Hey everyone,
This will be my first "official" post next to the intro for new members. So I'm ready to drink from the firehose!
OK, so I just got me a PBC for my birthday this year. I've done two cooks on it. First was some chicken (turned out UH-MAZ-ING). Second was a brisket point recipe I've been wanting to try for a while. Now this is where I'm not sure what went wrong. Mind you, I did two 4 lb points and had NO leftovers so it didn't bomb. But I know I could do better and the cook time seemed WAY off.
Here's my procedure for this one:
Put two softball sized chunks of wood in the basket and filled the rest with Kingsford original briquettes. Haven't invested in a chimney yet (don't worry, I will), so I doused with lighter fluid and waited 15-20 min. with the lid off to get everything ready. put the points on with the double hook method PBC recommends. I wanted to monitor the meat temp, so I used my maverick and at first just ran the cable out the top. This prevented the lid to seal completely but didn't think anything of it at first. The brisket went from 50 deg. to 162 (the stall point) within 45 min. So, when I wrapped them, I decided to run the probe cable through one of the rebar holes. All in all the brisket was done in 3-1/2hrs total. I let it rest for about 3 hours before cutting it and making a sauce with the au jus. The rest of the cook was to cut it up into burnt ends and finish on a skillet with the sauce from the au jus(via grill or stove top - I did stovetop due to the fact that rain was starting to come down pretty heavily at that time).
They finished very well and no-one complained one bit. But I personally felt the fat didn't render very well and the brisket was a bit too chewy. It really freaked me out to hit temp at the 3.5 hr mark. I know PBC claims to cut long cooks down quite a bit, but this is a little scary. So I'm looking for thoughts on what I could have done differently. My initial thought is that the probe cable kept the lid from sealing and thus up'd the temp. I also wonder about the chunks of wood changing the cook temp. One last bit of info is that I live in Chicago and I think I have my inlet set right (1/4 open - probably about 3/8" gap at the widest point).
Ok, so fire away!