I Tried Smoking My First Brisket and It Was Terrible
With the caked-over brisket diagonally in place (fat cap up, we're not total amateurs), all that remained to do was wait, we presumed. The temperature, however, had other ideas. After I abandoned all hope at 2am on a very cold Saturday morning, my dogged and resilient housemate, who was presumably more worried about his own birthday party than I was, woke up every two hours to find the temperature too low, and apply more coals and wood. It was at this point, I think, that his confidence was shaken. Would we poison all our guests? Was our back-up plan of sausages and cake sufficient to halt the inevitable food riot that would result from a lack of the promised brisket?
Gavin Cleaver An almost-done brisket.
Morning came, and with it a very cold and overcast day. With the party starting at three, and cleaning to be done, we checked the temperature on the cheap smoker temperature dial every hour or so. The atmosphere was tense. At three, the brisket was jiggling. I took jiggling to be a sign that brisket was done. My housemate was more concerned than I was. Not wanting to kill all his guests, he went out to buy an internal meat temperature thermometer. This cursed piece of equipment said the internal temperature of our brisket was 135f, some way short of non-deadly brisket. We soldiered on. Guests arrived (but only around 5pm, because Americans are always late for everything), and were distracted with my wife's delightful salad while all of our prayers were directed towards the smoker. It was two hours before the internal temperature rose from 135.
Now, at this point, we should have figured out something was up. Instead, in a final fit of desperation at it being the actual evening and there being no brisket or even room to grill sausages, we wrapped the bastard in foil and put it in the oven. After an hour in the oven, the internal gauge hadn't moved.
The brisket, when it eventually emerged, was overdone. All the fat had disappeared into the ether, and it was pretty tough. You know what it was? That goddamn internal thermometer. If we had just trusted the jiggle when it was lovely and jiggly, we'd have been enjoying delicious brisket hours earlier, rather than largely overlooked by drunken guests brisket at about 9pm. Also, the rub was shit.
The internal temperature thermometer is lying on my kitchen counter, in disgrace. And you know what that bastard says the temperature is in my kitchen right now? 160 F.
Goddamn you internal meat thermometer. Goddamn you.
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