41–50 of 57 posts
For those in the Seattle area, Jacks in Sodo is where you can get your BBQ fix. Best brisket outside of Texas.
Agreed. Eat there frequently. And you spent time in Terre Haute. My congratulations on your escape.
I wonder if they used the "Texas Crutch," i.e., wrapped the brisket in foil after ~4 hours. The upshot of the Texas Crutch technique is: after about 2 hours on the smoke, the internal temperature of a brisket will plateau for 6-8 hours before climbing toward its final temperature. According to experiments by Greg Blonder[0], this stall is caused by evaporative cooling: once the internal temperature reaches a point wh…
Brisket (whole, untrimmed) takes about 1.5 hours per pound at a cooking temp of 225-250F. You really get the maximum smoke up through the range of 125 through 150 or so as the smoke ring forms...it's all related to collagen breaking down. Past that, the smoke isn't doing much except producing a good bark.
Here are my tips if you're doing this:
* Use untrimmed whole brisket. Fat matters.
* Get a Weber bullet and learn to use it. Rock solid in terms of maintaining temperature once you learn it.
* Leave the brisket on until you get into the 185-195F range. This might take 1 to 1.5 hours per pound. I've taken 18 hours for a 12 pound brisket.
* Depending on the time you want to serve it, here's where you have to adapt to meet your crowd's needs. If you're ahead of schedule, let it slowly rise on the smoker to the 195-205 range. If you're still early, wrap in foil and pack in a cooler, hich can help you hold temp for a few hours. If you're behind then you'll want to foil wrap, oven finish (or just foil wrap and ramp up to 275 on the heat), but allow enough time for it to rest.
The briskets I've screwed up were pulled off too soon (internal temp in the 185 range). The better ones were the ones I let get up to 195-205 (usually oven finished because I went too slow) and rested before slicing.
The best part of a whole brisket is trimming off the point, cubing it up, foil-wrapping it with some sauce inside, putting it back on for burnt ends. It's often a pound or so of meat that makes for great sandwiches for a few days after on toasted Texas Toast.
There is nothing more delightful in the world than snarfing up the trimmings of a well-smoked brisket...
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As soon as the meat reaches ~130f, it's not going to absorb any more smoke.
Interesting. There seem to be conflicting opinions here. Referring again to Blonder[0], it seems that one can improve smoke absorption by mopping consistently. Personally, I'm usually pretty aggressive with the mopping, that is, every 45 minutes to 1 hour. [0] http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/srasmokeringmoist....
Turn once 50% into the cook (pounds * 1.5 hours), again at 75%. Spray apple juice.
I learned a ton from the Virtual Weber Bullet forums. From the perspective of food hacking, the HN crowd would really love it--lots of overlap with the approach, even a lot of good "hardware" mods.
I have a related project that I've considered commercializing. I've built a temperature controller with an embedded linux board that serves a webpage and runs a python websocket server that updates the page. I've also got a daughterboard with a thermocouple amplifier and transistor to power a small fan that feeds the fire. The system logs and graphs temperature data. It's basically complete control from your phone. h…
I have a related project that I've considered commercializing. I've built a temperature controller with an embedded linux board that serves a webpage and runs a python websocket server that updates the page. I've also got a daughterboard with a thermocouple amplifier and transistor to power a small fan that feeds the fire. The system logs and graphs temperature data. It's basically complete control from your phone. h…
This is awesome. The big issue for me when I've considered this is the operating conditions. You're hosting a linux board near a 250 degree source of heat that may be operating in ambient conditions that range from 35F and very rainy to 100F summer smoke.
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Agreed. Eat there frequently. And you spent time in Terre Haute. My congratulations on your escape.
Hrm... your screen name makes me think that I might know you. Fellow Rose Grad?
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If you're willing to throw it up on github, I'd love to see the code that you're running. I'd understand if you want to avoid that if you're planning on commercializing it, though.
I'm an embedded developer, so this has been my first experience in HTML/CSS/JS/Websockets. Here's a general overview: The Python server periodically reads the thermocouple chip over SPI and sends a JSON object over the websocket with temperature and time data. The javascript websocket handler is a switch statement to parse the incoming JSON, which is data updates, log info, and graph data. Each button on the webpage…
Go ahead, and go big! :-)
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Mesquite is the traditional wood for Texas-style beef brisket. Pork and chicken may not be able to stand up to the stronger flavor of mesquite, but beef does well with it. Or at least that's what I've read. My smoking experience is very limited, but I've done a lot of reading.
Mesquite is best for grilling due to its flavor and strength. You can smoke with it, but you really need to like Mesquite. Oak and/or Hickory is usually what I've seen and used. I also like Pecan. (smoking briskets for about 5 years)