First smoke plan review

[mizzoufan]

This is probably a bit too ambitious for my first smoke (small gathering for my birthday), but I'm pretty comfortable with cooking in general and have been doing brisket and PP in the oven (liquid smoke) for a couple of years now so WTH.  Please let me know if there are any glaring holes in my plan.  The plan is to eat about noon-1 so I would have to pull the meat out by about 11am to allow for resting/pulling.

Wed night - put a brisket and BB in the brining bucket
Thurs night - pull, rinse, dry, rub and refrigerate
Friday @ about 6pm they would go on the smoker (BB as high as possible and Brisket just below that) with 4 oz of apple and 2 oz of pecan and a pan of apple juice.  Temp set to 225 with the probe in the brisket (that one's a question, it will be the bigger piece of meat, but thinner and brisket seems to go a bit faster than BB).  If all goes well, they will rest about 2 hrs before being pulled and sliced (should be able to hold for 4-5 hours with the foil/towel/cooler method with no issues if necessary, correct?).  I don't have the weights yet as I plan to go shopping Monday or Tuesday.

Any changes I should make?

 

[SuperDave]

I read "BB" as baby backs, which will be done anywhere from half to a third the time your brisket will take. 

 

[mizzoufan]

Sorry, knew I shouldn't have used abbreviations since there are too many that could be the same.  Boston Butt.  :-[

 

[NDKoze]

I think I would put the butt on the bottom as I would guess it will take longer as it is thicker even though it's total weight is less than the brisket.

You want to rest for a minimum of one hour, but I have been resting two hours and the results are even better. You would be suprised how hot the meat is still after a two hour rest. Definitely two hot to pull by hand.

Plus, with two good sized pieces of meat like that I would push the temp to 235-240.

I also think you could be pushing it a little close by starting at 6:00pm. All pieces of meat are different and trying to really narrow down start and end times can be pretty tough. I think I would start around 12:00-1:00. If it looks like it is going to get done early, when the internal temp hits 3-5 degrees lower than your desired finish temp, lower the temp of the smoker to 140 (warming mode). The reason for lowering the temp prior to hitting the final internal temp is that because of the awesome insulation in these smokers, it will take quite a while for the smoker to cool down to 140 which could over shoot your temp if you lower the temp at the desired final temp. Then at 10:00 pull the meat, double-foil wrap, and then rest in a cooler with some towels on top for two hours.

This is what I would do anyhow. Take it for what it is worth.

 

[NDKoze]

Also, since it appears that you are using a #2, I am guessing that you are using a brisket flat since I don't know if full packer briskets would fit in a #2 without cutting in half. If you are smoking a flat, it is going to be even more important to smoke that one above the pork butt.

 

[mizzoufan]

So 2hrs per pound would be an extremely optimistic estimate?  I'm hoping to do a full packer (a smaller one, obviously).  I've seen posts of people doing 10-12 pounders in the #2, some requiring a bit of folding on the flat end but that shrinks back pretty quickly.  I'll take your advice and plan for ~22 hours before pull out time (11am Sat which gives me about a 2 hour rest) and they can always hold in a cooler for longer.  I've done up to 4 hours before and the initial breakup into large pieces was still uncomfortably warm.

 

[NDKoze]

I would say that 2 hours is pretty accurate give or take. I would doubt that it would take longer than 2/hours per pound. But if you want to ensure that eat on time, I would use the 2 hours per pound estimate.

Like you said, resting for 2-4 hours in the cooler is actually a good thing. So, better to get done early than trying to decide if you should crank the heat because it doesn't look like you are going to make it. That is my thought anyhow.

 

[DivotMaker]

I would also put the butts on the bottom shelf - they'll help shield the thinner flat of the brisket.  As for timing, I'd allow a few more hours, as you can always hold them in the cooler or smoker for several hours with no problem.  That's a pretty big meat load for the #2, so you might also want to bump the temp to 235-240 to help.  It won't hurt the outcome, but will offset that much meat.

 

[mizzoufan]

well, 2 hrs/lb was just about right for the butt...but it was only 8 lbs.  The brisket took just over 1 hr/lb so I was up at 1:30 to pull it and again at 5:30 to pull the butt and slice the brisket. 

The last couple inches of the flat end were too dry to slice, but they made a nice breakfast .  The point was immediately foodsavered and frozen to make burnt ends later. 

Boston Butt maybe should have come out earlier (woke up at 201 degrees and opened the smoker up a few minutes later) because it broke in 3 pieces when I tried to pull it out for resting.  I let it rest anyway and mixed some au jus back in after shredding.  All in all a good cook, but I need to work on timing some.