I just got a tiny offset smoker. Almost impossible to manage temperatures. Stayed up most of the night, made a million mistakes. Cooked too hot, a bit too smoky sometimes. Took it off too early thinking it was going to keep cooking during the hot hold until lunch. Had to reheat it to get it going again. Turned out AMAZING. The only real mistake was trying to sear the fat cap to get it to tighten back up a bit. The fat dripped onto the fire and made it smoky in a bad way. I took it off right away, no major damage except some of the fat stuck to the grill lol! Plus I almost dropped it trying to pull off this maneuver!
Everyone was raving about it and I’ve learned a lot for next time!
Oooooooooo
I have questions.
I’ve never done a brisket (california doesn’t do brisket for some reason. we do tri tip which is wonderful smoked but it’s still not brisket) partly because of imposter syndrome, partly because i don’t have a good brisket dude. But lately i’ve been smoking brats and MOINKSs on my 18" weber smokey mountain. I’ve fallen in love with cherry again so that’s what smoke all my meat is getting, and it only takes an hour to cook the brats.
What’s your smoker? What wood? How long did it take? Do you have any spare leftovers?
I have an Oklahoma Joe longhorn dual fuel. I picked it up dirt cheap almost new from a retired guy who realized it’s no good for serious smoking because the chamber is tiny to make room for the propane side. It’s a bastard grill because real offset pitmasters would consider the original OJ longhorn too small for serious smoking and the dual fuel is half that size again.
I love it for my house because I’ll only do a brisket once a year or so, but now that I have gas the wife will grill things when the mood strikes her, which means more bbq for me. Plus the smoke flavour is unbeatable smoked chicken and salmon galore! You don’t have to get things perfect for it to be family approved.
I used kiln dried oak from the grocery store because it was there, but I’ll buy a face cord one of these years and season it myself, maybe maple? I used to be a Weber kettle grill charcoal man, but cooking on real wood is a pleasure and that’s what you get on an offset. I’m not an expert but I hear the delicate fruit tree flavors are lost on beef so you move to medium and bold wood like oak and mesquite.
It took all night to have it ready by lunch, maybe 14 hours? I’ll definitely never do it for lunch again, brisket is a dinner food now lol. We had 15 people eating for a 16lb pre-smoke weight, about 1/3rd is left!
My buddy who introduced me to smoking has a weber smokey mountain and he makes the best chicken wings I’ve ever had. I’ll have to try to show him up next time he’s over but we’ll see how it goes. His sauce game is absolutely on point!