Personal Notes for Smoking a Brisket

Been reading Franklin BBQ & Meathead. It's 2:19 and I'm turning off my 2:30 alarm. I'm excited and can't wait for it to sound. I check to see if the towns need a bottle. They seem okay for the moment, which is surprising because I'm now use to being awake at 2 AM feeding, or at least hearing the wife feed the girls. They like to eat, and seemed ticked we didn't wake them to feed sooner.

I head downstairs, natures calling, time to get moving. By 2:45 I have the kindling stacked on top of my electric starter. I was thinking of using some paper, but it's wet by the light rain just clearing up. I plug in the electric starter, and within minutes a light smoke is starting to rise.

Thirty minutes later (3:15) I have a roaring fire coming out the top. I knock down the wood to help get a coal base form and add some more Almond wood, which is now under the cardboard box my KBQ shipped in. Though everything is most, it hasn't rained anymore. I poke and add some more wood, the smoke box is 47 degrees. The fire is looking good so I cover the top and turn the thermostat to 225. The dial isn't exact, in fact 232 is the closest knob setting. 10 minutes later the smoke box is 225, wow this came up to temp quickly.

I shut down the top smoke poppet and allow the box to continue to stabilize. Tweaking the thermostat and the thermometer high and low alarms. Let's get get meat, it's 3:45 and I don't know where the time has gone.

Meat looks good, still wish I wouldn't have trimmed it so heavily on the top, but smoke will cover a meeriod of sins. I pull it from the fridge, open the smoke box and slide it in, right in the middle. Top of the box is actually coolest, since smoke enters at the back and bottom. Meat probe is in, 37 degrees at the center, that’s a long way to go. 3:55 I'm going back to some espn highlights. Top of box at return is around 225, bottom probe measures all over but around 240 - 260.

4:05 Kate is joining me, more wood needs to go in. The smoke box seems to be going through wood quicker than expected, I've already used about 8 pieces, though the box has been going over an hour now, just not the meat.

Need to make sure only almond wood goes in, I seem to remember some other wood going into that pile. Checking grain and bark by fire light. Adding a bigger piece now, 4:40, and taking the top off. Kate is out, half a bottle and she's comfy. Ahh man, I totally forgot to add water to the bottom pan. Cracking the lid to add waster right now is frustrating, but it needs to be done. Brisket looks good, and box temp seems to really feel the water. I just turned the dial on the thermostat up and little. Top is measuring 201, bottom is 230. Want to see a bigger coal base, I need to keep piece size down to allow for better distribution.

4:50 Rain is starting. Box temps are back to the 250 bottom probe range. 20 degree rise on the meat in the first hour. Seems a bit fast. Box seems to move around quite a bit on temp as the fan cycles on and off. Bottom temp goes between 245-272

5:15 added the next log. Good looking coal base. Dropped temp again, temp at top 209-232 bottom seems to be 240-271.

5:25 poked fire, added another log. Liking the coal base. Want to keep it slow as I can. Top of box is spiking around 230 right now but bottom probe is still near 270 so I dropped thermostat again. Hope to keep the bottom around 260 spike.

5:40 another log. Temps seem stable, coal base is a little light. Took top off box, feel like fire smoke is too blue. More wood on top will allow a bigger base. Been using larger brick sized logs. Bottom probe now seems to top out around 255.

5:47 meat probe just hit 80.

6:08 meat probe just hit 90.

6:26 Bottom probe max is now at 255, but usually 250 high. Low of about 230. Wood is burning a lot faster, but solid coal base and clear smoke means the lid will stay off for now.

6:30 meat probe hits 100.

7:49 meat probe at 130. Started breaking wood into Red Bull can size pieces. Put the top back on. With sunrise I can see that having the lid off is still the same color smoke even with fire roaring out the top. So top back on, keeping the smaller pieces should allow big coal base to stay.

8:10 water pan was empty, added 2 huge mugs full. Meat looks good, just sort of browning and a couple blackening corners. Smoker probe dropped to 175, but in 30 seconds was back at 230+. The inverted flame looked solid. Really like smaller pieces, coal base is great and wood consumption has lightened.

10:30 spayed meet again, also sprayed it about 30 minutes ago. Meat is now 157. Bark is darkening slowly.

11:00 sprayed meat, and more wood. Definitely in the stall, meat probe is at 158. Seems like in the last hour it's only moved 3 or 4 degrees.

11:30 added more water to pan, sprayed meat with water, more wood. Meat probe is 159. Low probe is max at 245 and top of box hits about 228.

12:06 finally hit 160.

1:00 temp is finally climbing again. Seems coals got to thick and couldn't draft down, I thought maybe the ash box was full, but I don't think pressing down on the wood was a good move. Turned temp knob up, 275 is now the high, about 250 low. Hoping this will help with crust. Meat is at 162

2:03 finally hit 170.

3:12 184, wood burning is going really well. Very stable on bottom probe of 265-275. Bark looks really good. Looks like it's about time to wrap.

6:00 203, but still feels a bit firm.

6:15 feels good at 203.2 pulling it to sit in the cooler on the serving pan still wrapped. Hopefully eat at 7:00 or so.

7:15 pulling it from the cooler where it's sat for the last hour. Now it feels too soft. More stress. Unwrapped on the cutting board I can already tell it's overcooked. I'm sure most will think it's awesome, but this is a bit of a bummer to me. I wish I would have pulled it at least 30 minutes and probable more like an hour ago. It needs to sit for at least 2 hours. Butcher paper didn't seem to affect the crust like I worried about, in fact it probably made it even better. I definitely wouldn't want to use plastic or foil, too worried about taste and moisture.

The cutting went well, it was pretty easy to see where the point transitioned to the flat and the grain changed. Overall the day went well. I had just enough meat for everyone. I had to cut it heavy, probably 3/8" to keep the meat together. If it wasn't overcooked I could have cut 1/4" slices and made it go much further.