3rd Smoke - 1st Brisket - loads of questions

[tnlyne]

So, I got this 11.97 lb beef brisket from Sam's (see attached photos). I want to get the brisket smoked by Wednesday night(12/31/14) or early Thursday morning (1/1/15) so I can pack some for a 5-6 hour trip. I have a food-saver vacuum sealer I can use to seal the cooked meat for the trip if that is recommended? Expecting travel temps to be near 30 degrees in the bed of my truck or I can regulate in cooler. Looking for storage recommendations and planning to consume on 1/2 or 1/3.

I'm considering doing the brisket using DM's whole brisket process http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=2160.0.

I plan to brine in DM's boston butt brine http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=1608.0 for 12-13 hours. Is this ample enough time for this size meat?

I also want to inject the brisket with DM's brisket injection http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=2230.0. Must I do this after brining since it needs resting overnight after injection? Or can I inject and brine at the same time?

It's critical I get this done by Wednesday night. I figure I could make the brine Sunday and get the brisket in it Sunday night (aiming around 9pm). Around 10am Monday the brining should be done (yes?) and I can inject it, mustard, rub, wrap, send to fridge? Then, if I let it rest until say 10pm monday night I can toss it in the smoker, sleep, and watch the temp monitoring (pulling off for rest at 190°) in the morning after I wake up?

Does the above sound like a reasonable plan? It gets me done on Tuesday and leaves a day buffer. Also, I don't have any of the Baldridge rub (even though I'm a Nebraska native). Are there recommended alternatives? I bought the Jeff Phillips recipe and made that today for the ribs I'm doing tomorrow. I could make another batch of that easily if it makes sense for brisket?

One last question before I go to bed. I don't know much about briskets other than eating them. This one seems to have some thick layers of fat on it. Should I trim some of this before starting the process? See the attached pictures. It seems like up to 3/4"-1" in some spots. And cook it fat side down or up?

 

[BedouinBob]

Tony, pretty solid plan. I did this recipe an injected after brining. If I remembered right I used Memphis Dust (in the rubs section) but Dalmation Rub (salt and pepper) would be great too. Vacuum bags are a great way to transport and keeps the moisture in. I wouldn't take the fat cap down unless it is really thick. Fat is flavor and it pretty much melts away.  Post pics with the results. Smellovision would be nice too!  8)

 

[DivotMaker]

Tony, if you are injecting, wait until after the brine.  If you don't, you'll open up a lot of holes for the brine to penetrate deep into the meat, which you really don't want.  Keep the meat intact until you rinse the brine, then inject/wrap and put back in the fridge overnight.  12-13 hours in the brine is plenty, too.

 

[tnlyne]

Ok, followed DM's brine except I didn't have #1 instacure so I used Morton's Tender Quick curing salt since it's the closest thing my Hy-Vee store had on hand. I used 1-1/8 cup of this stuff rather than the kosher salt and instacure.

I trimmed "some" (left ~1/2") of the fat from this brisket since it was nearly 1" thick on the top. Not sure if this was good/bad? I also scored the fat with a knife in criss-cross 1" pattern for a couple reasons:
[list type=decimal]
[*]I could fold the brisket to fit in the 2.5 gallon baggie and fill with the 1 gallon of brine.
[*]The brine could maybe get through "some" of the fat to the meat on the one side.
[/list]

It went swimming in brine around 10pm and I'll pull around 10:30am to prepare for injection/rub and "rest" before moving into the smoker.

Did I mark image 0967 correctly with the flat and point?

 

[tnlyne]

Brine complete, injected, mustard/rub, wrapped and back in fridge until 10pm or so tonight when I throw it on the smoker.

I have a question about the thick fat. Do you normally mustard and dust rub the fat coating? I did but wonder if it should normally be done that way if the fat melts away during the smoke.

 

[tnlyne]

I decided to cut the fat back to about 1/4" and saved 8oz for burnt ends later. I had to re-rub over the now much thinner fat layer hoping that this will reach the meat.

 

[Walt]

I dont trim the fat but I will score it & yes put seasoning on every inch of the brisket & in every nook & cranny.

 

[DivotMaker]

Tony - that's a LOT of Tender Quick!!  Any curing salts are NOT meant to be a substitute for regular salt.  Although Tender Quick has a much smaller concentration of nitrites (.5 % vs 6.25% in Instacure #1), it also contains nitrates.  1 1/8 cup of this stuff may not be so good. 

Here's the math, as I see it:  Instacure #1 is 6.25% nitrite.  Tender Quick is .5% nitrite and .5% nitrate.  So, to equal 1 Tsp. of Instacure #1, you would use no more than 6 1/4 Tsp. of Tender Quick, or a little over 2 Tbsp.  1 cup contains 16 Tbsp., so you effectively added 8 Tsp. of Instacure #1.  That's a very large concentration of nitrite/nitrate!  Especially considering the length of time in the brine, this brisket may not be safe to consume!

Hopefully, Brian (Pork Belly) will comment on this - he's pretty much the resident expert on curing salts.  Sounds like a very high concentration, to me.

 

[tnlyne]

Tony - that's a LOT of Tender Quick!!  Any curing salts are NOT meant to be a substitute for regular salt.  Although Tender Quick has a much smaller concentration of nitrites (.5 % vs 6.25% in Instacure #1), it also contains nitrates.  1 1/8 cup of this stuff may not be so good. 

Here's the math, as I see it:  Instacure #1 is 6.25% nitrite.  Tender Quick is .5% nitrite and .5% nitrate.  So, to equal 1 Tsp. of Instacure #1, you would use no more than 6 1/4 Tsp. of Tender Quick, or a little over 2 Tbsp.  1 cup contains 16 Tbsp., so you effectively added 8 Tsp. of Instacure #1.  That's a very large concentration of nitrite/nitrate!  Especially considering the length of time in the brine, this brisket may not be safe to consume!

Hopefully, Brian (Pork Belly) will comment on this - he's pretty much the resident expert on curing salts.  Sounds like a very high concentration, to me.

You have me kind of worried after spending $50 on this hunk of meat. I hope I see a response before this gets done tomorrow morning. The bag says for brine curing dissolve 1 cup tender quick in 4 cups cool water. Then it said cure for 24 hours while refrigerating, rinse after brining, and cook meat until done. It says 1 tbsp per pound of meat. I thought this was mostly salt with a very small amount of nitrite and nitrate. Perhaps I screwed this one up. I'm awaiting feedback and will be reading more tonight too see if this is safe to consume. Thanks for the heads up anyway.

 

[DivotMaker]

I may be overly-cautious, Tony, so I PM'd Brian (Pork Belly) to take a look.  You might also.  Like I said, I'm not an expert on Tender Quick, but just had the bells go off due to the amount.  You may be perfectly fine, if the instructions said 1 cup to 4 cups of water (that even seems like a very high ratio).  Hopefully, Brian will chime in soon - he really knows his stuff about this.  Martin (Digging Dog Farm) is the other curing/brining expert - he taught me a lot about the subject.

 

[tnlyne]

Thanks Tony, I'm gonna go ahead and put my brisket in now... Guess it will likely be ready closer to dinner tomorrow if anything. I definitely want to learn more about safety in this meat brining/curing processes. I found a recipe here that talked about 2 cups of tenderquick:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-corned-beef-for-st-78650

But these appear to be curing for multiple days. I'm guessing there is a chemical reaction going on during this process that breaks down the nitrates/nitrites? I would really like to know if this is safe to eat by tomorrow night. If I don't hear back I'll probably cut it up and freeze without consuming for now...  :'(

 

[tnlyne]

Well, bummer... No response yet on the subject. I've been resting the brisket for 2 hours now as it reached 192 after about 11.5 hours. Thinking I'll be cutting it up soon and vacuum packing. I'll try a few small samples and hope for the best.

 

[Pork Belly]

I don't think there is an issue. When I make Corned Beef I use one full oz. of curing salt and that is for a full seven day soak. The amount of curing salt (Pink Salt) in Tender Quick not huge. It took me a lot of digging to find a copycat Tender Quick Recipe online. When I found it I didn't save it, as it was nearly identical to Ruhlman's Basic Dry Cure in Charcuterie:
1Pound or 450 grams Kosher Salt
8 oz. or 225 Grams Sugar
2 oz. or 50 grams or 10 teaspoons Pink Salt- Sodium Nitrite

There is a lot of mass in the pound and a half of Kosher and Sugar to displace the curing salt. Only 50 grams of a total 725 grams is curing salt. So brining 1-1/8 cups Basic cure or Tender Quick the volume of Nitrates is pretty low.

Having said all that I need to make the point once again, DO NOT GUESS, SUBSTITUTE, OR EXPERIMENT WITH ANY OF THE CURING SALTS. THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE AND CAN KILL YOU OR MAKE YOU VERY SICK.

Also failing to use them when you should use them can make you sick and kill you.

 

[tnlyne]

Thanks for the reply Brian!

After a few hours rest I cut it up and tried a few samples. The samples tasted good but I foodsaver locked the rest waiting for your reply. Does too much nitrates/nitrites become evident in taste or look? I definitely learned a lesson here and will probably avoid any recipe deviations with curing salts in the future. I guess instacure #1 isn't available at local grocery chains which is why I tried the tender quick (since it was mostly salt and low levels of nitrites/nitrates). I figured I would be fine since the brine recipe called for 1-1/8 cup kosher salt and the tender quick bag mentioned 1 cup TQ for a 4 cup water brine. Bag of TQ is 2 lbs and says (907grams). I weighed what remains after my brine and my scale says 645 grams are left in the bag. I have pictures of the TQ bag in the photos below. If 906 grams is the total weight of the TQ bag and it says 0.5% nitrates and 0.5% nitrites then would that be 906 grams X 1.0% nitrates/nitrites combined = 9.06 grams of curing agent for the whole bag of TQ?

Below are my first ever cooked brisket pictures. I can't wait to eat it later this week.

 

[DiggingDogFarm]

You are fine.
Up to 5 ounces of Cure #1 (6.25% nitrite) can be used per gallon of water for an immersion brine with a 10% pick-up level for a maximum of 200ppm nitrite.
You're well within that with the MTQ and such a short immersion period.

 

[DivotMaker]

Tony, I knew Brian and Martin would come through for you!  Sorry for over-reacting a bit, but I wanted the curing experts to look at it.  Sure got a pretty "faux" smoke ring out of it! 

Hard to find #1 curing salt locally, unless maybe you ask a butcher to sell you a little bag (don't need much).  I ordered a bag from Amazon about 1 1/2 years ago, and still have most of it! 

 

[tnlyne]

Thanks Tony, I would much rather have over-reacting going on then to do something that jeopardizes anyone that would eat something I made. I still want to learn more about these cures and the science of curing and brining meats. I found it interesting reading about Brian's (Pork Belly) dry curing in his basement (http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=1793.msg10716#msg10716). I have been food poisoned (subway seafood sandwich near 10pm) many years ago and felt like I was on my death bed. So, I'm definitely one that appreciates food safety and preservation done correctly. I found the following webpage (http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/seasoningflavoring/a/nitrates.htm) to be a interesting read when trying to learn more about the sodium nitrates and nitrites which have been the topic of this whole Morton Tender Quick spin-off discussion. I'm so glad this forum has so many experts in various areas that are willing to help educate and inspire us newbies to learning the art of great food preparation and mastery. Kudos to you, Brian, and Martin for helping me out on this one! I was happy with the pretty "faux" smoke ring as well!

Going back to the brisket now. When I was following your post (http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=2160.0) I read about you saving the point for burnt ends. I gave up this go around on that concept but I'm still interested in it for my next brisket attempt. I've never had burnt ends before but keep hearing about them being oh so good. Smokey D's BBQ in Des Moines, IA is the best BBQ I've ever had and I still haven't tried their burnt ends (mainly because I love their brisket so much I get it when we pass through town). Do you have more details on how you specifically process the burnt ends? I was reading one article that talked about melting 8 oz of the fat trimmings and some drippings and sauce in a frying pan. More work than I wanted to tackle on this first go around so I just sliced the point and the flat in about 1/4" slices and put them in foodsaver bags.

I better stop writing this post now. It's bringing me back to the brisket samples I tried earlier today and my mouth is starting to water up. I think this smoker could be the best Christmas present I ever received!

 

[DivotMaker]

Good to hear, Tony.  Gotta try burnt ends!  They're like little morsels of meat candy - SO good!  You can make them from pork butt, too!

I recommend following Pork Belly and Martin (Digging Dog Farm), and ND Koze (Gregg) for the sausage/curing lessons - these guys really know their stuff!  Like Brian said - curing salts are NOT something to "wing it" with!  You got lucky, this time, with the amount.  Had this been another curing salt, it could have been bad.  Great topic, so I hope you spend some time learning it, and then teach us all something!

 

[NDKoze]

Not really worthy of a new post, but here is a couple of pics of some fresh pork loins (18lbs.) soon to become Canadian Bacon, 100lbs. of Fry (Ring) sausage, and 30lbs. of Summer Sausage that we made this weekend.

We butchered a 475lb. hog and ground about 360 lb. of pork/venison this weekend. 200lb. Of Snack Stix and 25lbs. for Venison Bacon packaged and in the freezer to be made later.

 

[DivotMaker]

You had me at 475 lb hog... :-*