Easter Brisket

This weekend I decided to do some cooking for the family. The menu includes:

Smoked Brisket
Smoked Leg of Lamb
Glazed Salmon
Green Beans with Toasted Almonds
Jasmine Rice
BBQ Baked Beans
Pancit Noodles (courtesy of my parents)
Roasted Fennel (courtesy of my brother)
Fresh Fruit
Key Lime Cheesecake (from Costco)

I have only done 3 briskets on my smoker thus far. I have tried all kinds of methods and for my 4th brisket, I am going to use a Minion basket, keep the temp at around 225, and wrap in foil at 160.

7:00 am - Brisket came out of the fridge
- Started fire in smoker
9:00 am - Smoker came to temp at 230. Put brisket in the smoker.
10:00 am - Pushed lit coals over and refueled the Minion basket. Brisket is around 110.
noon - Again, refueled. Brisket is around 140.
2:00 pm - Brisket hit its first plateau at 160.
3:00 pm - Refueled.
4:00 pm - Brisket finally climbed over 160.
- Foiled Brisket
6:00 pm - Refueled.
7:00 pm - Brisket is at 195.
- Did a fork test and it is still tough.
8:00 pm - Refueled. I did a small refuel thinking that that the brisket will be done soon.
- Brisket hit second plateau at 197.
- It backed off to 189. This always frustrates me and I always seem to pull the trigger too quickly, but this time Im staying the course.
- I did a fork test. The flat is still tough, although the point is pretty tender. Im beginning to wonder if I hadn't overcooked it...Im still going to stay the course...
9:00 pm - Brisket is down to 186 now...ungh...trying hard to fight temptation to pull trigger...
- DOH!...Thinking I was done earlier, I put up my wood chunks into my charcoal bag for tomorrows Leg of Lamb, but seeing that my brisket had hit a second plateau, I needed to refuel again. Unfortunately, when I poured charcoal in, I forgot my wood chunks were in the bag too. Adding cold wood to a fire will make a lot of smoke and could cause some strange flavors. I suppose Im ok because the brisket is in foil. Now I have to watch for the temp spike.
- Ambient temp is dropping. Keeping the smoker up to temp is proving to be a challenge.
10:00 pm - Well, the whole temp thing was killing me, so I posted on to www.texasbbqforum.com and got some really great advice. One of the regulars, OSD, recommended that I put the probe in different places to make sure that I hadn't pushed the probe into a fat pocket or too close to the edge. In my smoke filled stupor, I didn't even think about checking other places. Turns out that I had indeed had a long way to go as the temp read 175 in other places. So much for being close to done. Anyway...I repositioned the probe and adjusted the dampeners.
11:00 pm - Probe is reading 182 now. I think I should be done in another hour or so if everything holds up... Its getting windy outside and this is causing havoc with my fire. Im also getting tired.
12:00 pm - Ok, enoughs enough. The flat part of the brisket is tender, but it looks like it might be drying out. It read 188, but when I moved the probe, it went down to 174. I also moved my probes around the smoker, and I have lost faith in the probes. I suppose its time to spend money on a real therm. I pulled the brisket and now its sitting in a cooler wrapped in foil. Im going to just have to wait till tomorrow morning to see how it turned out. I am disheartened, but still hopeful.

Time for a shower and bed.

-ikiru

*enjoy the sauce*