Smoking the brisket

Tuesday, we decided to smoke the brisket (or, 1/2 of it) that we had gotten in Newport (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/07/us-foods-chefstore.html)...

We had put friend Steve's favorite seasoning, Pappy's (https://www.pappysfinefoods.com/seasonings), on as a rub on Monday evening and wrapped it in plastic wrap in the refrigerator. Carl got up Tuesday morning and got the smoker preheating. When it had reached temperature, we put half the brisket on the smoker. We got it on the smoker at about 9:30am. We had cut it in half because the whole brisket would not fit on our smoker -- so the other half is in the freezer for a later smoke.

About 10 hours later, the probe inside the meat registered 201F. We were wanting it to get to 204-205F, and it seemed stalled at this point.

We checked the pellets, and they were looking a little low, so we filled the hopper with pellets. At this point, we had the brisket wrapped in parchment paper. At about 170F, we wrapped it to keep the moisture in, but still allow the smoke to penetrate. (Foil would keep moisture in but not allow any additional smoking.)

It finally reached the desired temperature at about 8:15pm. We brought the smoked meat inside and let it "rest" for about an hour before cooking it (evidently if you cut it right away, the juices may all run out). You may think it looks burned, but that is the "bark" on the outside and is really very tasty.

I should have taken pictures of some of the cut meat - it was delicious! We had thought that it might be ready for supper time, and it wasn't -- we had the salad that we were planning to eat with it at supper time, and continued our supper a couple of hours later with delicious brisket!

Because I'm a numbers girl... 

• we purchased a 12.08 pound brisket at US Foods / Chef'Store. 
• Once I cut the "hard fat" off of it and cut it roughly in half, we had a 5 pound 1.3 ounce thicker piece (this is the one we smoked on Tuesday) and a 4 pound 15.6 ounce thinner piece (now in the freezer). 
• We had read that we should anticipate cutting about 2 pounds of fat off, and that's what happened with ours. 
• After smoking, we weighed the piece again, and it was 2 pounds, 11.7 ounces -- about 2 3/4 pounds from half of an original 12 pound brisket. Smoking renders much of the fat that is within the meat, so accounts for much of the weight loss during cooking.
  

We are still enjoying Carl's smoker that's he has had for just over a year now! (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2021/06/happy-birthday-and-happy-fathers-day.html)