Need some brisket help, new smoker, biggest brisket I have cooked

[kilohertz]

Heck ya!
Glad it worked out for you.
It would be helpful to others if you wrote a quick summary of what you did.

I'd be delighted to, who'd thought me, a relative brisket newbie could offer some tips.

I took it out of the fridge Dec. 24th about 5pm to start warming to room temp, seasoned it and let it sit on the counter until about 10pm when I started asking questions here. I decided to put it in at 10:30pm with the smoker at 225*, full tray of pellets in the toolbox (mailbox mod), shut the door and crossed my fingers and went to bed. I woke up at 4:30am and decided to check it, IT was 162 and smoker had crept up to 240, so I knocked the temp back down to 225* and went back to bed.

8am Christmas morning IT was 171 and smoker 220*. I let it go this way for most of the day, I didn't add any more smoke as the full tray had already given it a good bark. I think it was noon, it had hit 188* so I pulled it, wrapped it in foil and moved to the oven at 225*. It had a 2 hour stall at 190* and pulled through about 4pm, hit 201* at 5pm. Pulled it out of the oven and wrapped another layer of foil around it and covered it in tea towels and cooked the rest of the meal (no saran wrap). Carved it at 7:30 and was very happy with it.

Here is the temp curve from start to about 4pm

 

[912smoker]

Do you wrap in saran wrap after the temp comes down to 140°?

No I leave it on the counter, temp probe in,
until the temp starts to drop.
Then wrap tightly over the paper. No loss on the liquid gold !


Keith

 

[Dantij]

Looks like your brisket turned out great. I'm a little late responding but I've done a few hot and fast briskets and they do come out pretty good but not GREAT. There's a reason the best pitmasters in the country cook their briskets low and slow and it's not because they have nothing better to do with their time. If I were using a pellet cooker and was aiming for a 7pm dinner, I would plan on having my brisket hit temps between 7am and 9am. Once off the cooker, I let the temp fall to 175-180°. From there it goes into a roasting pan that is set at 150° and I hold it there for 10-15 hours. Before slicing I remove from the roaster and let it come down to @ 140° to slice. Tried and true. I haven't tried a brisket on my pellet cooker yet but I've done close to 100 on my reverse flow offset. Typically my cooks are done @ 1am and I'm slicing by 5pm. By cooking them this way I get plenty of sleep that morning and can get up rested and start cooking again!

 

[JLeonard]

Turned out looking great!

Jim