brisket

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That is easily solved by technique instead of foil. We smoke using charcoal and wood chunks. We add only enough wood to smoke for 2 hours. We also do not insert the Ribs until we have achieved sweet blue, not that white acrid white crappy smoke. I personally do not like the foil because you are actually steaming the meat which is why they cook much quicker in foil. If you like falling off the bone ribs, foil is your ally. In comps falling off the bone is marked down as being over cooked.

I cook with charcoal too but I can never seem to time the wood running out right. It seems like I either have way too much or too little.

I do both fall off the bone and tooth tender depending on who I am cooking for and can pull both off with foil. I am considering entering a couple comps next year so I have been working on getting them "toothyier".
 
One of the most important things saw brought up is the color of the smoke, thick white smoke equals bad combustion or lack of oxygen to your fire and is very overpowering and bitter. The kind of smoke that is the best has a blue or almost translucent appearance.
 
I don't have much to add to this thread technique wise; however, my father and I have been smoking brisket for years/decades (grew up in texas), it's one of the most requested meals by our friends at gatherings. The best rub for brisket we've found has been a mixture (never measure, just to taste): Bad Byron's Butt Rub, dark brown sugar, and coffee freshly ground to a very fine (think espresso) grind. Of course adhered with plain yellow mustard. We usually smoke briskett, or any beef really, with mesquite. Pork gets hickory, or a combo of hickory and mesquite.
 
I don't have much to add to this thread technique wise; however, my father and I have been smoking brisket for years/decades (grew up in texas), it's one of the most requested meals by our friends at gatherings. The best rub for brisket we've found has been a mixture (never measure, just to taste): Bad Byron's Butt Rub, dark brown sugar, and coffee freshly ground to a very fine (think espresso) grind. Of course adhered with plain yellow mustard. We usually smoke briskett, or any beef really, with mesquite. Pork gets hickory, or a combo of hickory and mesquite.
Bad Byron's is awesome! a little salty for beef, but, i bet the brown sugar equalizes it well.
 
Yeah, only roughly 1/3 of the rub ends up being bad byrons. We don't use exactly equal proportions, a hair more byrons and a hair less brown sugar than 1/3, but it doesn't taste too salty at all, if anything it may be a hair UNDER salty, but the little bit of salt in the mustard compensates. Byrons definitely is awesome, but I agree it can get salty if you use it straight and have a heavy hand.

Next experimental rub we're working on has unsweetened cocoa, ground coffee, cayene, and a few other things but it's still in the planning stages.
 
One of the most important things saw brought up is the color of the smoke, thick white smoke equals bad combustion or lack of oxygen to your fire and is very overpowering and bitter. The kind of smoke that is the best has a blue or almost translucent appearance.

I also agree with the importance of the type of smoke you're getting. Thin whispy blue smoke is ideal. Having said that, some cheap smokers (like mine) make it difficult to maintain lower temperatures when trying to achieve this type of smoke. I attribute this to having too much natural draft in my smoker....basically a smoker design flaw in my opinion.
 
My offset is the same way Soper. Sometimes it seems I can either maintain a steady constant temp and have wildly varying smoke from white to blue to none, or I can maintain sweet blue and my temp starts going all over the place (usually too low). I know it's probably mostly in my head and not really happening that dramatically, but it's still annoying.

I'm actually thinking of ditching it (or rather telling my dad he can come get it back or I'm gonna sell it) and building an UDS. The set-it-and-forget-it consistency of UDSs is really appealing to me as I have a habit of taking a nap once things get leveled out mostly b/c I get up too early or stay up too late on smoke days.
 
UDSs are great! I have thought about building a big offset for more capacity but instead have decided to build an army of UDSs.
 
Yeah, I just found an easy and cheap supply of actual splits of hickory, oak, and pecan. If I build a UDS, I see no reason why a single split wouldn't be enough wood for an entire smoke when combined with the lump I already use, should be able to cut down fuel costs to a fraction of what they were before.

The more I mull it over in my head, the more the benefits are by far outweighing any possible cons for me. As soon as I can track a barrel down I think I'm going to have to do this.
 
I dump a bag of charcoal into my fire basket and add about 2 or 3 fist sized chunks of wood. It will burn without reloading for over 30 hours. That is the longest I have had it going and there was still a decent amount of coals in there left.
 
Right, what I'm thinking is one split should equal out to about 3-4 fist sized chunks, only be alot more convenient and in my case alot cheaper. I'll be able to buy a package of splits oak or hickory or pecan splits (or one of each) and they'll last me probably years of smoking.
 
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