Labor Day Brisket on the WSM: A Smoke Report

This Labor Day weekend, I decided to step up my game and smoke a brisket. Here’s the play-by-play.

Prep

First, we picked up a 8.7 pound packer (i.e., untrimmed brisket) in cryovac from Costco for $2.89/lb. This is about the going price these days, although you can occasionally find untrimmed brisket for around $1.99/lb if you keep your eyes open. Saturday night we trimmed it up to within 1/8″ to 1/4″ on the fat side, and trimmed down the notch of fat in between the flat and the point, then applied a very basic rub all over (see below) and threw it in a 3-gallon zip lock bag for the night.

With low and slow brisket, you figure about 1.5 hours per pound. At a little over 8 lbs. trimmed, that looks like about 12 hours to finish. Since showtime for the block party was between 4 and 6PM on Sunday, I wanted to get the meat on by 6AM, so I got as much of the smoker set up as I could beforehand. I filled the charcoal ring with Kingsford, mixed in the equivalent of 6 fist-sized chunks of apple and cherry. Since the wood chunks were smaller that fist size, I had to guess, but it was generally 2-4 chunks. I foiled the water pan (to help with later cleanup), got all the supplies ready (lighter, 20 briquettes and rolled up paper in the chimney starter, a tile to set the chimney on, watering can, assorted thermometers) and assembled the smoker.

Wakey-Wakey

On 5AM Sunday, I rolled out of bed when the alarm went off, went down and got ready to fire things up. Since I had the ring of charcoal already prepared, and since I’d read that you don’t really want to light a chimney on concrete (at the risk of shattering or scorching the concrete), I put an extra bathroom tile on a small retaining wall in our backyard and fired up the chimney. Within about 4 minutes, I was rewarded with a large “crack” as the tile shattered into five pieces. The briquettes were half lit, but I quickly put them into a notch in the center of the ring of charcoal I had prepared. This is the Minion Method, where a small number of coals in the center gradually burn outward, lighting other coals, producing a steady, long-burning fire that you don’t have to add fuel to throughout the cook.

At 5:25 AM, the fire is going. I filled the water pan with warm tap water, reassembled the cooker, set all vents to 100% open, set up the thermometers up and waited. During this phase, the idea is to catch the temperature on the way up, since the smoker is easier to make hotter than it is to cool down once it’s too hot. By 6:00 AM, the temperature is at 205 degrees, but by 6:15AM, it’s at 260, so I quickly throw the meat on, shut down the vents to 50-50-0, and wait. At 6:30AM, rather than the temperature dropping because the meat went on, it rose to 265, so I had to close all the bottom vents.

In some sense, putting the meat on before the temperatures had stabilized was a mistake, but one that only cost me more time spent managing temperatures. Generally, you want to wait until the smoker levels off to an even temperature before putting the meat on, but I really didn’t want to have to finish this thing in the oven, so I decided to try to stabilize the temperature on the fly. It worked out okay. In addition to closing all the lower vents at 6:30, I adjusted the lid (there appeared to be a little leakage, possibly letting in more oxygen) and waited. By 7, the temp had only dropped to 260, so after doing some more reading, realized that I could also shut down the top vents. This did the trick, and the temps were down to 245 by 7:15, so I opened things up to 25-25-25, re-opened the top vent, and waited.

After managing temperature the whole day, I learned a few lessons. First, there’s about a 10-15 minute delay between an adjustment that you make and evidence of the adjustment showing up in the temperatures. Second, small incremental adjustments work better. The move to 25-25-25 with the top vent wide open was a big adjustment from a closed smoker, and as the temp started to rise again over 250 at 7:30, I overreacted in the other direction, went down to 25-0-0 only to see the temps drop to 227. Finally, after a series of ever-finer adjustments, I realized that 25-0-0 was about right to stabilize things, and by 8:30 I was able to quit baby-sitting it since I’d pretty much locked it in at 250.

The ideal range for low and slow is 225-250 degrees. All these temperatures are top vent temperatures. I hadn’t calibrated by thermometers, but through a little bit of careful measurement and comparison, was able to convince myself that there were identical, and therefore I had some confidence they were all in the ballpark of accurate.

At 10:00 AM, I added water for the first time. The temps spiked over 250 because I had to open the side door, but came back down right away. My theory was that I might have doused some of the coals by overfilling. The temperature dropped into the low 230s, so I went 25-25-25 on the vents until by noon, the temps were back at 240.

At noon, the meat had been on almost 6 hours. With a brisket, ideally, you want to turn twice. Once at the halfway point for the duration of the smoke that the amount of meat dictates (in my case, 6 hours) and once at the three-quarters point (9 hours). At 12:15, I opened up the lid for the first time, turned the meat end-for-end to try to get an even cook, and added more water.

After I got the lid back on, I realized that I forgot to spray the brisket with apple juice, so I had to open the lid again and take care of that at 12:30. Naturally, the temperatures started to spike again, so more vent management. I actually ended up having to add some more cool water, close all the vents again, and close the top vent down to 25% for 15 minutes to get things back to 243.

Sides

Meanwhile, the ABTs were being prepared. We did a mix of traditional ABTs (split jalapeno peppers stuffed with Lil Smokies and cream cheese, with a sprinkling of rub, all wrapped up in a half-strip of bacon) and Lime Cilantro ABTs (same thing, but mixed garlic, fresh-squeezed lime juice and cilantro in with some garlic cream cheese.) At 2:00PM, the ABTs went on the lower cooking grate, and the cooker had by and large stabilized at 240.

This freed up time to get the beans ready, and to prepare for the last turn (as well as the first check of internal brisket temperature.) For the beans, we used the Virtual Weber Bullet default recipe, Bush’s Baked Beans, Brer Rabbit Molasses, ketchup and mustard, brought to a medium simmer for 10 minutes and transferred to an aluminum foil pan for insertion on the lower grate. At 3:25PM, I flipped the brisket, pulled off the ABTs, but on the beans and got a reading of the internal brisket temperature. It clocked in at 159 on the Polder instant read thermometer. This was pretty much on track, perhaps a little behind where I thought we’d be. I had prepared to be done as much as two hours early, and this made it look like I might be at the end of the 4-6PM window.

At 4:25PM, the temperature was 230. We opened up, stirred the beans one time, and put the Maverick probe in the brisket. Still 159 internal (we were measuring in a slightly deeper, better spot) and I rationalized this as the “plateau” that meat sometimes reaches.

I started paying less attention to the smoker temperature at this point, and let the meat guide the way. The temperature had stabilized at 250, and the meat was at 170 at 5PM, 178 at 530. By this time, the fire had died down a bit and the vents were wide open. At 5:50, we reached 185 degrees. Since everything else was ready, including the beans and all the stuff the neighbors made, we sliced up the brisket and served it. I scarfed a few of the scraps, sliced up the point, ate a delicious chunk, and put the rest of the point slices into a piece of foil which I threw back on the smoker for a little bit for burnt ends for Monday.

I’m not sure if we would have been better off resting the meat or not. It was pretty good, plain and with Smokehouse BBQ sauce (hot). (The burnt ends turned out great, by the way.)

What I Learned

• Catch the temps on the way up, and plan another 30-45 minutes to achieve some sort of stabilization before throwing the meat on.
• The morning was relatively warm, maybe 72 degrees, so I probably could have gotten by with about 12-15 coals instead of 20 to start.
• On a day like the day I cooked, with temps in the 70s and 80s, light wind and only sun after about 2PM, 25-0-0 to 25-25-0 is pretty good to dial in a stable temperature of 230-250.
• On an 8.7lb untrimmed brisket at 240-250 degrees, 1.5 hours per pound is about right.
• I probably need to start a little earlier than I’d expect, to allow time for the meat to rest.
• It’s true, no matter how many ABTs you make, they’ll always be gone. 24 consumed by 5PM.
• Don’t mess around with the chimney starter. That thing gets hot.

Cooking Log

Time	Temp	Vent 1	Vent 2	Vent 3	Notes
0525	N/A	100	100	100	Coals on
0600	205	100	100	100
0615	260	50	50	0	Meat on
0630	265	0	0	0
0700	260	0	0	0	Closed top vent, adjusted lid
0715	245	25	25	25	Reopen top vent
0730	250	25	0	0
0750	227	50	50	25
0800	245	25	25	25
0810	252	25	0	0
0822	227	25	25	0	Temp was falling like crazy here
0900	251	25	25	0
0915	257	25	0	0
0930	241	25	0	0
1000	237	25	0	0	Added water
1015	240	25	25	0
1030	233	50	25	25
1100	235	25	25	25
1130	239	25	25	25
1200	242	25	25	0
1215	243	25	25	25	Turned meat end for end, added water
1230	259	25	0	0
1300	257	0	0	0
1315	259	0	0	0	Closed top vent to 25%, added cool water
1330	244	25	0	0	Re-opened top vent all the way
1400	243	0	0	0	Added ABTs
1430	231	50	0	0
1446	233	25	0	0
1500	240	25	0	0
1525	240	25	0	0	ABTs off; beans on, brisket at 159
1600	231	25	0	0
1625	231	75	0	0	Stirred beans; Brisket 160
1700	240	100	100	0	Brisket 170
1730	250	100	100	75	Brisket 178
1800	240	100	100	0	Brisket 185