Epic brisket fail.
(Actually, it had nothing to do with the brisket).
I got the new smoker delivered yesterday, got home from work, assembled it, rubbed the inside with canola oil and got it nice and cured in with high heat and smoke for a few hours. Dialed it back to 225 degrees, got the brisket in at 10:15 PM, and everything seemed to be going quite well. Set up the remote thermometer to alarm if the temp got too high or low, and I even got a couple hours shuteye!
In the morning, the wife and family all start waking up. My wife decided early to hit the gym, and then all hell broke loose.
First, I get an email from her while she's at the gym that one of the families that was going to be coming over was cancelling on us. That's not necessarily horrible, but an 11.5 lb brisket split among 4 adults and no child older than 6 probably is going to leave a LOT more leftovers than we know what to do with. So we start thinking about whether there's anyone else we should invite over to dinner...
Then, after she gets home from the gym, she starts complaining that she's not feeling well. She crawls back into bed and spent most of the day there (when she wasn't rushing to the bathroom). Hence, we cancelled with the other family, and nobody ate brisket.
Just as the meat was starting to look really good, climbing up to about 180 degrees out of the stall, I took it off the grill and used the method in the below link to try to preserve it.
1) Take off at 180.
2) Wrap in heavy-duty foil.
3) Put into a watertight bag.
4) Put into a beverage cooler submerged under LOTS of ice for several hours to rapidly cool the meat external and internal.
5) Transfer to fridge.
6) Tomorrow (when my in-laws are coming), bake while still in foil at 310 deg until meat reaches >200 deg internal temp.
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/cook_today_serve_tomorrow.html
I had such high hopes. It's possible based on what they say at the above link about this method, that I might still end up with something tasty. But I won't know until I do another one whether my first attempt was anything like what a brisket *should* be, because it was aborted before it could finish...
And then my Boilermakers lost to Notre Dame. I was expecting us to get blown out. Instead, we were competitive, up to and including leading to start the 4th quarter. Then, as usual, Purdue ripped my heart out.
What a rotten day.
(Actually, it had nothing to do with the brisket).
I got the new smoker delivered yesterday, got home from work, assembled it, rubbed the inside with canola oil and got it nice and cured in with high heat and smoke for a few hours. Dialed it back to 225 degrees, got the brisket in at 10:15 PM, and everything seemed to be going quite well. Set up the remote thermometer to alarm if the temp got too high or low, and I even got a couple hours shuteye!
In the morning, the wife and family all start waking up. My wife decided early to hit the gym, and then all hell broke loose.
First, I get an email from her while she's at the gym that one of the families that was going to be coming over was cancelling on us. That's not necessarily horrible, but an 11.5 lb brisket split among 4 adults and no child older than 6 probably is going to leave a LOT more leftovers than we know what to do with. So we start thinking about whether there's anyone else we should invite over to dinner...
Then, after she gets home from the gym, she starts complaining that she's not feeling well. She crawls back into bed and spent most of the day there (when she wasn't rushing to the bathroom). Hence, we cancelled with the other family, and nobody ate brisket.
Just as the meat was starting to look really good, climbing up to about 180 degrees out of the stall, I took it off the grill and used the method in the below link to try to preserve it.
1) Take off at 180.
2) Wrap in heavy-duty foil.
3) Put into a watertight bag.
4) Put into a beverage cooler submerged under LOTS of ice for several hours to rapidly cool the meat external and internal.
5) Transfer to fridge.
6) Tomorrow (when my in-laws are coming), bake while still in foil at 310 deg until meat reaches >200 deg internal temp.
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/cook_today_serve_tomorrow.html
I had such high hopes. It's possible based on what they say at the above link about this method, that I might still end up with something tasty. But I won't know until I do another one whether my first attempt was anything like what a brisket *should* be, because it was aborted before it could finish...
And then my Boilermakers lost to Notre Dame. I was expecting us to get blown out. Instead, we were competitive, up to and including leading to start the 4th quarter. Then, as usual, Purdue ripped my heart out.
What a rotten day.
