Need some help with my big Smoke this weekend on 8-26-17

[Meaty_Ribs]

I have a #16.7 packer brisket, 2 BB 1st #8 & 2nd #9. and I need some help/suggestions for my plan. I have a SI #2 smoker. I plan to brine the 2 butts in DM brine and use a dry rub on the brisket and cram the brisket on the bottom shelf and place the 2 BB on the one of the upper shelves. My party starts at 6pm this Saturday. I'm going to brine the butts around 12-16 hours, use yellow mustard as the binder, and coat them with the recommended Dave's rib rub. As for the brisket I plan on using salt and pepper but I haven't really found a good ratio of black pepper to kosher salt rub. I'm thinking of putting all the meat in the smoker Friday night either at 10pm or 11pm with 6oz of hickory and either beer or water for moisture.

My questions:
Should I cut the packer in half and separate the flat from the point due to the tight fit in my #2?
Does anyone have a good rub for the brisket?
Should I put the 2nd probe in the #8 or #9 butt?
If I don't split the brisket will my start time of 10 or 11 be enough including rest?
Do I need to adjust the brine to accommodate 17lbs of pork?

I am new to this and have researched this website long before I bought my number 2. The forums here helped me a lot even before my purchase so I thank you all for your information, recipes, knowledge, and experience.

 

[Jimeo]

Wow, that's a lot of meat! Just a newbie here too so don't have the experience to offer help, but will be following.  Curious what the experts have to say.  Only thought is starting at 10-11 pm Friday for your 6pm party Saturday is too late, considering the butts could take up to 2hrs per pound. Good luck!

 

[SconnieQ]

Wondering how it went? Agree that 2 butts and whole brisket in the #2 might have been optimistic for the amount of smoke/cook time. I would have started the butts much earlier. Lots of variables here, but too late to help.

 

[Meaty_Ribs]

Not too late to help. My party is this Saturday 8-26-17. I realize I have to double the DM brine but not sure on my brisket rub...

 

[SconnieQ]

I think that much meat all at once in the #2 might be pushing it, but I have a #1, so I'm not totally sure what a #2 can handle. You want a little space around for air/smoke circulation. I think most people here would suggest smoking the butts in a separate smoke, then smoke the brisket and reheat the butts. But since there is no time for that, here are my suggestions in red:

I have a #16.7 packer brisket, Trimmed weight will probably be closer to 15 pounds. Don't over-trim. Leave 3/8 to 1/2 inch fat, so you are really just trimming the thick blob. You can score the thicker areas of fat. 2 BB 1st #8 & 2nd #9. and I need some help/suggestions for my plan. I have a SI #2 smoker. I plan to brine the 2 butts in DM brine and use a dry rub on the brisket and cram the brisket on the bottom shelf and place the 2 BB on the one of the upper shelves. I would suggest putting the brisket on the upper shelf, and the two butts on a shelf below. The butts can deal with the higher heat closer to the smoke box better than the brisket, and will act as a heat shield. Also see note below about "cramming" meat in. My party starts at 6pm this Saturday. I'm going to brine the butts around 12-16 hours, use yellow mustard as the binder, and coat them with the recommended Dave's rib rub. As for the brisket I plan on using salt and pepper but I haven't really found a good ratio of black pepper to kosher salt rub. Franklin uses 1 part salt to 1 part pepper (so he says). That's too much pepper for me, it overpowers the meat. I would reduce the pepper if going with that style of rub. Otherwise, see my recipe below. I'm thinking of putting all the meat in the smoker Friday night either at 10pm or 11pm with 6oz of hickory and either beer or water for moisture.

If you are serving at 6:00 pm, you will probably want your meat to be ready for slicing and pulling by 5:30.

Brisket will probably take about 1 to 1.25 hours per pound at 225 (probably closer to 1 hour per pound), and should rest ideally for 2 hours minimum, and even up to 6 hours. So with a 2 hour rest, your 15 pound (after trimming) brisket should be ready to serve in about 17 to 20.75 hours. If you cut it in half, it will probably be done a little sooner.

Butts that size will take about 1.5 to 2 hours per pound. So with a 2 hour rest, your butts should be ready to serve/pull/shred in about 15.5 to 20 hours.

With that much meat mass in the smoker all at once, you might need to add a couple extra hours. So I would say to put everything in the smoker at 10 pm Friday night at the latest, but I would put it in at 8 pm to be on the safe side. This is not an exact science, so I hope I am giving you good advice. You can always rest your meat longer, or keep warm (see NOTE below), but you can't rush it. That is by far the worst. Neither butts nor briskets are very good if not cooked to temperature and rested long enough. Also, figure that you will lose 15-30 minutes recovery time, every time you open and close the door, so open the door as little as possible. Resist the urge to "look" at things. Best case scenario would be to have 4 probes, one for each hunk of meat. But below I have suggested how to use two probes.

NOTE: If anything is done ahead of time, it can rest longer than 2 hours. Even up to 6 hours or more if double wrapped in heavy-duty foil, wrapped in towels, and placed in a cooler. If it is done more than six hours before needed, let it rest in a cooler for at least 4-5 hours, then place foil-wrapped meat on a large pan (to capture any leakage), and put into an oven at the lowest setting possible that is higher than 140. My oven goes to 170. Or if the smoker is empty and has had a chance to cool down, you can put the foil wrapped meat back into the smoker, set to 140, and keep warm until ready to serve.

NOTE: if "cramming" meat into the smoker, make sure no meat is in contact with, or dripping on, the temperature probe in the back of the unit. Or it will really mess up the readings and your element will not turn on and off properly, and your smoker with not maintain the correct temperature.

My questions:
Should I cut the packer in half and separate the flat from the point due to the tight fit in my #2? I've heard several people who have had luck fitting the brisket in whole by placing diagonally across the rack, or by letting it "curve" up against the door. The brisket will shrink as it cooks. An advantage to cutting in half would be that you could probe each half separately, and remove as they reach their desired temperatures. I like 195 in the flat, and 200-205 in the point. If you don't cut it in half, you will have more nice center slices. In this case, I would leave it whole (if you can fit it) since you are smoking it at the same time as butts, and you are putting everything in the smoker at the same time (be careful not to let it touch or drip on the temperature probe on the back wall). You will likely be removing things from the smoker at different times though as they reach their finished temperatures.
Does anyone have a good rub for the brisket? Classic Texas brisket is just salt and pepper. I'm a northerner ;D, so here's mine. I've received many compliments on the seasoning from guests:
Sconnie’s Brisket Rub
5 Tablespoons paprika
3 Tablespoons kosher salt
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
2 Tablespoons onion powder
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
1 Tablespoon chili powder (mild, medium or hot)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Pat the brisket dry with paper towels, rub with oil, apply rub.
Should I put the 2nd probe in the #8 or #9 butt? As for the first probe: if cutting the brisket into 2 pieces, put the first probe into the "flat" section of the brisket. When flat reaches 195, remove the flat and transfer the probe to the "point" half, which will read 200-205 when that is done. If leaving the brisket in one piece, put the probe in the thicker side of the flat, and shoot for 195-200. The brisket should feel jiggly and floppy when done. As for the second probe: put it in the 8# butt, since that (in theory) should be done first. When that is done, remove it from the smoker and transfer the probe to the 9# butt and continue smoking that one until done.
If I don't split the brisket will my start time of 10 or 11 be enough including rest? Yes, it should be, see above.
Do I need to adjust the brine to accommodate 17lbs of pork? Sounds like you've already doubled the brine, so that should be fine. There just needs to be enough brine so both pieces are submerged, so a single batch of brine might be enough, depending on the size and shape of the container.

 

[Meaty_Ribs]

So funny story. I literally just put everything in the smoker with the brisket right above the internal heat source but I didn't think it was touching the sensor and the BB on the top so after reading your post SconnieQ I started to doubt myself. Now I was in a dilemma, open the door (BLASPHEMY) and move meat or take a chance and leave it alone and hope for the best. And of course I had to switch it around bc I know my luck and everything would've been screwed. So a couple coughing fits later and tears streaming down my face I switched the BB and the brisket. FINGERS CROSSED!!!!

P.S. I attached a pic of the meat crammed into my #2 before I switched the racks around.

 

[Jimeo]

That is one full #2 Brian!  Hope you have 30-40 really hungry guests coming for your party, should be plenty for all!!  Enjoy...

 

[Walt]

In the future, tuck that water pan tight up against the smoke box, for better heat transfer. You may need to empty your drip pan a time or 2, with that much brined meat stuffed inside.

 

[Jimeo]

How did things work out Brian???

 

[Meaty_Ribs]

Okay so a comedy of errors ensued from the minute the smoke started. About 6 hours into the smoke my probes on both the pork butt and the brisket were reading close to finished. I was baffled as to how this could be so I repositioned both probes and still got the same readings so i pulled the brisket wrapped it and put it in a cooler. Then go back for the pork butts and both were reading done. I pulled them and was very confused as to how this could happen. So as I'm about to wrap them and I decided to use the my thermopen to check the IT again and the pen read 140 degrees no where near finished. So I then checked the brisket and the temp wasn't even close to done. So everything went back into the smoker again. I check on it an hour later and the smoker isn't on at all. Apparently my circuit breaker tripped. At this point I just put it back to temp and left it alone till 8:30 am. All in all it worked out in the end my 8# bb took 23hrs, 9# bb took 25 hours and my 16.7# brisket took 28 hours. everyone loved the food but I have no idea why probes went haywire. I checked and tested them multiple times before using them. I have 1 pic of the pulled pork and brisket. The flat was overdone so I made burnt ends with that but the point came out great.  Next time I'm not stuffing that number 2 with so much meat. haha

 

[Jimeo]

That's unbelievable!  Haha... Glad you started early and all worked out in the end.

 

[old sarge]

Sounds like a fairly happy ending. For the record I always check the meat temp with my thermapen, just in case. I did so with the Cookshack and do so now with the 3D. Always within a couple of degrees.

 

[SconnieQ]

Thermapen is a good back-up, but requires opening the door. Good for grilling, not so much for smoking, other than a double-check of the final temperature if you have doubts as you used it. The best insurance is multiple wired probes, hooked into different controls. I have about six probes on hand. A Maverick, and several inexpensive wired probes from big box stores. Probes can fail if moisture gets in them where they attach to the wire. I would have put 4 probes in that smoke, one in each butt, one in the point and one in the flat. I might be paranoid, but if a probe or two seems out of whack, you can usually figure out from the remaining ones what to trust. You don't have to spend a lot of money on the extra "insurance" probes. The meat is usually a pretty big expense on it's own, so it's worth the investment for extra probes, especially if you have one fail mid-smoke.