I was worried this was going to be bad...
First off, I "sacrificed" a couple of pounds of the flat by cutting it off so the wife could make me some soup with it. So the 19.5 lb Costco prime brisket became a 17 - 17.5lb'er before I even trimmed away the fat.
Then I couldn't find any ground pepper...I'd actually run out (I thought I had another bottle in the pantry but I'd guessed wrong!) Fortunately, I found some whole peppercorns (Tellicherry) so I started hand grinding them (I really need to get a spice grinder cause that was a lot of work.) Before you ask, no, I don't know what mesh size this was except it was way coarser than the big bottles of restaurant ground black pepper that I get at Sam's...so I was worried that the taste would be off since I wasn't sure how much pepper to use due to the mesh/grind.
Lastly, the Masterbuilt 1050...it had rained all of last week here in SoCal (yeah, we never get rain but last week was an exception to the rule) but I made sure that the cooker was covered (w/the official MB cover -- funny thing is that it's the only Masterbuilt item that seems to be really well-made!). However, I was having an issue with the cooker getting up to temp...the fan would not kick on! Finally sprayed the hopper lid switch and the ash pan door switch with some Brake Kleen and pushed those switches in/out and that did the trick! Finally had the cooker up and running!
(Fortunately, I'd swapped out that sh!tty charcoal grate for the improved v2.0 grate from MB...yeah, the Klotes one looks really nice and heavy-duty but I don't feel like parting with $90 for that one.) The new charcoal grate makes a H-U-G-E difference! Before, I was getting maybe 5-6 hours @225F on a cook; now, I get the advertised 8-10 hrs on a full hopper (depends on if I stay within the 225F - 250F range though).
I reloaded the hopper when it was still 2/3 full (since I actually remembered to look in the hopper at the time and knew I'd forget to come back and reload at the half-way point) and got a almost 12 hours (started the cook on Sun, 1/2 at 12:35pm running 225F for the first three hours and then the rest of the time at 250F (middle rack the entire time) and ran out of charcoal in the hopper on Mon, 1/3 at 12:17am.
I then transferred the brisket to the oven at 225F for the remainder of the cook as I went to bed. Woke up around 6:50am on Mon, 1/3 and my wireless thermometer was showing 203F internal for the brisket so I immediately ran downstairs and probed it with my Thermoworks MKIV...point was like buttah but the flat still had a couple of areas that had a little bit of resistance. So I let it go for another 20 mins to get to 204.4F and then allowed it to rest in the oven.
First time using the oven to rest a brisket. Set the oven at 170F (tried to set it at 150 and 160 but the oven stated 'Err' on the screen so 170F is the lowest setting). I had the brisket wrapped in peach butcher paper with the fat/au jus from the cook. I made sure that the wrapped brisket sat in another foil pan and left the previous foil pan with the au jus dripping underneath for more moisture/humidity. I let it rest like that for a couple of hours. Then I turned off the oven without opening it and let the brisket continue to rest. Finally, at 12 noon, I removed the brisket and carved away at it. It was still warm and the edge piece crumbled under the weight of the knife. But it was DELICIOUS! After it cooled down a bit, I sliced another piece and it held better -- what I thought was overcooked from resting in the oven was just me being impatient as I was able to fold the slice over my finger without it breaking and it held up under its own weight and passed the tug/pull test. :becky::clap2:
Hope the rest of my cooks this year turn out this well! And was glad to find that the oven resting procedure works too!
First off, I "sacrificed" a couple of pounds of the flat by cutting it off so the wife could make me some soup with it. So the 19.5 lb Costco prime brisket became a 17 - 17.5lb'er before I even trimmed away the fat.
Then I couldn't find any ground pepper...I'd actually run out (I thought I had another bottle in the pantry but I'd guessed wrong!) Fortunately, I found some whole peppercorns (Tellicherry) so I started hand grinding them (I really need to get a spice grinder cause that was a lot of work.) Before you ask, no, I don't know what mesh size this was except it was way coarser than the big bottles of restaurant ground black pepper that I get at Sam's...so I was worried that the taste would be off since I wasn't sure how much pepper to use due to the mesh/grind.
Lastly, the Masterbuilt 1050...it had rained all of last week here in SoCal (yeah, we never get rain but last week was an exception to the rule) but I made sure that the cooker was covered (w/the official MB cover -- funny thing is that it's the only Masterbuilt item that seems to be really well-made!). However, I was having an issue with the cooker getting up to temp...the fan would not kick on! Finally sprayed the hopper lid switch and the ash pan door switch with some Brake Kleen and pushed those switches in/out and that did the trick! Finally had the cooker up and running!
(Fortunately, I'd swapped out that sh!tty charcoal grate for the improved v2.0 grate from MB...yeah, the Klotes one looks really nice and heavy-duty but I don't feel like parting with $90 for that one.) The new charcoal grate makes a H-U-G-E difference! Before, I was getting maybe 5-6 hours @225F on a cook; now, I get the advertised 8-10 hrs on a full hopper (depends on if I stay within the 225F - 250F range though).
I reloaded the hopper when it was still 2/3 full (since I actually remembered to look in the hopper at the time and knew I'd forget to come back and reload at the half-way point) and got a almost 12 hours (started the cook on Sun, 1/2 at 12:35pm running 225F for the first three hours and then the rest of the time at 250F (middle rack the entire time) and ran out of charcoal in the hopper on Mon, 1/3 at 12:17am.
I then transferred the brisket to the oven at 225F for the remainder of the cook as I went to bed. Woke up around 6:50am on Mon, 1/3 and my wireless thermometer was showing 203F internal for the brisket so I immediately ran downstairs and probed it with my Thermoworks MKIV...point was like buttah but the flat still had a couple of areas that had a little bit of resistance. So I let it go for another 20 mins to get to 204.4F and then allowed it to rest in the oven.
First time using the oven to rest a brisket. Set the oven at 170F (tried to set it at 150 and 160 but the oven stated 'Err' on the screen so 170F is the lowest setting). I had the brisket wrapped in peach butcher paper with the fat/au jus from the cook. I made sure that the wrapped brisket sat in another foil pan and left the previous foil pan with the au jus dripping underneath for more moisture/humidity. I let it rest like that for a couple of hours. Then I turned off the oven without opening it and let the brisket continue to rest. Finally, at 12 noon, I removed the brisket and carved away at it. It was still warm and the edge piece crumbled under the weight of the knife. But it was DELICIOUS! After it cooled down a bit, I sliced another piece and it held better -- what I thought was overcooked from resting in the oven was just me being impatient as I was able to fold the slice over my finger without it breaking and it held up under its own weight and passed the tug/pull test. :becky::clap2:
Hope the rest of my cooks this year turn out this well! And was glad to find that the oven resting procedure works too!
