into the cooler it went. The Butt was next off. I foiled at 165 and removed from the cooler at 205 internal.

I'll have to edit this and post the after pics when I get home from work.. imageshack didnt take all the images I threw at it apparently.

 

[rbranstner]

What was the failure you were talking about?

 

[pandemonium]

Yea i dont see a fail? It all looks great!!

 

[scarbelly]

It all looks good from here too

 

[mballi3011]

Well the pictures up till the after work ones look great so. You can just post them for your computer now they say. You don't need that sticking imageshack anymore. well you got to the fattie but the main thing is that you and your friends liked the brisket and the butt right. It' all good my friend.

 

[rdknb]

ok I missed your failure part, looks great imo

 

[chowderpants]

well, I'm back to a computer, so allow me to finish

I did find a picture of my bacon bomb fattie ( I KNEW I snapped a couple)

 

Well, when I pulled the pork butt from the cooler, this is what was waiting for us

 

Being my first butt, I was excited to see the bone came out cleanly!

 

and the brisket looked like this (after sitting in the cooler for a couple hours. (my buddy thought I said to foil the brisket in a similar fashion as the pork.. hence the weak bark)

 

It looked a little "medium well" to me, not the beyond well done that a 200 degree internal would warrant.

This was my failure. The brisket was tough as shoe leather. The flavor was excellent, but it was like an over cooked steak. I cant wrap my head around what went wrong, I cooked it the exact same way as I have in the past. The previous attempts were all fork tender and wonderful. This brisket only took 6.5 hours in the smoker to reach 200 degrees internal. The only thing I can think was all that internal fat. Could it be that every time I checked the temperature, I was hitting a fat vein? Would that mess with the thermometer readings?

In review... Pork was wonderful; brisket was tasty, but tough; and I'm still on the fence about the fatties. I thought they were a little too salty. I didnt add any salt (I know the Tony Chachere's is salt heavy but I barely put any on there). Maybe the bacon I used was overly salty. I think that if I try them again, I'll use a low sodium bacon and use a little more sauce on the inside.

p.s. Another good thing about this experience is that I found a very good butcher shop a couple towns over. Everything they sell is rated "prime", and the prices are very close to the supermarket's "choice"

 

[rdknb]

Did you slice the brisket against the grain? If not that is why it was tough

 

[bmudd14474]

Looks good so far 

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Okay to Me....

 

[jirodriguez]

Yeah... brisket can throw you a curve every so often. I have taken to not only checking the temperatures, but also checking for tenderness before I pull it. I take a butter knife and try to slide it into the brisket, when it slide in easy I know I got it nice and tender.

 

[rw willy]

I'll take the "fail" anytime.  Keep smoking. 

 

[eman]

The brisket is tough because it's not done. 6.5 hrs for an 8 lb brisket @225 degrees no way , not done . something was screwing w/ your thermos.

 The but looks great and tender the briskey from what i'm seeing was on its way but is not done. Look at the fat in the sliced pic. on the bottom right side of the piece on the left the fat is still allmost white and it's on the outside of the meat . looks like it has barely started rendering?

 Like i said something was giving you a false reading somewhere.

 Keep on smoking and it will get right. My 1st one was not edible  dry as sawdust.

 

[tom37]

Well it looks like a pretty nice job for a failure.

The way I see it, is unless the dog won't eat it then its a success. With every smoke we all learn something new.

Nice Work.

 

[smokebuzz]

I will agree the briskets not done, FORGET times, take it 195 o'clock, and check your thermo.'s

I thiknk if it was a visual thing, I would eat with my eye's closed.

 

[meateater]

For only six posts ya done better than most on here. Nice qview.

 

[chowderpants]

thanks for all the words everyone! This was not my first brisket. I've made 2 this year and a handful last year (please don't construe that as cockiness.. I'm very much aware of the fact that I am still new at this). That's why I was confused. I knew it should have taken much longer to cook. I knew I was in serious trouble when I made that first cut.. the knife didn't just slip through the meat. The outer 1/2" to 1" outer layer was pretty good. I tried reheating a couple pieces Monday night, and low and behold.. the reheating process actually finished cooking  the damn thing and it was as tender as can be. Go figure. So, I guess this was a success after all. Not only did I learn a new process for testing doneness (thanks JlRodriguez), but I also have almost 1/2 of the brisket in my fridge just waiting for me!

 

[jirodriguez]

Slice what is left really thin for sammies.... or wrap it in foil with some liquid and low & slow it in the oven till it gets tender. Should still turn out good.