WSM First Cook - Overnight!

[Metaljed]

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd mark joining this Forum with a run down of how my first ever cook smoking brisket on my WSM.

First off, I should say, I'm not new to smoking meat. I've been smoking Ribs and Pork Butts on my Weber Kettle 22.5 for a couple of years. It's kind of become a main hobby of mine, since a mate of mine introduced me to BBQ in 2014. I live in the UK, so the appetite or understanding of wanting to do something like this is a little weaker. The meat is a little harder to get hold of and in general, smoking paraphernalia is more expensive and not easily available.

I have managed to amass some kit and access to decent cuts nowadays without paying stupid prices.

So, for my birthday I got a WSM 22.5. I've been reading a lot about cooking on one and in particular cooking brisket. I picked up a USDA 14lbs slab of brisket and seasoned my WSM over a couple of days. I picked up 8kg Weber briquettes and on Thursday night at 7pm started the process.

I unashamedly used T-Roy Cooks for inspiration and found a great guide on YouTube for brisket. It really helped with beginner nerves and checking along the way. I also looked back occasionally at my Franklin book for info on temps, trimming, wrapping & resting. I trimmed according the Franklin book (Franklin Barbecue). It provides a really nice step by step guide and pics of what it should look like. I did an ok job for the first time. Although I already know what I'd do differently.

I decided to go with dry rubbing directly from the refrigerator. I did this due to watching a T-Roy cooks episode, where he smokes a brisket overnight and decided to replicate it. I dry rubbed with salt and pepper liberally with an undercoat of yellow mustard. I left the meat in the fridge until I was ready to start cooking, circa 1.5 hours whilst I got the WSM up to 225. I jumped to the WSM, filled the fire ring with 7kg of briquettes and placed 3 mesquite chunks around the vent locations on the outside of the well I made with the briquettes. I heated up around 15 briquettes on the kettle in the bottom of the chimney until they were red hot and chucked them into the middle of the well in the WSM and started to assemble!

Realised I forgot to fill the water pan...doh! Filled the water pan...

Got the brisket into the WSM around 9.40pm straight from the fridge. Still not really sure if there was any benefit, given that this was my first one. Feel free to tell me if you've had good experience with this method. At around 10.30pm I had a temp of 225 which held between 225 and 230 until I finally went to bed at 12:30am.
The temp really dropped overnight. I can only assume that the temp drop to around 6 degrees overnight really impacted the temps. I woke up at 6am the next morning to the temp at 162 although the meat temp had got 142 which was encouraging. The WSM struggled more than I expected but it's hard to tell whether it was my experience showing through or an actual external temp impact.

With a bit of work I got the temp back to 230 within the hour and subsequently left to go and run some errands with the family. When I got back I was very happy to find that the temps had held and the pit was running at 228. This was true for most of the rest of the cook, until I took the meat off of the WSM at exactly 4pm. The meat was at 201 and this timing pretty much took me to an 18 hour cook.

I decided to follow Franklin's rules for resting brisket by wrapping it in parchment lined foil (he doesn't use foil) as this was as close to the butcher paper I could get 😊 and drop it into a cooler. I left to rest for around 2 hours. Around 6pm I unwrapped and cut into the meat. To be honest it was a relief that the meat turned out as good as it did. It really was proper brisket, the bend test was perfect, it was moist and tender and smoked perfectly.

I really enjoyed this as my first overnight cook out and learnt a lot about both smoking and the WSM. I'm really looking forward to my next one!
Any advice or comments welcome as this is the beginning of an obsession I think!

Cheers,
Jed


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[addicted-to-smoke]

A successful first start is always welcome. And welcome to WKC!

[Travis]

Great first post. Welcome to the club.


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[monkey_chops]

Awesome and encouraging post! I'm in a similar situation. Live in the UK and been smoking on a weber kettle using the snake method for a about a year.

Just got a WSW 57cm because it's winter and bbq gear is super cheap right now.

Going to cook a a whole 7kg packer brisket on Xmas eve night / xmas day, so hoping it's not going to be too cold. I've got a spot where i can shield it from the elements.

I've cooked a smaller brisket before and it took around 10 hours, wrapping after about 6 hours.

Yours was quite a long cook, was wondering if you wrapped at any point? What size was the brisket? Was it a UK grass fed cut or corn fed?

Looks totally legit by the way!

[jeffrackmo]

Nicely smoked brisket right there!!!  I bet it tasted as amazing as it looked!!!

Grate job and welcome to the WKC!!!

Pull up a chair!!

J