First Brisket
My wife really likes Brisket so that was the first thing we decided to try in the new Big Easy Electric Smoker and Roaster (BEESR). My wife found a rub recipe she wanted to try so she put the rub together, put it on the brisket, put the whole thing in a zip-lock bag and put it in the fridge overnight.
We used two of the boneless rib hooks that come in the accessory kit for the BEESR and hung the Brisket from the side of the basket while resting it on two of the half shelves that came with it positioned two levels up from the bottom. Next time we will probably change this since it seemed kind of odd:
We put some pecan wood chips (bought at a grocery store) into the smoker box and ran it at 15 until it started smoking good. We put the temperature probe into the thickest part of the brisket, attached the probe to the BEESR, then put the basket inside with the target temperature set to 160. The BEESR lets you set your target temperature and will shut itself off once that temperature has been reached.
After 15 minutes we took the temperature down to 10. After about 45 minutes we took the temperature down to 8 and added some more wood chips to the smoker box.
Once the target temperature of 160 was reached (didn’t take long but we didn’t time it), we took the basket out. Here’s what it looked like at that point:
We wrapped it in tin-foil and put it back in the BEESR with a setting of 8 and set the target temperature at 195.
Once the temperature reached 198, we took it out, wrapped it in a towel, and put it in a cooler. This is known as FTC or Foil-Towel-Cooler and a lot of the experts swear by it. We figured we’d follow the expert advice.
We left it in the cooler for 3 1/2 hours (that’s how long it was til dinner time). Here’s what it looked like when we unwrapped the tin-foil. The mark on it is from the rack it was sitting on while in the basket.
This was the first slice:
Here’s what it looked like after we’d sliced about half of it:
And here’s what it looked like on my plate:
We were quite pleased with the outcome. It was very tasty. We may try an adjustment or two next time in how long we keep it at different temps since we were already at 151 when we dropped it to 8. but it was still very, very good.
Update: We put the other half in the fridge to have as leftovers and learned a valuable lesson: Slice it all the first day while it’s hot. My wife had to break out the electric knife to make it through the thing while it was cold.
Tip: To heat up already sliced Brisket, put a few slices in a zip-lock bag and drop them into boiling water. Boil them for a few minutes then take them out with tongs or something similar and see if they’re hot enough for you. This warms them up without drying them out. And WOW is that stuff good. The second and third time we ate this was between two pieces of Texas Toast (thick bread that we got at the grocery store) with some Famous Dave’s BBQ sauce. To die for.
June 21, 2013 2:06 pm 
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