Vince’s Brisket

Remember my story about Vince’s brisket – we had been to Chad’s and one night Chad grilled steaks and one day he smoked a pork butt. Vince was fired up . . he was going to become an expert smoker. He will sometimes grill steaks but I’m not sure he’s ever messed with any of our smokers. That’s always been my job.

While we were in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago, he put a brisket in the cart and he said “I’m going to smoke that”. I though . . I’ll bet you are but I didn’t say anything.

See the “sell by” date . . June 13. I know it’s still good but dang it . . we’ve had it for almost 2 weeks and twice I’ve said “I’m doing my menu for next week . . are you going to cook the brisket?” Each time, he said “no, not this week.” Yesterday I said . . There’s no room in the freezers for the brisket. What are we going to do with it? Grumble . . grumble . . I’ll cook it but you’re going to have to tell me what to do with it.

The next time he wants a chocolate cake, I’m going to say . . I’ll make it but you’re going to have to tell me how . . and see how that goes over.

So, I got out the seasoning mix, seasoned it all up. I did say “You clean the smoker rack. You put fresh foil in the bottom of the smoker and put a bit of oak and a bit of fruit wood in the wood box.” He did that and I seasoned the brisket.

He did go out and help me get it on the smoker and get the temperature probe in it. He did stay up til almost 11 p.m. after I saw that the temp was getting close to where I wanted it to be.

I wrapped it and then Vince raised the rack, and put it back in the smoker.

I set my phone to vibrate at 4 a.m. and took the phone to bed but I never heard it or felt it go off because alarms usually do not wake me up. I woke up at 5:15 and got up and went and checked on it and it was only up to about 175°so  I turned the heat up on the smoker a bit and went back to bed. Got up at 6:45 and checked it. Up to a little past 180°. That’s good . . long and slow for a good brisket. I left it alone and would go out and look at it every now and then. I have a couple of the remote thermometers but with the big smoker under the shop carport, those won’t read in the house so I either have to use the smaller smoker on the front porch and have the remote thermometers work or, use the big smoker and have to walk over there. I was thinking last night that I could use binoculars but I still have to wake up. I love that I can set the remote thermometers to alarm when a certain temp is reached but . . that won’t work with the smoker so far away and with metal roofs and thick rock walls. I have such a hard life! 🙂

It was a little after 11 a.m. when the internal temp got to 200° so that was good. I wrapped it in foil, stuck it in the cooler til about 1 p.m. It turned out perfect in my opinion.

We had borlotti beans from the garden, tomatoes (from the garden) with mozzarella, balsamic and olive oil, apples from the apple tree and baked potatoes from the store!

And then . . we both took a nap!