RT-1250 Where to place 12 pound brisket on RecTeq 1250?

[larry4406]

@larry4406 …Did you purchase “choice” or “prime” briskets? I’ve done both now. I felt like there was a ton of fat to trim with the prime. I may take your advice for at least one brisket cook and do very little or no trimming…especially if it’s “choice” and doesn’t come with all that extra hard fat that the prime came with.

USDA Choice from Costco.

I did the foil boat and extended rest technique. I’m impressed. My new technique going forward.

I trimmed fat, I just didn’t do the curved perimeter cuts removing meat for later grinding into burger.

 

[TheRicker]

USDA Choice from Costco.

I did the foil boat and extended rest technique. I’m impressed. My new technique going forward.

I trimmed fat, I just didn’t do the curved perimeter cuts removing meat for later grinding into burger.

Interesting you mentioned the foil boat and the extended rest technique. I had just watched several “hot & fast” brisket YouTube videos over the last two days as I bought a choice brisket from Costco on Saturday and wanted to give hot & fast a try.

It was the last video I watched that did the extended rest. I think he called it the 2-2-2-16 method.

So many cook temps were used in these various videos. Myron Mixon does his at 300F in a pan and ended up just wrapping the pan in foil. One guy did his at 250 for an hour then upped it to 275F. One of them cooked at 350 and I think another cooked at 400F.

I haven’t decided how I’m going to cook mine but I'm shooting for Wednesday. I’m leaning towards Myron’s method as it visually appears to have the best chance at keeping the meat moist. I am approaching this as an experiment but still want something I can eat when it’s done.

Last note from my video watching…one guy made multiple references to whether his brisket tasted more like “prime rib” versus “pot roast”. I’ve never really thought about it like that. Do yall think in those terms when you consider whether your brisket cook is successful or not? The two picanhas I cooked Saturday…the one I took off at 140F tasted a lot more like a steak as opposed to the one I cooked to 150F. Both internal temps went up by 10F while resting. My wife prefers medium-well. I cooked them whole on my Bull at 250F and sliced them after they rested. The one I cooked longer tasted more like pot roast.

I should have sliced the picanha into steaks and simply grilled them like steaks.

 

[TheRicker]

Interesting you mentioned the foil boat and the extended rest technique. I had just watched several “hot & fast” brisket YouTube videos over the last two days as I bought a choice brisket from Costco on Saturday and wanted to give hot & fast a try.

It was the last video I watched that did the extended rest. I think he called it the 2-2-2-16 method.

So many cook temps were used in these various videos. Myron Mixon does his at 300F in a pan and ended up just wrapping the pan in foil. One guy did his at 250 for an hour then upped it to 275F. One of them cooked at 350 and I think another cooked at 400F.

I haven’t decided how I’m going to cook mine but I'm shooting for Wednesday. I’m leaning towards Myron’s method as it visually appears to have the best chance at keeping the meat moist. I am approaching this as an experiment but still want something I can eat when it’s done.

Last note from my video watching…one guy made multiple references to whether his brisket tasted more like “prime rib” versus “pot roast”. I’ve never really thought about it like that. Do yall think in those terms when you consider whether your brisket cook is successful or not? The two picanhas I cooked Saturday…the one I took off at 140F tasted a lot more like a steak as opposed to the one I cooked to 150F. Both internal temps went up by 10F while resting. My wife prefers medium-well. I cooked them whole on my Bull at 250F and sliced them after they rested. The one I cooked longer tasted more like pot roast.

I should have sliced the picanha into steaks and simply grilled them like steaks.

Ugh. I did the hot & fast brisket IN MY OVEN. Cooked it in a pan at 300F. Got the internal temp to 162F and wrapped the pan with foil…not the individual piece of meat. It didn’t probe tender until 208F internal temp. At that point, I rested it for 2 hours. Total cook time was 4:15. With 2 hour rest 6:15.

I was fine with the tenderness and how the meat cut. However, it tasted more like pot roast than…well…brisket. I had to put a bbq sauce on it to make it palatable.

Why in the oven? I had smoked two picanhas a few days earlier in a poor effort at reverse searing those cuts. But I cooked them too low (225F) and they got too much smoke. I then seared them on my gasser to internal temp of 140F. I made sure to put some serious sear on those fat caps. I was burping smoke flavor the next day. Gross = yes. Apologies. But that’s kind of my bias on judging how much smoke is in/on the meat.

I was temporarily insane and didn’t want so much smoke on this brisket. (Another bad move since cooking at 300F on my Bull would not have provided too much smoke.)

When choosing this 10.5 lb brisket at Costco, I was kind of proud how I took advice from folks on this forum on choosing briskets. Not much crap on the meat side. Not too much hard deckle fat. And the fat cap didn’t look too thick. I was really hoping for minimal prep work. Well…ugh! When I opened the package Wednesday morning, I observed a good bit of brown (oxidized?) meat on both of the long sides. The fat cap had two gaps where there was no fat but more of the brown, oxidized meat. On the meat side (top? bottom?), it looked good and I had very little to trim. I only took of deckle that was higher than the outline / profile / shape of the meat. I was determined not to dig or cut it out. With the prep done, I was somewhat satisfied with the hunk of meat I was about to cook.

Suffice to say, I didn’t take pictures. You would’ve thought they were black & white Polaroid pics. The meat had no bark. Although I seasoned it well, the meat was bland. And much of it tasted like pot roast. “Disappointed” was how I felt. But it was an experiment…gone bad. Luckily, my son, granddaughter and two grandsons came over and ate a good bit of it. I love them but now realize they have absolutely no taste buds. ‍♂

Next time, and it will probably be a while, I’ll try the hot & fast brisket on my Bull at 300F without a pan or boat. And I may not wrap it until I have a bark. I’ll also try to be more diligent picking out a brisket. How I missed those 2 big gaps on the fat cap is beyond me. Ugh!

Noted…..I may keep doing a minimal trim on the brisket. I’m discovering that separating the point from the flat and cutting out the bigger chunks of fat AFTER THE COOK is done quite easily (it’s softer)…especially the fat between the point and the flat. I may also attempt to do some burnt ends but that means either cranking up the Bull again (after a two-hour rest) or leaving it on low during the rest.

Where I think mistakes were made…..choosing the brisket that I did. Deciding to cook it in the oven …although we had intermittent showers that day. But I’ve cooked in the rain before. The RT-700 can handle it (as long as you fill the hopper when it’s not raining.). I’m not sure cooking it in the aluminum pan did anything positive. I didn’t view that as any different from those doing a foil “boat”. . Wrapping/tightly covering the aluminum pan with foil at 160F internal temp, with no set bark. All I did was steam the brisket at that point. Cutting it up into a crock pot would’ve given as good or better results.

I’m learning to greatly appreciate longer rest times. Two hours is probably a minimum for a brisket. My July 4th brisket was 4 hours. (That one was cooked low and slow overnight and was delicious.). I’m reading and seein (YT videos) some people doing 10, 12, and 16-hour rests. I would have a problem keeping the meat at 150F internal temp that long. My oven only goes down to 170. My Bull only goes down to 180 I believe. And I’m not so sure wrapping a blanket or heavy towel around it and putting it a big cooler can maintain 150F.

Oh well. Lessons learned and shared.

 

[Jim6820]

This is how we learn! If you stay in a rut and don’t try new approaches, you never get smarter. Good for you in trying a new approach. And, anyone who says every brisket they’ve ever cooked was great…well…either they’ve never cooked a brisket, or they aren’t being truthful.

 

[TheRicker]

This is how we learn! If you stay in a rut and don’t try new approaches, you never get smarter. Good for you in trying a new approach. And, anyone who says every brisket they’ve ever cooked was great…well…either they’ve never cooked a brisket, or they aren’t being truthful.

Amen!

 

[houseman]

I will be smoking a 12 pound brisket on my recteq 1250. Where do you recommend I place it for the duration of the smoke? I believe if I place it right in the middle it will cook unevenly since the burner is located there.

I cook them in the middle of the second shelf of my 1250.

 

[TheRicker]

I cook them in the middle of the second shelf of my 1250.

I will do that on my next “attempt” as I have the PCS Rackworks setup in my RT-700. I think I’d like to put a water pan on the bottom shelf to see if that helps or hurts the cook. And, if I do that, do I them put the fat cap up since the pan is underneath? Or keep the fat side down as I normally do since the heat source is below?

Do you consider which direction you put the point in? I would swear to you that I think my hotter side is on the left…opposite the smokestack and on the higher end of the drip pan. But I’ve read on this forum some folks swear the smokestack end is hotter.

And is there any significant difference in the cooking chamber temp on the second shelf versus the bottom shelf?

It’s my understanding that the 1250 is similar or same cooking chamber as the 700 so your opinion matters.

 

[Pacman]

My 1250 consistently runs slightly hotter on the smoke stack side. I used multiple ambient probes in an empty cooker to prove this at least in my case. We're not talking crazy differences. Maybe 5 degrees at a 225 set temperature. Once the grill has been running for a while, it seems to balance out even further as everything warms up. I always put the thicker end of everything facing the right side of my grill.

 

[TheRicker]

My 1250 consistently runs slightly hotter on the smoke stack side. I used multiple ambient probes in an empty cooker to prove this at least in my case. We're not talking crazy differences. Maybe 5 degrees at a 225 set temperature. Once the grill has been running for a while, it seems to balance out even further as everything warms up. I always put the thicker end of everything facing the right side of my grill.

That’s good to know.

I’m not sure why I haven’t thought to do that. I have a TW Smoke kit.

 

[Pacman]

I’m not sure why I haven’t thought to do that.

Yeah, it wasn't until I bought a spare ambient temperature probe on sale after a regular probe or two went south. I hooked both up to my Signals and watched what happened. Believe me, it wasn't a big scientific thing, but rather "I wonder what happens?"

 

[Jim6820]

Another technique I have used to check for hot spots is to cover an empty grill with two layers of foil (folded over) and use my IR thermometer to check temps in various locations. I let the foil/cooking chamber stabilize for about 15 minutes and then do a quick check with the lid open to minimize cooling. Rinse and repeat to get a second check/validation of the first results. Certainly not a scientific experiment, but it will give you an idea of what’s happening.