Bremer brought me a bona fide Texas brisket - 12 1/2 lbs. Dang... talk about pressure! I have never cooked a brisket, but I've heard and seen some of the flops and read that there was a small window between success and failure.
I read and re-read Franklin's chapter on how to cook brisket, so I knew it was going to take 12 to 15 hours. That's what was holding me back - I didn't know when I could cook that long. Last week I read an article on another bbq site (AmazingRibs) that told me how to partially cook it one day, and come back a day or two later to finish it up. Yeah, I was skeptical, but desperate, so I gave it a try.
This guy named Wozniak competes a lot. Here's what I did...I smoked it in the offset for 7 (to 170 IT) hours on Thursday. I took it out of the smoker, wrapped it tightly in foil, put that package in a 13 gallon trash bag, and buried it in 30 lbs of ice till this morning. That stopped the cooking.
This morning - per instructions - I took in out of the trash bag but left it in foil and placed it in the oven. Oven was set on convection bake at 275*. I placed the temp probe into the brisket and waited for the temp of 203 to show up. It took just over 4 hours. When I took it out and opened the package, the aroma almost made me laugh out loud...it was FANTASTIC!! The color was beautiful. I let it rest for about 45 minutes. When I put it on the cutting board, it didn't jiggle, but it passed the toothpick push-in test.
This technique worked beautifully and I believe I will use it forevermore. They say it also works for cooking butts...will try that soon.
Now, please understand that the video was quickly thrown together just because I didn't want to fool with photos. Deb did a good job, but I didn't plan it out - just winged it. It lasts 4 minutes - sorry!
