I love a good smoked brisket on a Sunday afternoon. This time it is a little different, Mijo said he wanted to cook a brisket for me now that we have heard some good news on my thyroid situation. I went shopping for food a couple days ago (it's just easier for me to go alone, Wife spends so much time on the road and at work), I really hadn't in almost three weeks because we had gone to Houston for doctor appointments both weeks and we kind of thought as fast as everything was moving that I might even be rushed in and put through surgery a day or two after meeting the doctors. Well, I walked out with almost $400 in groceries, but that included this $47 brisket, a package of NY strip steaks we ate on Friday night that was $30, and a large tub of Tide pods, which runs almost $27. That is already over $100. I'm not complaining, the steaks turned out great and the Tide pods will last more than a month, but anyways.
I would have preferred to have done this on Saturday, we are on Spring Break, but Mijo had plans to go to the movies on Saturday evening with a couple of buddies, they saw Dune 2. I vaguely remembered Dune from the 80's, but like all big movies, it was redone. We saw Dune 1 Saturday afternoon so Mijo would understand what he was going to go in and watch. I guess his friends made the movie selection, but the theatres are bare bones on the selection, I couldn't get myself excited to see any of the other offerings.
Here we are now, Sunday morning, I woke at what I thought was 5:30am and it feels like it, but we just had the time change, so it is actually 6:30am when we got started. I went and woke Mijo, came down and started the grill. If we had to do this by chopping logs, I would not even entertain this idea of cooking for 10-12 hours outside. This only works because the pellet grill does all the work. I set it to 220 and came back inside. It is a chilly morning; the phone says it is 40 degrees outside right now. While Mijo opens the brisket and picks out what seasonings he will use, and I suggested what we use and why, the grill has a chance to come up to temperature. He was very studious about how he applied the seasonings; I just shake the containers over the meat, he was trying to massage the seasonings in by rubbing them in with his gloved hand. Right at 7:00am, we went out and put that big boy on the grill.
There is not much for us to do until around noon, when we will go and wrap it in the butcher paper to protect it and try to prevent it from drying out. I might have to pour another bag of pellets in the hopper, it was about halfway full, but since it felt cold, I didn't want to be out there messing around too much. The general rule I go by is cooking at 220, starting the meat naked and wrapping it about halfway through. This being a 10lb. brisket, I think it'll take about 10 hours of smoking, so we wrap it at the five-hour mark, so noon for this one today. A 6lb. brisket would take about 6 hours, so I would wrap it around the three-hour mark. I am trying to stay awake and keep an eye on the grill, the last time Boy came over and tried smoking a brisket, he put it in overnight and it started a bit of a grease fire, which not only ruined his brisket, but could have burned the house down, as my neighbor texted me, we were out of town. I then had to call Boy and wake him to go and save my house. He got the fire under control but lost his brisket to the fire.
I guess I'll report tomorrow if brisket turned out well. He is supposed to invite a couple of friends over and that will be good. I like his boys; I find them entertaining to hear their stories. We might invite a friend or two as well, but this is his big cooking moment.
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