Brisket Experts Need Advice

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

Been doing a lot of cooking, just haven't been able to post. Good to be back.
Question for the brisket pros. I smoked a brisket over night and it turned put really good. Passed all the bend and pull tests, but the flat was dry. It was a choice packer, but I injected the whole brisket. I'm thinking that since the doneness was spot on it might just be the fact it is a lower grade flat. Please look at my process because if it's something I can change I definitely want to.

Trimmed and injected brisket. Rubbed it and put on pellet smoker. Ran 180* for 12 hours. Wrapped it in butcher paper and did 275* for 4 1/2 hours. Pulled brisket at 205*. Vented on counter for 15 min. Wrapped in foil and put it in cooler for 4 hours. Pulled out and sliced. Meat tenderness couldn't have been better, but flat was dry. Any advice?

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[rm41400]

No expert here… but the length of time and low temp may be the culprit on a lean cut. My first thought was the process when dehydrating jerky

 

[ssv3]

Joedy,

180 is way too low and you drained the moisture out of the brisket. I go a minimum of 275 on brisket.

 

[sandro]

It dried out because of the 12 hours at 180, think about it—you need just 4 hours at 160 to make beef jerky. If you want a long cook with tons of smoke for a better bark that's great but go 200 smoky for 4 hours, then 275 for the rest of the cook (about 6 more hours). The fat also didn't render properly so bump up that temp

 

[sudsandswine]

I can tell by the way it bends on your finger it’s undercooked. Tough and dry = undercooked, dry and crumbly = overcooked.

 

[sudsandswine]

It dried out because of the 12 hours at 180, think about it—you need just 4 hours at 160 to make beef jerky.

Disagree, you can still render a brisket at 180 for a large part of the cook, otherwise sous vide at even lower temps wouldn’t work. The intersection between time and temperature just didn’t meet at the right spot.

If the brisket wasn’t crumbling apart it wasn’t over cooked and it wasn’t lacking available internal moisture. You just didn’t get to the point of releasing it.

 

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

Thanks for the advice. It makes sense how the drying out could occur through the low temps. Now I feel like the brisket is mocking me until the next brisket cook on the pellet grill.

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