Smoked a brisket last night/today for a small gathering of friends that worked out very nicely. It was a 17 hour 15 minute cook. Put it on at 11PM Friday night. Removed it from the heat at 4:15PM Saturday afternoon. Let it rest for about 1.5 hours and then sliced it.
The end result was very tender and juicy throughout! It's nice to be getting comfortable smoking briskets at my home altitude of 6650ft. Until I compensated for the altitude, the briskets were fairly dry in the flat section. Now, from the tip of the flat to the end of the point, it's very juicy. The burnt ends were so tender, it was ridiculous. I always give all the burnt ends away to the guests as I'm slicing the brisket. Don't want those sitting around.
This was a USDA Prime brisket that I bought from a local butcher in Denver---Oliver's Meats. (This was my first visit to them. Very happy with the quality of the meat.)
I've never weighed a brisket throughout the various stages of its prep, but I've always been curious what's the weight difference from start to finish. So, this time, I decided to weigh it at 3 stages. Here's the results:
-From the butcher before doing anything to it: 12 lbs 12 ounces.
-Once it was trimmed, it was exactly 9 lbs.
-Fully cooked and ready for slicing, it was 5 lbs 13 ounces.
That means the finished meat was less than half the weight of when it came out of the packaging. Interesting.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the end result. I learned from Franklin BBQ to take a piece of Wonder Bread, layer some fatty point on it and then top it with some homemade coleslaw. Fold it up and enjoy! Awwww yeah!
The final result. Jiggly and juicy! And a solid smoke ring.
Trimmed and seasoned:
6 hours in with the fat side down:
12 hours in. Turned it fat side up at 9 hours in.
Rested and ready to remove from the butcher paper for slicing!
