New guy at his wits end

[McQuinn]

Howdy fellas, new poster here. Searched texas bbq forum on google and this forum popped up, browsed for a few minutes and liked what I saw. Anyway, as the title says I'm frustrated. Been smoking briskets and pretty much everything else for a while now and felt I was getting pretty good at it. Each brisket I did was better than the last, they were moist, the probe went in like it was going through butter. Now all the sudden every brisket I smoke seems to go too quick. 12lb briskets are hitting 200 degrees 8-9 hours in and the flat is tough as nails. I've been using an old country pecos smoker and I love it. I thought I had it dialed in but now it seems I can't do anything right though. I use a dual probe maverick but it always shows to be 25+ degrees hotter than the manual thermometer on the smoker. I don't remember the manual one I bought but it was around $40, I didn't spring for the super cheap ones. I didn't reposition the manual thermometer either fwiw. I generally smoke briskets around 250ish, I'll set the low alarm to 225 and the high to 275 and try to keep it around 250. But 250 on the maverick shows 200-225 on the manual thermo and I'm never sure which one to trust. I have a 14lb brisket on right now that I started around 3am and it stalled at 140 for 3-4 hours and dropped down to 138 twice. I've never seen a brisket stall at 140 and I've never seen a brisket drop temperature during a stall although I've read about it. It's 3:15pm now, brisket has been on for roughly 12 hours and it's at 196 but not very tender at all. I'm very frustrated.


I know I'm rambling and I probably haven't given enough details but I've been up since 1:30am and have been chopping and splitting wood all day. A friend of mine lost one of his Live Oaks and I took a few truckloads of it for future use. And I may have had a beer or two.

[k.a.m.]

Your maverick is reading grate temps I would trust it over my door therm especially if the door therm is mounted high in the door. I cook my briskets between 250° and 275° it usually takes about four hours to hit 165°/170° then I pan or wrap in foil if I do not have room for my pan. Keeping the cooker at or above 250° will help push through your stall much easier. When the middle flat reaches 205° use a toothpick and check it for tenderness if it has resistance let it go to 210° then check it again.

[OldUsedParts]

First of all Howdy and Welcome - - - I'm sure the "Pros" here will soon be helping you figure out what's happening - - - - I have found these members to be the most knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to the finer art of Qn and Smok'n - - - Good Luck with your challenge

Looked like help arrived before I got this rambling posted

[CaptJack]

howdy

[Okie Sawbones]

What k.a.m. said. The flat will never be as juicy as the point, but it shouldn't be dry or tough. Are you changing the grade of beef, such as going from prime to choice or select?

[Txdragon]

Welcome! This sounds like the cut quality. If you have changed nothing in your routine, I'd look at the hunk of cow.

[deepsouthbbq]

What k.a.m. said. The flat will never be as juicy as the point, but it shouldn't be dry or tough. Are you changing the grade of beef, such as going from prime to choice or select?

I was thinking the same thing. Especially if your methods haven't changed and now your cooks aren't coming out like before.
when I cook a 12lb it's generally done in the 9 hour range as well. cooking at 250

[Chasdev]

Answer is clear and easy to explain...Franklin bought all the tender briskets in north America.

[k.a.m.]

Answer is clear and easy to explain...Franklin bought all the tender briskets in north America.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Wrong answer.
Franklin gets most of the quality briskets from Creekstone farms. By quality I am referring to flat width and thickness, I would still buy a Creekstone for home use if I needed to serve a quality brisket with consistent texture and flavor. You still have swift and IBP primes to choose from which are just as good you just need to know what to look for when picking them.

[Texan79423]

That's BBQ for you. I cook at 250-275 fat side down, wrap at 160-165 depending on color/bark, Usually start checking brisket at 195-200 for tenderness. 200 is not a hard fast rule! Your probe temps will vary like your temp gages.,as well. Probe or jiggle/wiggle the thing to check for tenderness. I have hard some really big briskets go to 210 and some small whole ones done at @193-195. No two are alike, dang it all to heck.

Man it is so hard to explain doneness it a feels right kind of thing. Time, temp, and probe locations all vary. However when it's done it's done. It is also important to let the darn thing rest longer than you would expect. Again not real set in stone time/temp.

So, in closing I am of little help. Now if I was standing over the pit cooking, checking gauges, probing I could be spot on ... well 90 % of the time anyway. There is always chopped beef sammies!

Welcome and best of luck just keep at it after several $$$ and few more failures you will get there.

[Chasdev]

Dang, tough crowd! Guess I need to be sure to insert some of these next time...

[k.a.m.]

Dang, tough crowd! Guess I need to be sure to insert some of these next time...

They help.

[Finatic]

Welcome to the forum McQuinn. I agree it sounds like it could be a quality issue. What kind of brisket was this (select, choice, prime, etc)?

[McQuinn]

Thanks for all the responses. I don't use the internets all that much so I just read through them. So the brisket I was smoking actually turned out really darn good. It got up to 201 and was fairly tender when I probed it but not quite what I like. I had to pull it though just because of time restraints but everyone loved it. I thought it was darn good and I'm really hard on myself when it comes to brisket, I want it perfect. So the one thing I did different this time was I bought a truckload of seasoned oak and pecan and that's what I used this time instead of the kiln dried grocery store stuff in the white or purple mesh bags. Maybe that was the problem?

Afterwards I did set the oven to 250 to check what my maverick was reading. At 250 it read 260. I bumped it up to 275 and it read 275 and then bumped it to 300 and it read 300 so it seems accurate.

As far as quality of meat I get the prime briskets at Costco. Every once in a while I'll grab choice from Kroger if they're on sale but 90% of the time it's Costco briskets.


On a side note I passed by a house earlier that was having a HUGE red oak tree taken down. They had a bunch of it cut up and set on the side of the road for bulk pickup. I swung by and knocked on the door and asked if I could grab some and she said "Sure, take all you want! It's going to take a while to bring the whole tree down so just keep stopping by". Loaded up my truck and will keep doing so. I will never have to buy wood again

[Txdragon]

Thanks for all the responses. I don't use the internets all that much so I just read through them. So the brisket I was smoking actually turned out really darn good. It got up to 201 and was fairly tender when I probed it but not quite what I like. I had to pull it though just because of time restraints but everyone loved it. I thought it was darn good and I'm really hard on myself when it comes to brisket, I want it perfect. So the one thing I did different this time was I bought a truckload of seasoned oak and pecan and that's what I used this time instead of the kiln dried grocery store stuff in the white or purple mesh bags. Maybe that was the problem?

Afterwards I did set the oven to 250 to check what my maverick was reading. At 250 it read 260. I bumped it up to 275 and it read 275 and then bumped it to 300 and it read 300 so it seems accurate.

As far as quality of meat I get the prime briskets at Costco. Every once in a while I'll grab choice from Kroger if they're on sale but 90% of the time it's Costco briskets.


On a side note I passed by a house earlier that was having a HUGE red oak tree taken down. They had a bunch of it cut up and set on the side of the road for bulk pickup. I swung by and knocked on the door and asked if I could grab some and she said "Sure, take all you want! It's going to take a while to bring the whole tree down so just keep stopping by". Loaded up my truck and will keep doing so. I will never have to buy wood again

Interesting. I feel something may be missing here. Usual quality brisket, different wood but same overall method. You'd think kiln dried rather than naturally seasoned wood would make a bit fuss but think of it like 93 vs 87 octane gasoline. You're gonna get the same results, only better mileage. If your temps were reading accurate, it doesn't matter what fuel source you were using to get it there. The wood or meat quality wasn't an issue it seems. Temperature variation still seems to be a viable culprit. How was the weather that day:?