Not my first brisket, but my first in the Davy Crockett. I usually do briskets in my Mak 1-Star with fantastic results, but I've been wanting to experiment with doing a small brisket in the DC. I got a 10.35lb Prime Brisket at Costco for $2.99/lb. The door opening of the DC is about 15" wide and it will hold about 17" inside. I trimmed a couple inches from the flat of the brisket to make it 16" wide and it fit fine. I rubbed it with 50/50 Salt and Coarse Pepper along with my favorite rub, Obiecue's Smooth Moove.
I also like to always elevate the food a little bit off the grate, so it's sitting on about a 1.5" rack I made. I put it in at 6:45am this morning at 225 degrees. When I do brisket in the Mak, when it's time to wrap, instead of foiling or butcher paper, I put the brisket in a foil pan with about a cup of beef broth, seal it with foil till it passes the probe test. Comes out awesome every time.
But, with the DC, I can't fit a pan so I think I'll wrap with butcher paper later and see how it goes. I'll report back afterwards. Here it is at the beginning of the cook.
After 5.5 hours, it's nice and dark. Time to butcher paper!
I pulled it at 10 hours and then held in a cooler for about 1.5 hours. The bark was great. Taste was very good, but not quite the deep smoke flavor of my Mak, but very good. The only thing was that I would have liked it to be just a bit firmer. It wasn't mushy, but I probably should have pulled it earlier. This was the first time I used butcher paper and I found that that it was a little more difficult for me to get a "feel" with the probe test as I had to punch through the thick paper, whereas with foil there's barely any resistance. I wasn't used to the butcher paper, so I cooked it a little longer than usual. I was also trying test for doneness per Aaron Franklin by pressing on it and feeling for tenderness. Of course, he's done thousands of briskets and I've done just a handful and never tried that technique before, so now I know a little more what to "feel" for. It was a good learning experience and overall, a great cook with very good results and I'll do a brisket in the DC again. Here's the unwrapping!
