re: Smoking a Brisket - Tips/Tricks: UPDATED w pics on page 2

I agree and not resting choice is a ridiculous claim. I was specifically asking why he said 4 hours. Why is 4 hours appropriate but 3 is not? As you said, I believe there is no minimum or maximum time.

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If goal is to serve at 10am Sunday morning. Would you start it late Saturday afternoon?

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Hard to really say as I've found that sometimes, I cook one very fast and then the next one will take 2 extra hours.

On the pellet grill, I would put it on around 6-8 PM at 225 and check it around midnight to see where we are at. This is where a meater thermometer comes in handy. The ones that come with your grill are ok, but you will always want to fine tune with a better probe.

My goal would be to plan to rest around 6 am. If you have an oven that can stay at 140, you could potentially start earlier and have it "rest" at 140 until you are ready to slice. That way you don't have to babysit so much in the middle of the night.

Some other tips that I have picked up are:

1) You can trim all you want but it depends on what you want to do with it. In a competition? You want that bad boy to be lean and mean and look good. For feeding people? Trim some of the fat making sure to make your brisket as aerodynamic as possible. Every little pocket will hold liquid on top and your bark will not be as good as you'd like. Here is an example of a small trim that I did last year.

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1a) Don't be afraid to season it. Some people prefer the "Texas" way. I like to shoot mine up with Meat Church brisket injection and season the shite out of it. Your call.

2) Plan to leave yourself extra time. The first part of the cook is very important. Don't try to muscle it to and through the stall. I've found on my pellet grill that the stall is usually very short. Give yourself time to adjust temperature to get your bark where you want it to be. I usually start at 225 and will bump it up towards the end of this stage if I'm trying to wrap. The longer you can keep the brisket forming bark, the better it will be.

3) I prefer to wrap with butcher paper. Get the 2 foot wide roll if you can. It will make your life a lot easier instead of trying to Frankenstein the regular roll. Use a spray bottle and lightly wet your butcher paper if you find it difficult to wrap. In this stage, the meater probe is awesome in that you can wrap the brisket with the probe intact without having any holes in the paper.

4) Start checking your brisket no later than 195. At that point, you should start to feel that "peanut butter" when probing. As said previously in this thread, there is no "set" temp for this type of cook. It will be by feel. After doing a few, you will "get it". This may sound silly, but I actually put my probe in a jar of peanut butter when I first started cooking briskets to try to understand what it felt like. It worked.

5) Rest, Rest, Rest. As I said earlier, if you have an oven or something that can hold at 140, that would be perfect to rest your brisket. If not, I just wrap it in an old towel and throw it in a cooler. You want that brisket to cool a bit and suck up all of the juices. I have rested for right under two hours and then up to 6-8 hours before. Just leave time for the meat to do its thing.

6) DO NOT SLICE UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO EAT. It is true that brisket dies a quick death once you start slicing. Sure, it will still be fine later, but you should wait until the latest you possibly can before slicing. I wait until people have plates in their hands before I start. Another point here, get a good slicing knife for this. I didn't think it mattered until I got one and it's a game changer.

7) I would invest in some of the cotton liners and gloves that you see some cooks use. I use it almost every cook on my smoker. I use the latex gloves during prep to save so much time and energy. User preference though.

All in all, there are many ways to cook a brisket. I started by following Matt with Meat Church and his way. Never steered me wrong. Hope this helps!

I'd be careful - that thing may take 14-16 hours. you don't want to leave your guests hanging waiting on it to finish (which is better than pulling it early while it's still tough). you also don't want to neglect to rest it. If it was me i'd put it on as early as possible saturday morning and hope to pull by midnight. It will hold to temp in a cooler with a couple towels for at least 6 hours (probably fine at 10). you can always stick in the oven at 170 to hold when you get up sunday morning.

also if it helps you can stick a wrapped brisket in the oven to finish. it's no longer taking on smoke once you wrap anyway. If i don't want to tend my smoker overnight, i'll pull when time to wrap and bring inside and set oven on a timer.

It’s game day

Going grab extra bag of pellets just in case. Never done a cook over 5 hours ha

I’ve got the trimmings in the smoker. Gonna pour on top when I wrap and then maybe again before I rest in the ice chest

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You left out the most important part of the recipe. Buy a good prime brisket, not some cheap choice or select crap brisket. Makes a huge difference.

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I’ve bought two choice briskets from Albertsons for under $2 a pound. They were as good or better than the primes I’ve gotten from Sam’s or Costco.

It tasted great to me and the guests were impressed.

Made breakfast tacos.

I definitely do not have a good knife for slicing. Also struggled finding the grain on the point side.