re: Aggy Board OT Discussion Thread

Well good, might sound petty/hipsterish but it kinda hacks me off seeing all the tallow comments these days just because madscientist figured out good clickbait for his youtube videos. I figured the tallow trick out early last year and was using it for awhile until everybody and their mother heard about it now.

I had figured it out by watching a combination of Texicana bbq videos (crazy Italian guy that worked for several places in Austin including Franklin) and reading some interviews from people who worked at top bbq joints. Even told my friends, hey here's a little secret that the bbq restaurants use in their process to make better brisket. Figured it out all by myself and then madscientist has to go tell all of youtube.....

Anyways, it wont make a dog turd into gold, but if you are already cranking out good brisket thats say an 8/10, it'll boost it up to a 9/10. Gives that extra edge in moisture/juiciness but if someone is new to the game I dont talk about it as there are much more important factors that will influence the brisket more that they should be worried about like maintaining a good fire and stable temp, wrapping and pulling at the right time, and stuff like that

I usually plan for about 1.5 hours per pound to fully cook. It’s always a little different but that’s a good starting point.

Remember if it finishes early you can easily hold in a cooler for several hours with no problem. In fact, I usually aim to finish 2-3 hours early so that if the brisket takes longer I’m not rushed, but if it finishes on time or early I can just rest it in a cooler (which is good for it anyways to cool down and come to a better serving temp and supposedly also helps the juices redistribute throughout the piece of meat).

I usually trim and put the rub on the night before and then wrap in cling wrap to put back in the fridge, and then put some more rub on the next day as it’s going on the pit to make up for what gets knocked off while in the cling wrap.

Put the brisket on cold, straight from the fridge. There’s no need to warm up on the countertop or anything like some people recommend, and you’ll get a better smoke ring on the brisket.

Just something you’ll know after getting experience smoking them several times. Some people like a really soft bark, some like a hard, almost crunchy bark. I like somewhere in the middle, but want the brisket to be black, early bark development is more of a mahogany color and some people’s finished briskets will still have some of that brown/mahogany color to it and I don’t prefer that.

Yes you pull the brisket off the pit and wrap in unwaxed butcher paper (make sure it’s unwaxed, you don’t want that wax stuff cooking with your brisket), and then stick it back on and keep cooking. Watch a YouTube video if you need help on how to exactly wrap it’s hard to explain. If you are monitoring internal temp, I’ll say it usually is in the 165-180 range when I wrap but it’s never the same spot between two briskets so you just have to eyeball it.

After that let it get to 195-205 range and pull when it probes like a hot knife through butter.

Here’s one I did last year, this is the kind of bark I shoot for. No washed out spots and good coverage everywhere.


And here it is sliced

We’ve got fire





And shiner bock open too

Creeping up to 250, better get a 4th shiner and make some adjustments just to be safe

Temp dropped to 200 while I slept between 6 and 8:30, slowly adjusting to bring it back up

No drinking today, have stuff to get done

Do it when the bark looks good, if you’ve got good coverage and it’s that nice darker color you can do it now. I’m surprised it took 9 hours to just get to 160 for that small of a brisket. Remember that once it’s wrapped that will help shield some of the harsher heat so you can bump the cooking temp up a bit so it will finish faster if you need it to. I run 225-250 for the most part but after I wrap I’ll bump it to 250-275 if I need to.

So What’s the minimum time I should let it rest? I told my wife we would eat around six but I’m not even at 190 on the brisket yet. Do I need to break down and throw some hotdogs on the gas grill for dinner?

14 hours to hit 200 and for my thermometer to slide easily into the meat. It’s wrapped in a cooler now, around 9:30 I’ll slice some