Hi Everyone!
Saturday was brisket flat day. We had some friends coming over to show us the pics of their recent trip to Germany and Ireland. I figured a good way to thank them for the tour would be a brisket dinner.
Brisket was a 7.4 pound flat from Costco. I trimmed the thick hard parts of the fat cap down to about 1/4 inch and trimmed the edges up straight. I also removed the leftover silverskin from the back to allow the smoke to penetrate better. Simple was the name of the game here so I seasoned with FSB and some Montreal Steak Seasoning and wrapped it in saran for an overnight rest in the fridge.
5:00 AM rolled around and I got up and put it on the smoker and fired up the extra smoker box. For pellets I chose Mesquite for the smoker and Cherry for the smoker box.
I ran it at 165 degrees for almost four hours as I wanted some solid smoke on this one. Just before 9:00 AM the temp was bumped to 225.
By 12:30 the internal had reached 151 and it held there until I bumped the temp up again at 2:00 - Dinner was planned for 6 and I wanted to get it off to rest in the foil/towels/cooler for a couple hours before serving. I cranked the heat up to 300 and put a pie plate of water in for some steam. I did not inject this one as I really have not noticed a diffrence in moisture just flavor. I was really going for a simple flavor of beef and smoke so I did not want to over-think it.
At 3:30 the IT was up to 195 so I pulled it and wrapped it in foil and returned it to the smoker to finish. I did not add any fluids - again wanting to maintain a pretty pure beef flavor.
At 4:30 the IT was at 205 - I probed it and it was butter soft so I pulled it, wrapped it in towels and put it in a cooler. It came off about a half hour later than I planned so I left it in the cooler resting until 6:30 to get the full two hours.
Final results: Great beef/smoke flavor - the moisture content was good and it was tender but not falling apart.
Everyone enjoyed and six of us nearly polished it off (I had enough left over for french dips last night and a sandwich for lunch today)
After plating I poured the juices from the foil over the top of the slices
I highly recommend the Brisket French Dip sandwiches with leftovers. This is the second time we have done that and the family really enjoys them - from now on I need to do enough brisket to ALWAYS have french dips the next day!
