smoking the point of the brisket separately

[viscera912]

hi everyone

been wanting to smoke the point and flat separately and just had a couple quick questions.  when doing them separately would i still wrap and use the beef broth technique after it hits the 160 mark?  also, once done is it still good to wrap it in towels and place in cooler?

i've done 4 packer brisket and ive found that when they are connected, even though I trim the fat a little bit, seasoning doesn't hit the bottom of the point and top of the flat where they are connected.  also, the broth seems to make the bark kinda soggy.  i keep seeing these brisket that have a beautiful bark and its pretty "crunchy" for lack of a better term.  whereas, using the beef broth technique sorta makes the bark a little soggy.  im up for experimenting but don't want to totally screw up as you all know brisket aint cheap these days!

thanks!
jason

[Old Dave]

Jason,

You have a lot of options with your brisket.

You can wait longer to wrap the meat at say about 170-175 internal and that will improve your bark if that is what you want. Never use over 2-3oz of liquid in your foil wrap.

Next, a step most folks may not know or forget is to vent your brisket before you place it into the cooler. To vent, when you take the meat off the cooker, open up the foil and let the meat vent for about 20-30 minutes and then wrap back up before placing into the cooler. This step will help "reset" your bark and make it much better.

And yes, it is good to place any large piece of meat in a cooler to give it time for all the juices to redistribute and the heat to even out thru out your meat. 

You do not have to wrap your brisket at all if you want that dark and real hard and crispy bark. You wrap to steam the brisket and this is not really needed. Many folks do not like that kind of bark and wrap to prevent it. Foil will also speed up your cook.

If you lack some seasoning as you say in the bottom of the point and the top of the flat, you could try injecting your whole packer brisket. Most all successful competition cooks do it and it works well.

Dave

[brentwoodkris]

With all this extra advice, you better be cooking me a better brisket (than last time) when I see you next brother-in-law! 

[amshepar]

I'm in the process of smoking a 10lb. brisket myself.  I separated them about 2 hours in because part of the flat was so thin it was hitting high internal temperatures, 20 degrees more than the point.  I have them wrapped but am using more broth than what was described above.  See my previous post about a 10lb. brisket if you want to see what will give great bark. 

Adding more broth will only help to create a gravy/jus effect that will go along way if your flat is a lot drier than your point.  I also used a porter instead of broth last time.  It creates a thicker richer gravy/jus but a lot gets lost to evaporation or brisket absorption (not sure which).

Good luck on yours.  I will have a post of mine later today.

[drholly]

Looking forward to your results