Smoking Brisket

[Al]

For some reason I've had brisket on my mind lately and would like to share another brisket cooking experience.  Long story short, I had been asked to smoke a brisket and had a choice of either missing a Friday night card game or cooking the brisket while at my office on a work day away from my trusty two chamber smoker (Picture from last year's July 4th):



So I went to Lowe's and picked up a Brinkmann Gourmet Smoker for $64 plus tax and boy am I glad I did!

http://www.brinkmann.net/Shop/Series.aspx?category=Outdoor+Cooking&subcategory=Charcoal+Smokers+%26+Grills&series=OUT-1001-3&seriesname=Gourmet%20Charcoal&id=0

I had used an earlier version of this smoker many years ago and had forgotten how easy they are to use and well they work.  I fired up a chimney with charcoal, poured the ignited charcoal into the fire pan, filled the pan the rest of the way up with wood chunks, put water in the water pan, put the brisket on around 9 in the morning and by 5 pm it was done!  I had only had to tend the wood/charcoal/water once at about 1 pm and that was it!  No vents to adjust, just keep water in the bowl and wood in the pan and the smoker regulates its temperature and does the rest. When the meat thermometer reads 185-190 put on the foil, take it off or pull the excess fire and wood from the pan and let it slowly cool.  I have never had it so easy and painless to cook a brisket.  Highly recommended. Bet it works great on turkey or any large cuts of meat.  Move the fire pan up top and BOOM it's a grill.  I much prefer it over my big ol' two chamber traditional Texas smoker although I will still use it for really large briskets.

Glad to get that off my chest!
Al

[bdann]

Good to know.  My parents have a smoker just like that one and they NEVER use it.  I may have to "borrow" it from them sometime soon...  (I usually use a two chamber smoker similar to yours)...man I love a good smoked brisket. 

...you know, something like that Brinkmann could be brought out to, oh say...Fresno...hmmmmm   

[bdann]

hey, about how big a brisket did you cook in that thing?

[Al]

It was a real packer brisket all covered with fat and everything but kind of a squatty 11 to 12 pounds.  The smoker's diameter is 17 inches so I had to kind of squish it in to get the lid on but since brisket shrinks while it cooks it worked out great.

Al