Fast Cook and Unfinished Brisket Bark

[Libohunden]

I smoked 2 briskets last night.  Put them in at midnight. Both were between 13-15lbs before trimming. I expected between 10-14 hour smoke. Luckily, something woke me at 6 am and I glanced at my maverick to see 205 on both briskets!!!  I ran out with my instant read thermometer and checked them both and sure enough, they were both done.

I took a sample from both as I was wrapping them and both were fantastic except that the bark had not full finished carmelizing. I've never had this happen before. Has anyone here? 

Neither brisket was overly fatty, especially after trimming but I did get a ton of fat in my drip pan... Almost a gallon! 

Trying to figure out why they cooked so quick and was thinking...  I used a 4"drip pan that I had just bought to replace the stock pan.  I wonder if that increased the air flow/heat?  My smokinalicious wood did ignite initially and I turned the temp way down for a while to stop it before cranking it back up (I have analog #3). 

I didn't get any picks at 6am but did just get some of how full my drip pan was as I was cleaning up. I'll add Briskie pics later...

 

[SconnieQ]

First of all, there is no way that 2 briskets that size could possibly cook properly in six hours. Something went terribly wrong. Also, your original calculation of about 1 hour per pound was short to begin with. Normally brisket will take around 1.5 hours per pound. What temperature did you set? 225 is ideal for brisket.

1) Did you have a probe measuring the box temp? Maybe something is way out of whack, and the temperature got way too high.

2) Are your probes accurate? Even though the probe in the meat read 205, your probe might not be accurate.

3) Probe placement in the meat. Did you try and probe different places to see if maybe you had the probe in a pocket of fat or something?

All of that moisture/fat in the drip pan (I can tell from the milk jug photo that only about an inch of it is fat, the rest is water) indicates to me that possibly the temperature in the box was really high, and the proteins in the meat seized up very quickly, and squeezed out all of the water and any rendered fat. I doubt if your alternate drip pan had any effect on airflow.

How was the brisket texture? I'm thinking "unfinished bark" might be the least of your problems with this brisket cook, but we'll see what other folks here think.

Either way, I would keep that brisket juice. As long as you bring it to a boil, you can make some great french onion soup, au jus (you might need it) or something else.

 

[DivotMaker]

Libo, I agree with Kari that there is absolutely no way that those briskies could be done in 6 hours!!  Either probe placement was way off, or box temp was way high. 

Let's try to figure this out... First, what was your prep?  Did you brine them (which I suspect, due to the large amount of liquid in the pan).  If not, you definitely smoked a high temp!

Secondly, when you probed them with your instant read, where did you probe them?  Again, a brisket this size should have been in the stall, at that point of the smoke!  I do disagree with Kari, on the timing, as I've smoked briskets that took no longer than an hour per pound, but a half-hour per pound is not going to happen. 

 

[SconnieQ]

I stand corrected. 1 to 1.25 hours per pound is more accurate for the actual cook. I think I have 1.5 hours per pound on the brain, since that's what I allow just to be safe time-wise. Better done sooner and rest longer, than not done in time.