Texas BBQ

If you know Texas, you know we are famous for our BBQ.  For quite some time we have been wanting a smoker and learn how to smoke meat.  We had tried the "manual" smoker where you have to use firewood and have to constantly check the smoker for temperature to make sure the temperature stays where you want it etc.  It was just too labor intensive.  So finally, after doing a lot of research we decided to go with a Pit Boss smoker.  For half the price of a Traegger the Pit boss smoker performs really well.  Super easy to use.  We purchased the Pit Boss Austin XL from Walmart.  We can't be happier with it!  We already tried smoking ribs, pork butt, chicken, and pizza in the smoker but we were delaying our attempt at brisket because brisket is really the hardest and most intimidating to master, I think. 

 

But we finally decided it's time to give it a try.  The hubby did a little bit of research and we thought we got it figured out.  We had to trim off some of the fat because there was a lot of fat...but maybe next time we will try not trimming so much fat off.  We went with the tin foil wrap instead of the butcher paper.  Originally, we calculated the smoking time would be like 18 hours or something like that.  So we decided if that was the case we needed to start smoking the meat before we went to bed at around 10pm or so.  But after being in the smoker for like about an hour or an hour and a half or so the meat temperature was already much higher than we anticipated.  And so at this point we were like, well shoot, if the meat is cooking this fast we wouldn't need to start smoking so soon.  So we decided to take it out of the smoker and let it stay wrapped in the tin foil and left it on the counter over night.  (Now thinking back it was a big mistake!  Because the heat inside the tin foil still continued to cook the meat even though the meat was gradually cooling off during the night).

So the next morning we woke up, fired up the smoker and we put the brisket back in the smoker to smoke some more, and we didn't even try to open the tinfoil up to see how the brisket was looking.  But now thinking back, it was probably already partially cooked.  So we started the "normal" process with smoking the brisket again and everything until the temperature reached the desired temperature of doneness.  Next we pulled the brisket out of the smoker, did the towel wrap and cooler for an hour or so.

 

  So this is what the finished product looked like, it was a bit on the dry side/overcooked.  Taste was good and smoky but just dry.  We went with just the plain salt and pepper for our choice of seasoning.  We will try to smoke brisket again.  But next time we will probably try not to trim off so much fat and make sure we don't "double cook" our meat.  One day, one day we will be a Pit Boss!