First Brisket on the Bradley

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Well, we just tackled my first brisket on the Bradley Six Rack and the verdict is in .. it's a hit.  This was so easy compared to any other way I have ever tried to smoke a brisket. 

Started with a 9 lb something oz untrimmed brisket.  Took off maybe as much as 1/2 lb in trimming it up.  Smeared it with homemade Worcestershire sauce, rested ~12 hrs in the fridge, brought to room temp over 2 hours, then covered well with Montreal Steak Seasoning as the rub. Smoker was preheated to 225 F.  In it went, got 4 hours of pecan smoke and then cooked all at 225.  Decided it was done with  IT = 192 in the flat and IT at the thick end of the point was 180. Total time in the Bradley was 16.5 hrs.   Did the FTC thing for 2.5 hrs then it was time to start slicing.  Pics of the finished product follow.

This was amazingly tender and well smoked.  The one thing that disappointed me was probably the beef itself.  The flat portion was the leanest I have ever seen.  The only fat on the flat was the cap and the layer between the flat and the point.  No marbling or vein of fat within the flat at all.  As a result the thinnest end of the flat was a bit dry, but still very tender.  I wouldn't consider it overdone, just no internal fat.

As it came out of FTC, flat end on the left, point end on the right.



The flat sliced for service, the point portion is in the background being reserved for some "hot chop".



Let's eat !  Had it with baked cannellini beans and  simple cuke and tomato salad.  The kids loved it!




Easy and good !

[FLBentRider]

Looks good BLSH!

[Quarlow]

Looks awesome. What do you put on your cuke an tomat salad.

[classicrockgriller]

Well if that was your first in the Bradley, you do an awesome job.

You'll be holding class in the near future.

You sure you weren't born a Texan?

[KyNola]

Nice BLSH, really nice.  Great looking brisket.

[HawkeyeSmokes]

Looks great BLSH!

What's next on the list?

[DTAggie]

Great Job!  Did you rotate the brisket from front to back during cooking?

[drewpatton]

Right on! Tell us about the cucumber and tomato salad!

[Gizmo]

I want to hear about the home made worcestershire sauce.

[drewpatton]

Yeah Gizmo, that does sound interesting...

[classicrockgriller]

I want to hear about the home made worcestershire sauce.

Giz, when you come this way in Sept, I'll send you home with some

worcestershire powder so you can play with it. ;D

[Gizmo]

I actually have the powder.  I use if for brisket rub a lot.  Tough keeping it from getting hard.  Canister vacpac will lose suction after a while.

[ArnieM]

C'mon Eric, out with the secrets  :D  My wife's birthday is one June so I'll be doing a brisket on Memorial Day weekend - little early.  I have a good size packer.  Please fill in some details.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the kind comments. I turned out pretty good and was a big hit with the family.  Wife is really looking forward to both sandwiches and some hot chop on top of a big baked potato.

Let's see, answer to some questions ...

Cuke & tomato salad is the easiest thin in this meal – peel and cut up English cukes, used both ornage and Roma tomatoes, dressed with a simple vinaigrette and hit it with some fresh oregano, thyme, salt and black pepper.  If you don't want to fool with making the dressing and dealing with the herbs then  use Italian dressing.  Key is fresh and good cukes and tomatoes.

edit - had one more thought on the salad that I should have mentioned.  When using chopped tomatoes in a salad I don't like the seeds and associated schmoo that comes with them.  I cut out the stem end with a small paring knife, then cut them in half (the equator cut on round tomatoes, the length on Romas) then use an teaspoon to scoop out the seeds and schmmooey stuff before cutting them up into pieces.  I do this for salads, pico de gallo, and most things that use chopped tomatoes in the finsihed product.  For slices (like on burgers and sliced tomato salads they stay.

Homemade Worcestershire sauce is easy but not real simple, about the same as making a good barbecue sauce and once you make and try it you won't want to go back to the store-bought stuff.  It is so much better.   The recipe is Emeril Lagasse's.  You can find the recipe here.  It calls for fresh horseradish root – you can use bottled prepared in the same weight amount and get about the same result.  When finished it has a consistency close to good maple syrup and is a bit sticky – good for a slather.

Aggie – no rotation.  Brisket went on the 3rd shelf up on the six rack.

CRG – can't claim to be a Texan, but got here as fast as I could.

Arnie – isn't a whole lot else to tell.  As a new Bradley user I got some great pointers from a bunch of your posts.  

The expertise in these forums is so good that with some time reading and finding the consistent themes and advice it becomes really straightforward.  Based on my limited experience the one thing I think that still has a lot of mystery and art in it is getting the right brisket and figuring out when it's properly done. Pachanga discussed these points well in his Brisket Pachanga post that's on the recipe site.  For me that remains the challenging part.

[Pachanga]

BLSH,

Nice looking smoke.

Appears that you got that down with no problems.

Everything is easy once you know how.  As you state, there is a lot of good reading from some well informed smokers on this site.  You did your homework before you got to work.

Good luck and slow smoking,

Pachanga