My 1st attempt at smoking a brisket: Fail

Jbird

Jbird

Kick Henry Jackassowski
Bought a small brisket from Meijers. Marinated it overnight in the 'fridge. Dry rubbed it with a brown sugar/mustard/other stuff rub while the grill was going.

Using a Akorn Kamado Joe Jr. grill, with the smoking stone inserted.

I waited 'til the temp guage on the Kamado Joe Jr. came down to 200°F and threw the brisket on the grill. It 'smoked' for about 2 hours that way, the temp getting down to about 150-160°F, but then the coals went out. I had to restart it, add wood charcoal, which brought the temp way up again. Took the meat off until the temp came back down. Tried again, keeping the temps around 200-225.

It cooked way too fast that way, had to take it off after about 4 1/2 hours (the 2 hours at less than 200 and about 2 1/2 at 200 or so). The tiny end part of the brisket was burnt, I think it hung over the smoking stone coverage a bit meaning that part got direct heat. The rest of the brisket ended up being well-done, no pink center with an outside smoke ring :(

The meat is edible, it's not like it's burnt or anything. But since it ended up well-done, I'll throw bbq sauce or A1 on it since it is dry.

Oh well, I'll have to try again. Seems like the challenge is to keep the coals burning when temps in the dome get below 200°. Maybe it being the Jr.-sized grill (13" grilling area) it's just not an ideal grill for smoking :shrug:
 
It’s harder than it sounds, eh? :)

225 should be fine. On my BGE any lower and there is danger the fire will go out. At 225 a full brisket or a pork butt takes me about 16 hours.

Possible issues I can see:
  • “Small brisket” - was it just the flat? If you want to go low n slow, better to have a whole packer style. Although a truly big one might not fit on your kamado. (Edit - yah 13” is smaller than my BGE even, whole brisket wont fit)
  • What are you using to measure the temp? The built-in thermometer might need to be checked. You don’t need absolute precision, but an uncalibrated thermometer can be 50 deg off.
  • And dome temp can be different (usually hotter) then grill temp.
Maybe try a pork butt next? Easier, and still crazy delicious.
 
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First thing you’re going to need to figure out before doing a long slow cook is how often and how much to feed your grill to maintain the temp at a fairly consistent level. I wouldn’t worry too much about the built in temp vs actual food temp; get consistency down before you get too far into accuracy.

Once you know how to run the grill at a fairly consistent given temp, then you’re aces for moving that value up or down and adding/subtracting time.
 
Yeah, I'm going to have to figure out how to add more fuel. The grate on the grill has large enough openings for the smaller chunks, but medium/larger pieces, forget about it. There is a circular section in the center of the grill you can take out with provided tool to add fuel, but then with a big slab of meat there, and with the smoking stone underneath, it still isn't the most user friendly.

I'll have to take off the meat, take out the circular section, and try to add the wood chunks along the sides of the smoking stone. I'll find something long enough I can poke down in there to stir the added chunks into the center.

Live and learn.

The briskets they had at my Meijers were all fairly big, on the $55-60 range (not sure of the weight, I didn't really check).
They didn't have any in back to cut for me, but the butcher said he'd be happy to cut one of the already packaged ones down to size. He took one in back, came back with a smaller chunk of it already wrapped up and weighed, it was $20...so about 1/3 of the pre-packaged original sized one.
It was a pretty good fit size-wise for my 13" grill, just the very tail-end of the brisket kinda hanging out past the smoking stone coverage.
 
I've never owned a BGE, I'm a WSM guy all the way. But from what I know, probably the worst thing you can do on a brisket is trimming the fat cap. Most Q teams I've seen will just score the fat cap and pour the rub on. Lerxst's advice is spot on as well as Tiger's. Hell you may get more mileage out of your fuel using smaller cuts of meat. You are probably losing a fair amount of cook time waiting for the heat to level out. I would suggest measuring out a pound or two of fuel and see how long it takes to burn. Cook up some yardbird or even a turkey. A good sized roaster bird should take under 3 hrs, and a 10 lb turkey under 5.

Something else... Don't worry so much about how hot the fire is when you put the meat on. Once you open the lid, plenty of heat will escape... even though Eggs have that firebrick lining. I put a clay saucer in my WSM for the same reason... if it's fairly hot, that ceramic will even out the heat. I put in wet chips or chunks in at the beginning to get the smoke going, and that's about it unless you like a bitter creosote taste on your food. Post up some pics! :munch::munch:
 
As far as the fuel, I found out what I did wrong.

I just filled up the chimney starter then dumped the hot coals in the kamado. Reading up on them, and especially for the little grill I have, you have to do a top-down burn. Load up the kamado with chips, then use a fire-starter chip at the top of the pile.

I'll need to buy some fire-starter chips now.
 
For starting my BGE, I have used the plug-in heater wire dealie, and the blower thing that is like a super-hot hair dryer. Both work well and aren't just single-use. Fast, too.
 
Yeah, it's tough the first one or two times, but you'll get a hang of it.

Jbird said:
As far as the fuel, I found out what I did wrong.

I just filled up the chimney starter then dumped the hot coals in the kamado. Reading up on them, and especially for the little grill I have, you have to do a top-down burn. Load up the kamado with chips, then use a fire-starter chip at the top of the pile.

I'll need to buy some fire-starter chips now.
Click to expand...

I use these:
Amazon product ASIN B00138MO16
 
Hard to get re-fuel a ceramic smoker for a 16+ hour cook for something like brisket. I started on an offset, but currently use a Weber Smokey Mountain for convenience; unlike the ceramic cookers, it has a charcoal door.

But your fuel should have lasted for 6-8 hours without needing more. Looks like you have figured this out. I use the Minion Method, starting only 12 lit coals. Sometimes I place bricks in a T shape and start the coal at one end. Put the hot coals on the cold coals, assemble smoke (meat included), close it up and let it come up to temp, then maintain.
 
Jbird said:
As far as the fuel, I found out what I did wrong.

I just filled up the chimney starter then dumped the hot coals in the kamado. Reading up on them, and especially for the little grill I have, you have to do a top-down burn. Load up the kamado with chips, then use a fire-starter chip at the top of the pile.

I'll need to buy some fire-starter chips now.
Click to expand...


You can still use a chimney, just don't do a full one. With a small grill like that, it wouldn't take many. Then again, may not be worth using the chimney. I still use the chimney for my ceramic. For a long cook it's maybe a dozen coals and for a short cook it's half a chimney but I have a large ceramic cooker.

I like the chimney better because I can get those coals hot enough that they very quickly ignite the unlit coals/wood when they get dumped in. This is pretty important to avoid the strong, bitter flavor you can get from unlit coals. The only issue with using a fire starter chip directly in with the coals is you have to wait long enough for that center of the burn to get to a high enough temp. I'm not really explaining it clearly but basically you want that initial source of heat to be hot enough to ignite coals/wood chunks fast enough to avoid the creosote flavor. If they smolder they will smoke a lot more (white smoke) and that's not the good kind. Looking for a thin blueish smoke.
 
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