First brisket
It appears inauspicious and yet, to the trained eye of the Bubba, it's the start of a great adventure.
Brisket!
Two three-pounders from Mert's Meats in Okemos. We wanted one eight-pounder, planned the party, but this was all they could supply.
Always an adventure... adjust and adapt.
All right, let's get this party started!
Scoured a bunch of sites and books and decided on a combo plan. Two sites of note:
And of course, Steve Raichlen and his bible How to Grill.
So I decided on two rubs, Cowboy and Cajun, since I had two briskets. Mixed both 50-50 with brown sugar. Coated both briskets with mustard, real thin just to hold the rubs. Then on with the rubs and wrap with off-brand Saran Wrap (read somewhere the original has a scent). Then overnight into the 'fridge.
The rubs were just store-bought concoctions.
Next day around 10 am, bring out to get to room temp. Next step is to prep the mop. One third oil, two thirds apple juice, soon to
jump into the spray bottle. Also I'm soaking mesquite wood chips, using mesquite chunk charcoal in the Egg, so we should have plenty of smoke. Don't know what I'm going to do with the beer yet. Also best info was an hour and fifteen per pound, so a 1 pm start should leave us a good margin for a 5 pm target.
Started the fire, warmed the plate setter in the house to avoid temp change cracking (wind chill is nine degrees), put the plate setter legs up on the just-now-going fire, brought the pans out, slid the briskets onto the grate, jammed the pans in the grill, then put the meat in, then put some water in the pans.
Time to get the fire up to speed.
First real issue encountered. I put a mess of fuel in the box and thought I'd just slowly bring everybody up to temp. I put the wood chips (about half- to one-inch by an inch or two @, not flakes) on top where there was no hot coal.
It took a while, longer than I wanted. Went from the shown 200 degrees to 250 which, I wanted 225. So I had to work it for a while.
However, I've been at a perfect 225 for an hour now, two hours into my cook time which I estimated at 3 hr 45 min.
And I found a use for the beer, used a little in the mop and sprayed it on after the first hour in the grill. What, you though it'd go somewhere else??
2.5 hours into cook time, brought the grill down to 205. Sloooooow cookin'. Meat @ 120 degrees.
45 min later, still there. I hit the wall mentioned in the lit, meat temp is stuck. Patience, grasshoppa. But I did bring grill temp up to 220.
Dinner guests arrive at 5 pm. Four hours forty-five minutes. Temp at 150. Whaaaaat? Pull out thermometer #2. Temp 155. That's better but..... this is an hour past projected end time.
Pull both off grill, wrap in foil, give them 20 min. in a 300-degree oven. Slice and serve.
So here's the slice, this is the Cowboy rub, cooked through well, decent exterior. (photo note, flash gave bad white balance, and the shadow in the foreground is my new lens hood which I didn't notice until posting)
And here's the presentation, Cowboy with au jus, Creole without, green beans, sweet potato fries with chipotle dip, cornbread.
The verdict? Should have started at 9 rather than 12:30. Used a little more fuel, spent more time on the grill. That would have made the meat greatly tender, instead of tender. Creole more tender than Cowboy, by the way.
A success, 85% quality of the meat, 100% on the rest of meal (thank you Linda!).
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