What to put in the smoker this weekend?

[Gman]

I tried smoking ribs for the first time yesterday. They weren't too bad. My wife had to fix the sauce I made for them but otherwise it went well.

Even our mistakes are edible most of the time. Keep on keepin' on!

[Jer]

Even our mistakes are edible most of the time. Keep on keepin' on!

Unfortunately I just had to toss an entire packer brisket last weekend after a bad smoke. I did learn from it so it wasn't a complete loss but it was sad to spend that money & lose that sleep and in the end have nothing to show for it. The long & short of it is that I foiled to prevent dry-out and I kept reading about people stating to foil tightly and thought I needed to pinch all the seems closed tightly thinking maybe it would keep it more moist. This proved to be my downfall. What had happened was that it sat in the 190's forever and at 199 even started going down in temperature. I put it in on a Tuesday night to eat Wednesday and we ended up grilling burgers & brats for guests instead because they weren't done. I set my alarm to 203 degrees and went to bed expecting to wake up a couple of hours later to take them off of the smoker since it was 199 at 10pm when I fell asleep. I woke up early in the morning and it was down to 194 degrees. I finally had enough and pulled it off of the smoker and wrapped it in towels and placed it in a cooler to rest for a couple of hours. When I took it out it was nearly falling apart and had a bit of a tinge to it and it was pretty obviously overcooked. I tried a taste and it wasn't good. At all. After some CSI investigation I determined that the foil was sealed so tightly that all of the rendered fat remained inside the foil and eventually it filled with liquid. At sea-level this probably wouldn't be a big deal if your desired temperature was 203 degrees. At this elevation however it IS a big deal because water boils at a much lower temperature and that temperature just happens to be 202.5 degrees or below my target temperature. In addition, there is some thermal energy lost between the transfer from smoker to meat which can be as much as 15 degrees in some instances which is one of the reasons why you generally want to cook at 225 degrees. There was some interesting thermal mechanics involved with this smoke but learn from my mistake, foiling tightly can cost you a hunk of meat if you don't allow some of the liquid to drain off at this elevation.

[DenverGP]

When I do foil wrap, I always wrap tightly in 2 overlapped sheets of foil. As you mentioned, I think your real issue was the low cooker temp. I usually crank the heat up on the smoker after wrapping, since the meat is protected more from the higher temps. I've even moved it over to the oven a few times after wrapping, since it allowed more control of the heat and with the foil it's not going to pick up any more smoke or flavor from the smoker.

My last brisket I switched from foiling to using butcher paper to wrap it at the stall. Saw this in a video from Aaron Franklin from Franklin's BBQ in tx: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365494916/
Came out awesome, and kept the bark much more firm compared to foiling.

Haven't tried the butcher paper on a pork butt yet, but I'll definitely always use the paper on brisket from now on.

[Buff]

Unfortunately I just had to toss an entire packer brisket last weekend after a bad smoke. I did learn from it so it wasn't a complete loss but it was sad to spend that money & lose that sleep and in the end have nothing to show for it. The long & short of it is that I foiled to prevent dry-out and I kept reading about people stating to foil tightly and thought I needed to pinch all the seems closed tightly thinking maybe it would keep it more moist. This proved to be my downfall. What had happened was that it sat in the 190's forever and at 199 even started going down in temperature. I put it in on a Tuesday night to eat Wednesday and we ended up grilling burgers & brats for guests instead because they weren't done. I set my alarm to 203 degrees and went to bed expecting to wake up a couple of hours later to take them off of the smoker since it was 199 at 10pm when I fell asleep. I woke up early in the morning and it was down to 194 degrees. I finally had enough and pulled it off of the smoker and wrapped it in towels and placed it in a cooler to rest for a couple of hours. When I took it out it was nearly falling apart and had a bit of a tinge to it and it was pretty obviously overcooked. I tried a taste and it wasn't good. At all. After some CSI investigation I determined that the foil was sealed so tightly that all of the rendered fat remained inside the foil and eventually it filled with liquid. At sea-level this probably wouldn't be a big deal if your desired temperature was 203 degrees. At this elevation however it IS a big deal because water boils at a much lower temperature and that temperature just happens to be 202.5 degrees or below my target temperature. In addition, there is some thermal energy lost between the transfer from smoker to meat which can be as much as 15 degrees in some instances which is one of the reasons why you generally want to cook at 225 degrees. There was some interesting thermal mechanics involved with this smoke but learn from my mistake, foiling tightly can cost you a hunk of meat if you don't allow some of the liquid to drain off at this elevation.

Wow that had to be disappointing........
I've come up with a pretty simple and tasty way to do briskets (5-6#) on my Traeger. You can do a dry rub of choice and let sit in fridge wrapped in plastic wrap overnight or just sprinkle granulated garlic (and any other spice) on the meat as it goes on the smoker.

I smoke for 3-4hrs with a pan of water on the grate, at 3-4hrs turn up to 225* put meat on wire grate (meat won't get soggy/mushy) in a cast iron skillet with 16oz of beef both, cover with foil (not hermetically sealed but good seal) until meat temp is 190-195* (about 3hrs). Wrap towels around foil covered pan place in oven for about 1hr. My wife who's not a foody or a cook can pull this off it's so simple. I also save/freeze the dripping for chicken fried steak or pot roast gravy.