Brisket ultra low and slow

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Hey All,

I run a BBQ food truck and I normally vend lunch from about 11am to 1pm. I am a "night person" so I sleep from about 3pm to 11pm. I will usually wake up at 11pm, fire up my smoker (insulated cabinet smoker), and then cook my briskets at about 275° to get them smoked in time for an 11am lunch service.

Every now and again an issue arises where the briskets aren't finished in time, or I have some other kind of issue and it causes me a ton of stress. I'm thinking about putting the briskets on the smoker at 200-210° at about 2pm, and this way they will be well on the way when I get up at 11pm. From there I can wrap the meat and raise the temps to get them nice and tender, and then cool them off and get them into hot hold. This way I'm not still stressing out over the meat when it comes time for me to head out to serve lunch.

Logistically this won't be an issue for me as I'm using the Signals and Billows to hold my temps nice and steady. I've just never cooked briskets that low and slow before. Can anyone offer any experience on this possible process?

Any and all feedback is welcome. Thanks!

 

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

I am cooking my briskets low n slow on my pellet grill to help increase the smokiness they get. I run them unwrapped at 180 for about 10 hours. Then turn the temps up to finish off. I think they turn out great and have awesome bark.

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

I am cooking my briskets low n slow on my pellet grill to help increase the smokiness they get. I run them unwrapped at 180 for about 10 hours. Then turn the temps up to finish off. I think they turn out great and have awesome bark.

Awesome, and thanks so much for the response. I'm going to give it a shot this afternoon / evening and see how well it goes.

 

[sudsandswine]

I don't see why it would hurt anything, people sous vide brisket and other cuts of meat at lower temps than that. Granted it's not exactly the same in that one is sealed inside a vacuum bag and the other is in a smoker but as long as you can run the smoker temp that low without any negative impact and it's not an overly dry environment I don't see why it wouldn't work well.

 

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

Awesome, and thanks so much for the response. I'm going to give it a shot this afternoon / evening and see how well it goes.

Let us know what you think about it.

 

[Ron_L]

I am cooking my briskets low n slow on my pellet grill to help increase the smokiness they get. I run them unwrapped at 180 for about 10 hours. Then turn the temps up to finish off. I think they turn out great and have awesome bark.

When I used to use my FEC-100 at competitions I would do this as well. The FEC has a 'hold' feature, so I would set the temp to 180 for a certain length of time, and then set the 'hold' temp to 240 so they were ready to wrap when I woke up at 6am. It worked very well!

 

[rwalters]

I always put briskets/butts on the night before... around 8pm @ 210°. This is when I am cooking for dinner. If lunch, then closer to what you’re thinking... a 2-3pm start time. I never find myself stressed when cooking looooow n slooooow like this. I love the results and I get hours and hours of smoke aroma-therapy rolling through my yard. A win win

 

[robertm]

Only issue could be too much smoke flavor? Not sure why type of wood your using or setup. Other than that should be great. One way to find out!

 

[jwilliamson1000]

There are as many ways to do a brisket right as there are to do one wrong. I think your plan sounds good.
Good luck

 

[Cook]

I'm thinking about putting the briskets on the smoker at 200-210° at about 2pm, and this way they will be well on the way when I get up at 11pm.

Honestly, I would put them on early at the normal temp. Get them off as close to 11p as you can & let them rest. It's my firm belief that they will benefit from a long, low-temp hold than from a long, low-temp cook. Try to find you a used holding/proofing cabinet. They are worth their weight in gold!

Get the brisket done in time to give it a 8-12(+) hour soak in the cabinet.

I would take it off the pit and let it sit undisturbed until the temp drops to 150...then put it in the box at 145. Let it marinate there until service.

If you've never done it, you'll be very surprised by the outcome. This is exactly what a good few of the best barbecue restaurants do with their briskets. They put tomorrow's brisket on today around 6-8am...in order to serve tomorrow at 11am. That rest works magic on brisket.

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Honestly, I would put them on early at the normal temp. Get them off as close to 11p as you can & let them rest. It's my firm belief that they will benefit from a long, low-temp hold than from a long, low-temp cook. Try to find you a used holding/proofing cabinet. They are worth their weight in gold!

Get the brisket done in time to give it a 8-12(+) hour soak in the cabinet.

I would take it off the pit and let it sit undisturbed until the temp drops to 150...then put it in the box at 145. Let it marinate there until service.

If you've never done it, you'll be very surprised by the outcome. This is exactly what a good few of the best barbecue restaurants do with their briskets. They put tomorrow's brisket on today around 6-8am...in order to serve tomorrow at 11am. That rest works magic on brisket.

I definitely need a holding cabinet, but space inside my food trailer is quite limited, so I have put it off for a while. But I think you're correct that a long hold would be a better overall situation rather than an extended cook time. It is probably time to sacrifice some storage space for a warming cabinet as that will make life quite a bit easier.

I've had my pork butts and briskets on the smoker at 205° for 5 or 6 hours now, so I'll give it a shot and see how it comes out.

Thanks for the input.

 

[JAKs Q & brew]

If customers have come to expect a certain flavor/smoke/bark profile from your food I would think that going to extended hold on your current process would yield much more similar results than changing temp and cooking time so dramatically.

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

If customers have come to expect a certain flavor/smoke/bark profile from your food I would think that going to extended hold on your current process would yield much more similar results than changing temp and cooking time so dramatically.

This is a really good point and something I should have considered earlier. I just wrapped all the meat (its been on for 10 or 11 hours) and it had a decent enough color and bark. I think the long hold makes more sense and I'm going to grab myself a holding cabinet and do this whole process in a better way.

While my smoker held 200-208° all night long the smoke aroma wasn't the best. Certainly not thick, white smoke but too far away from thin, blue smoke for my personal preference. It was worth a try as I'm always willing to test something to see how well it works.

Thanks for the input... much appreciated.

 

[-Chris-]

Since I am not a night owl, I will routinely put the brisket on at 200 overnight, and when I wake up in the morning crank it to 275 to finish it off. I have found that with a 15-18 pound brisket, I am just leaving the stall 10 hours into the cook.

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Since I am not a night owl, I will routinely put the brisket on at 200 overnight, and when I wake up in the morning crank it to 275 to finish it off. I have found that with a 15-18 pound brisket, I am just leaving the stall 10 hours into the cook.

This timeline is pretty much exactly what I ran into doing this for the first time yesterday / early this morning. I appreciate the input. Briskets are off the smoker and in hot hold, and the pork butts are probably about an hour behind. Everything smells great so it looks like it was a success for the most part.

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

So overall I don't think this particular cooking setup is going to work all that well for me. I just finished serving lunch and the food came out OK, but the briskets were a bit off. The flats were cooked perfectly tender, but the points still needed more time / temp. I think cooking this low just didn't produce the results I was looking for..at least not with my particular cooker and having it loaded up with ~170Lbs of meat.

Overall thanks so much for everyone's input. I'm going to stick with my normal 250-275° cooking temp, and pick up an insulated holding cabinet (Avantco model) in the near future.

Cheers everyone, and again, thanks for all the input and discussion.

 

[irishboy209]

So overall I don't think this particular cooking setup is going to work all that well for me. I just finished serving lunch and the food came out OK, but the briskets were a bit off. The flats were cooked perfectly tender, but the points still needed more time / temp. I think cooking this low just didn't produce the results I was looking for..at least not with my particular cooker and having it loaded up with ~170Lbs of meat.

Overall thanks so much for everyone's input. I'm going to stick with my normal 250-275° cooking temp, and pick up an insulated holding cabinet (Avantco model) in the near future.

Cheers everyone, and again, thanks for all the input and discussion.

I would imagine the rendering is not as good with the ultra low and slow compared to the higher temperature you normally do?

The point seems to suffer from my experience

 

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

I would imagine the rendering is not as good with the ultra low and slow compared to the higher temperature you normally do?

The point seems to suffer from my experience

I think this was the case as the flats were perfectly tender but most of the point was still a tad bit chewy. Not a bad "mouth feel" but it could have certainly been more tender. Overall this was a good learning experience as I'm generally not very willing to try new things when I'm doing a large cook. The discussion in this thread has lead me to a different course of action, so I'm excited to give that a go and see how it works out.

 

[irishboy209]

I think this was the case as the flats were perfectly tender but most of the point was still a tad bit chewy. Not a bad "mouth feel" but it could have certainly been more tender. Overall this was a good learning experience as I'm generally not very willing to try new things when I'm doing a large cook. The discussion in this thread has lead me to a different course of action, so I'm excited to give that a go and see how it works out.

Yes pitmaster Harry Sue did a similar video and had a similar conclusion between the flat and the point

The only other option would be besides what you already figured out about your warmer would it be to split the difference (temperature) and find a happy medium possibly?

 

[luke duke]

Bump your temp up to 300 and save an hour or two on the backend.