First time my fantasy football league has planned ahead a draft, and everyone chipped in for me to make food. Brisket was requested, I made pulled pork and chicken too to have variety. 12 guys, including me, plus my wife was there so 13 people total. 16.6# brisket (smallest my butcher was able to get this week), and 10.1# pork butt. Brisket was trimmed and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and sat in the fridge overnight uncovered. Pork butt was trimmed and seasoned with my own rub, and also sat in the fridge overnight uncovered, as well as the chicken which was dry brined.
I fired up the smoker at 5am and the brisket hit the pit at 6. I tried keeping the fire around 275F (135C), a little hotter than I usually like to do, but with a bigger than normal brisket and a time crunch, I'd rather have it be done earlier and rest longer than not have enough time to rest. I used oak with a little bit of cherry wood mixed in.
Brisket trimmed and seasoned:
Brisket on the pit:
Around 1pm, it was hovering around 156F (69C), so I decided to wrap it and popped it into the oven at 275F (135C) and let it ride until 195F(90C) when I started checking it. It was almost there, and at 200F (93C) it was done, so I killed the heat and let it rest until it was slicing time.
Before wrapping the brisket:
Finished Brisket:
The Jus at the bottom of the pan was amazing! Someone even took a spoon to just drink some of it without meat. Right before people started showing up I sliced it down so everything would be ready to go and no one had to wait.
Sliced Brisket money shots:
Ready to go:
The pork butt went on the PBC with Pecan wood chunks at 830am. I just rested it on the grate because I was afraid of it falling until the coals, and I was only doing one so I didn't need to save space. It hung out on the great until 3-330pm when it hit 180F (82C). I then pulled it to wrap it. I added some coals to the PBC because I wanted it hotter for the chicken I was hanging later and I wanted them to catch without any fat dripping on them. When I put the pork back on the PBC I did plug a hole with a wine cork just to keep the temps a little lower when finishing the pork. At 201F the pork was perfect, and I let it rest for 90 minutes before shredding and adding some homemade bbq sauce (2cups apple cider vinegar, 3/4c of ketchup, crushed red pepper flake, 1/3 cup of worcester sauce, 1/3c brown sugar, salt, pepper, ground mustard) and letting it rest and mingle with the pork.
Chicken and pork in the fridge:
I didn't get any pictures of it unwrapped on the pit but here it is wrapped:
Ready to serve:
Chicken was halved and one was season with just salt pepper and garlic, and the other was with Sweet Lou's Jamaican Jerk (we love this stuff!). No pictures of the chicken, because at this point I was freaking out about timing and trying to set up everything before people started showing up. Sorry
Overall everything went well, and only had a little over a pound of brisket left over and 2.5# of pulled pork, and 1 chicken leg left over. Easy to say we are planning on doing this again, hopefully we can get another Friday or Saturday to do it.
