Thread by @chrissanders88

At it early this morning. It’s going to be a great day. #BBQ

Today, the only thing going on is this beautiful prime brisket. It has my full attention. Just over 12 pounds before trimming, probably closer to 10 now.

I’m often a salt and pepper only guy for brisket, but I’ve been digging the Meat Church rubs lately so I’m trying their Holy Cow on this one. Trimmed and rubbed down last night. On the counter now while the pit warms up.

I use paraffin cubes to start my fire. Wood will be a combo of oak and cherry. I split the bigger pieces with an axe yesterday.

That’s a custom fire grate in my firebox, primarily to promote good airflow for a clean fire and keep logs out of the ash.

No matter what, my smoker takes about an hour to warm up. It’s a lot of thick steel. Here’s a picture of it in the daylight. A Lang 60”, reverse flow. I wanted big enough I could feed the neighborhood and do whole hogs.

Good, dry wood means my fire looks like this about 15 minutes in. Great airflow is key. This wood has been sitting for about a year.

I’ll leave it with the door and vents wide open until it gets close to temp, then I’ll choke them down to hold it.

I leave a lot of the days wood in the smoker while it warms up to dry off some excess moisture that might linger. It’s humid in GA. You can see some moisture seeping out on the log in the top right.

Also, a head lamp has been one of my best investments. I’m often starting before the sun rises, and kinda sleepy… so being able to see things clearly is nice 😂

This is a big ol’ pan of beef tallow (fat). It’ll go on with the brisket and smoke all day too. Melts fast! Some of it will get wrapped with the brisket later. I’ve done this for a long time, but usually with rendered trimmings. Recently learned you could buy the stuff in bulk 😍

Most of that wood i started with is now a nice coal bed.

Pit is just about there. Just added a cherry log. Smoke adheres better to colder meat. So, I use more cherry wood in my mix at the start of the cook and transition to more oak as the day goes on.

Cherry has more distinct flavor, but oak is denser and burns longer. For wood, the day sees a shift from a flavor focus to an efficiency focus.

Honestly, after it’s wrapped, you could finish a brisket in the oven… only takes so much smoke until the bark is set.

The heat was on, and now the meat is on. Point toward the hot side (away from the firebox, it’s a reverse flow), fat side up, top rack.

And now, you can follow along! One probe in the meat in the center, one on either side of the cook chamber. Big gap now side to side now, but that’ll narrow some over time. A bit erratic at first as I tune it in.

share.fireboard.io/98D8F6

I’m looking for somewhere around 230-260 in the middle of the pit right now, which is pretty much where I’m at. I’ll do that for a few hours and then bump it up a bit to 250-280.

Pretty settled in now. Door stays closed for the next few hours and I’ll keep feeding the beast wood every 30-45 minutes. I’ll control temp during this time solely by the rate I add wood.

share.fireboard.io/98D8F6

It's been about three hours, so I took a peek. Looking good. This is where the bark starts to dry a bit, so from here until I wrap it in a while I'm spraying every time I add wood.

My spray is pretty simple... usually half apple cider vinegar and half water. It cools the bark down and keeps it moist. I believe the pH of the acid also does some things to help with the bark.

I'm also upping the temp a bit now. The main way I control temp from here is the size and rate of wood I add. It's a few small variables here that matter. A small split will give me a quick spike but burn off quicker. A large one gives me a slower increase but lasts longer.

Something I also do here is pre heat my splits by sitting them on the firebox. They get hot and it burns off some exterior moisture. That means they ignite quickly. Here’s a video showing that…a few seconds and it’s rolling.

Here’s the exhaust just after adding that wood. You always get some dirty smoke when you add wood, but the warmed splits minimize it. You can actually see the smoke get cleaner in these few seconds.

White puffy smoke is dirty and deposits bitter compounds onto the meat. This happens when wood smolders. You don't want that.

Clean smoke is almost invisible and may have a slight blue tint. You get that from combustion... visible flames on the wood.

You get combustion from dry wood and lots of airflow. I could choke all the vents down and close the door and make a piece of wood last a few hours... but it would billow white smoke and the meat would taste super bitter. So, we burn the wood with lots of air... hot and fast.

Big offset smokers excel at this. You're cooking with convection, and you'd be surprised at how fast air moves through one of these things. The long exhaust really pulls the hot air through it (and across the meat, depositing flavor and cooking faster).

A little less than 5 hours in. Fat rendering pretty well now and it’s getting jiggly and shiny. I can see the bark darkening in places too.

share.fireboard.io/98D8F6

About six hours in. You can see the bark getting darker still in places. It was getting dark a little faster than I wanted on the point (left side), so I moved it toward the firebox a bit.

I’ve been running a little bit toward the higher side of my temp range, so that’s expected. In theory you’d think you want the smoker the exact same temp from side to side, but, the gap gives you the ability to make adjustments as needed, so it’s useful.

Its not super feasible to keep a completely even temp throughout when a smoker gets to a certain size and the firebox is on one side. This cook chamber is 5ft long, so that certainly applies here. All good as long as the gap is predictable and not too large. It’s another tool.

More spraying...

Yes, this slows the cook down a bit because every time I do it, it cools the exterior of the brisket down a little. But, it's worth it to keep the bark (particularly in the spots not protected by fat) nice and moist.

No, I'm not worried about letting heat out of the smoker every time I do this. It's 1/4 inch steel, so it recovers temp very fast. Lots of thermal mass there. This is a big reason why these pits are made like this. Also less affected by rain/weather.

People get really touchy about opening BBQ pits. Here's the thing... we're cooking muscle and most of that is still water. How long does it take to boil water under high heat? Quite a while! Water doesn't react *that* fast to temperature change.

The air in your smoker cooks the outside of the meat. The outside of the meat cooks the inside of the meat. This is also happening at relatively low temperatures.

So, a 50-degree drop that recovers in just a few minutes doesn't really hurt much.

Most worries about rapid temperature swings are more about high temp than low. That's where you can shock/tense the meat (early part of cook) or overcook it (later part). Aim for consistency, but some tradeoffs are worth opening the lid for.

About 7 hours in. Getting darker. Fat is rendered to where I want it in some spots but not others yet. You'll see a couple places (namely the top right) where fat is pooling due to the shape of the brisket. I clear that after spraying, but great bark won't form there.

Ideally, my trimming prep would have avoided that pooling spot... but it happens. It's hard to predict where low spots might be after fat renders away since you don't always know how deep it is. Not a huge deal, though!

At this point, every time I open it I am poking into the fat to check how it renders. It's very hot.

"Wow Chris, you must have some strong working-man calloused hands!"

Haha, I work with computers for a living. No chance. Let's talk gloves.

I've wasted a LOT of money over the years on different types of gloves to work with BBQ. In short, they are usually either too rigid to have enough dexterity or too thin to provide enough protection.

The gloves made of rubbery stuff ones get also get way too slippery when covered with fat. One time, that caused me to literally drop an entire pork butt on the ground.

(Yes, I cleaned that side off and still ate it. This is a lot of work).

A few years ago, I got a great tip from my wife's cousin who does catering. One cotton glove with a nitrile glove over the top of it. Great dexterity with enough heat protection to work with meat reasonably. Lots of BBQ folks use this combo nowadays.

Related... I manipulate logs in my fire with either a small shovel or a custom-made poker thing I have. But, sometimes it's easier/faster to grab stuff and move it around with my hands. I use a pair of welding gloves for that.

Welcome to my Twitter feed where I talk about manipulating logs and it can mean VERY different things. One day it's regular expressions, the next BBQ, then I'm turning a bowl.

The books I write are even *made from logs* when they go to print.

This was a Christmas gift, and yes, it’s fantastic.

Just shy of 8 hours in. Checking more often now as this is just about ready to wrap. Really big change in color the past half hour.

Alright, we're 8 hours and in this thing is ready to wrap. Bark is great, pressing my finger into the fat cuts straight into it.

All that tallow I smoked in the pan? Now is its time to shine. I put some of it on a couple of pieces of butcher paper, wrapped it up, and back on the smoker.

I also probed around the brisket a bit. It's pretty darn close to done, so it won't be on there too much longer. I repositioned my probe through the paper and will check somewhat frequently to see if it's done.

The flat (right side) was a few degrees below the point, so I rotated it so that the flat is facing the warmer side of the pit. That ought to even it out.

Yes, my brisket wrap is not super pretty. It's maybe the thing I'm worst at with this. It takes me a few to get into the swing of it so if I'm only doing one it looks like crap. Nonetheless, it's in there with its smoked fat friend.

While it's finished, let's talk wrap choices. A lot of opinions to be found on this. Throughout my life, I've done briskets with no wrap, with foil, and with butcher paper. All of them can make great brisket.

On some smokers, you need to choose one over the other for various reasons. Mine gives me some flexibility. I used to not wrap at all and if everything went well, that worked fine. But, the bark can get a bit over done if I'm not paying super close attention.

For the past several years, my personal preference for my offset is butcher paper. It fits how I like to cook, gives me a mechanism to add in some fat, gives me more margin for error, and the end product is to my preference.

When do you wrap with BP? I do that when the bark is where I like it (maybe a tad over on the sides) and the fat is rendered well (my finger can push into it easily with little resistance).

The thing you gotta keep in mind is that when you wrap, it traps some steam as moisture is evaporating and softens the bark. So it stops bark progression and even softens it a little bit. So, it's easy to wrap to early and get mushy bark.

I don't wrap with foil anymore unless I'm in a time crunch. Foil speeds up the cook time a fair bit, which is helpful if you don't want to get up at 4 AM like me. But, it's easy to get mushy bark and I just don't like the way the process and timing work out with it on my smoker.

Now that the brisket is wrapped, I could technically finish this in the oven and not have to manage the fire anymore. It isn't taking any more smoke. But, there's potential for a mess in moving it with all that fat. And, it's a beautiful day. So, it'll finish on the pit.

And.... we're done and the brisket is off the smoker. Total cook time was 9 1/2 hours. Average temperature was around 275.

The accepted advice is that brisket is done around 203, but that is variable. I've had them done at 195 and 210.

But the real test is feel. SImple -- you insert the probe into all parts of the meat and it should slide in with almost no resistance.

You'll get a little variance side to side depending on where your hot side is and how you oriented it. The flat was a *touch* less tender than the point this time. Probably could have rotated it half an hour sooner. No biggie.

As luck has it, this brisket was done at 203.5 on the center probe. I just check with a probe every 20 minutes or so after wrapping until it's there.

Now... the brisket is off the smoker but it isn't done. I let it cool off for a few minutes and then rewrap it with more tallow and put it into a cooler filled with towels. It's gotta rest for a few hours before I eat it.

Seriously, do not skip this step. It is massively important. I usually rest for at least a few hours before cutting into it. Some folks do it for 6, 8, or 10+ hours. It makes a massive difference in moisture and tenderness.

Now that my brisket is resting, I've got some time. So, it's a BBQ AMA. If you've been following along and have questions, send them my way. I'm going to take a quick shower to wash some of the bark I've developed off, then I'll be back to answer those questions.

I recorded this before I rewrapped and put it in the cooler to hold for a few hours. Pretty nice 😄 and, it’ll be even more tender in a few hours when it’s time to eat.

A little bit of smoker clean up afterwards. Sprayed some water in the cook chamber and closed it up to let the steam do some work. Also sprayed some oil on the firebox to keep the rust away.

I'll give the grates a quick scrape later and empty the drip bucket, but that's about it for clean up for now. I give it a good internal scrape down every 4-5 cooks.

And… the moment we’ve been waiting for. They payoff.

Turned out pretty great overall. The texture was perfect and it was super moist. Cut like butter and everyone was happy. Ideally would've rested a bit longer, but that's okay.

I'm convinced there's no such thing as a perfect brisket cook if you take the whole thing into consideration. There's always something extra to be done or some tiny thing missed. But in some ways, that's what keeps me coming back for more!

To put a cap on all this... there are a LOT of ways to make good brisket. This is how I do it after years and years and years of cooking them and trying different things.

I was born into BBQ. I've been around it my whole life. One of my earliest childhood memories was watching the fire pop in my neighbors brick pit. I think I was 2 or 3.

There are things that matter a lot in good BBQ (airflow, resting things) and there are things that matter a little (rubs, injecting). It's often very hard to tell which is which and there is lots of conflicting info. Think infosec Twitter is full of bad takes? Try BBQ forums.

At the of the day, this is a lot of work. I put more work in than most but you can achieve something pretty good without nearly as much work. All that matters is that you and the folks you are feeding like it.

I love this stuff... maybe the process more than the final product. So, I'm glad I was able to share some of that with y'all today. After all, it seemed like the kind of day where everyone need a random detailed BBQ thread.

Also notable... if you're able... know where your meat comes from and make sure they treat the animals alright. Buy from folks who also care about that.

I'll end with the words of Popcorn Sutton, a famous old moonshiner who dabbled in BBQ too. They asked him... Popcorn, why doesn't anybody else make it as good as you?

"Because ain't nobody gonna work this hard what you see me work today"