a few firsts today...

1) first time cooking a packer. i spent $38 on a packer from wal-mart that was about 10.88 pounds. i trimmed a decent amount of fat but i'd say it's still around 9lbs or so. the flat looks VERY thin on one end, so i'm a little worried about that.

2) first time doing hot n fast. or at least trying to. i was shooting for a temp of 300 but so far it's been dipping down to 275. it's still a little chilly out and it's also windy, hopefully as the day goes on i can get it up to 300 and keep it there

3) no water in my WSM. i'm only doing this to get the higher temp, and so far i've already learned a lesson from this. at one point i look outside and there's a ton of heavy white smoke coming out and it's about an hour into the cook so i know the charcoal's settled already, so i take a look and it's from the fat dripping down into the hot empty pan. i can't take the pan out because i need it later to hold the 2nd rack, so i actually put enough water in to just cover the bottom

the packer went on at about 9:10AM, i told people to come up at 5:30 knowing that they won't show up until 6 or 6:30, so i have plenty of time to cook this and rest it. i plan on wrapping in foil around 1pm but i might start checking the internal temp before then to see how it's doing. about 20 minutes ago i took a peek and it looked like it wanted to be mopped so i couldn't resist.

later on i'll be adding some chicken leg quarters. my first time with hot n fast chicken, i can't wait to see how this comes out.

the idea was to have an end of summer BBQ, so i wanted to have corn while it's still in season and i'm gunna make baked beans, home fries, and garlic cheddar biscuits, and possibly a summery alcoholic beverage.

pron to come either later tonight or tomorrow afternoon

i was thinking about that, but if i foil the top then won't there be a chance of the fat sliding down onto the coals? i'm thinkin about just putting foil under the brisket itself, it's already fat side down anyways

just checked and the IT is at 167 already, should i wrap now or give it another half hour or so it's only been 3 and a half hours since i put it on. temp of the smoker dipped down to 275 and it seems to have settled there, but i feel it's taking up more charcoal this time so i might go to the store and get some once it's wrapped, i gotta get a couple more things anyways

seaham358 said:

I would say wrap at 170 unless you got to have killer bark. For me I would rather have a very moist brisket and little bark, then great bark and a dry brisket. Most people don't know what bark is, they do know what dry meat is.

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i agree with the bark, i'm more concerned with a moist hunk of meat. and with brisket it's sliced relatively thin anyways so how much difference is the bark really gunna make? i did let it go another half hour after my last post and when i checked the IT again it was up to 173, so i wrapped it then. charcoal's getting low in the smoker but it's been holding a steady temp of 300 for the last hour and a half. i'll probably have to add more before i put the chicken on though.

and smoke ninja, typically i hate wrapping, i never do it while cooking shoulders and i only do it on ribs when i'm experimenting with something, but in this case i'm using it to kind of speed things up a bit

6 hours in and the brisket is done!! pulled it at 211.5 degrees, probed like butter, giving it at least a 2 hour rest and i really can't wait to see how this tastes, i'm excited!

the charcoal has all burned out though. pit is still holding at 200 degrees, it was at 250 about 15 minutes ago when i took the beef off so now i have another chimney being lit right now for the chicken

i vented for a few minutes, not too long though, maybe i should have waited a few more. the chicken is on right now at 300. if i can keep the pit above 275 i'll be happy

just probed the beef to see where it was at. after an hour's rest it was at 190, so it dropped 20 degrees. it'll be in there at least another hour and a half

ok so here's the pron. my dad passed on these words to me from his father, "Be your own harshest critic". and while people enjoyed the food, it wasn't perfect. the brisket was overdone, it pretty much shredded as i sliced it. it was still moist though, which was my goal after cooking flats that ended up dry. this was my first time cooking chicken at 300 degrees and after 2 hours the skin didn't crisp up and the meat was way overdone. i checked the temp of one of em and it was up to 200, all i could do was shake my head. it wasn't try by any means but it literally fell off the bone, the only thing keeping it together was the skin. good flavor though. as for the sides, i was gunna make baked beans but didn't. nobody seemed to care that i didn't make them because only 8 people showed up out of the 12 invited and there was already enough food. the grilled corn came out decent, as did the cheddar garlic biscuits. i made home fries too. i usually make them in small batches for myself for breakfast and they're great, but this was my first time doing them in bulk and while they were still decent they weren't as good as i could have made them. still, overall it was a pretty good meal...

raw brisket. i forgot to season the side of the meat but i did after i took the pic. i was really thinking about saving the fat to render into tarlow but i passed because i didn't think i'd use it anytime soon


on the cutting board after a 6 hour cook and 3 hour rest. this is the fat side, which as you can see i scored. i ended up cutting off the bulk of the fat, which you will see in the next pic



as you can see, i removed the top layer of fat, leaving a small smoke ring visible on the bottom. i wish the smoke flavor came through a little bit more. you can also see that it started to crumble and i started putting that to the side. this was before i got to the point. i feel like the grain from the flat and point ran in different directions, so after a slice or 2 i decided to separate them and even still, anything i tried to slice from the point just crumbled.





the table after everyone had filled their plates


my plate. i had 2 sauces, one that was heavy on the dark brown sugar and one that was more tomato/vinegar based, with a little bit of jalapeno. the tomato vinegar one is my fav for brisket



and then afterwards we had some fun with beer, fire, and smores