BeerBorg

Christmas Eve dinner going in @ 9am on a beautiful, sunny 50+ degree day here in N.E. Ohio, 10 lbs Brisket requested by future D.I.L. and maybe have a fire on the new patio this evening! Water pan has a trub bottle of, first extract with steeped grains, stout I did Feb 2014. Also have a 20 lb turkey in the roaster going low and slow sans smoke.

Eat, feist and have a Merry Christmas!!

That sounds WONDERFUL Steve!

Yummy!

This is my beginnings... on the "carb" end of the spectrum...

Nice!

We do a deli platter for Christmas Eve, and I'll be supplying the homebrew. For Christmas dinner, my daughter is making the turkey. She's in the kitchen now, making the rub, and the combination of fresh herbs and lemon zest is heavenly. I predict a delicious turkey dinner tomorrow!

Finished product 200 internal temp, temp probe slides in like hot knife thru butter, wrapped and waiting for slicing. Apple and Cherry for the smoke.

That looks good.

I am currently in the process of making my onion soup which has become my family's Christmas eve tradition. This year and last year we were lucky enough to have somebody send us a few loaves from the Boudin Bakery so we will have good sour dough for the breading in it. I tried taking pictures but my phone lens keeps fogging up.

That brisket looks great, Steve! I gotta try my hand at a brisket some day. My brother is the expert at it, though. I swear, you could cut his brisket with a plastic spoon once it's done. He uses mesquite smoke, and it really sets the meat off well.

Enjoy!

Ah, roast beast!!

Spaghetti and meatballs here. I knew I would get home from work late Christmas Eve so we went with something quick and simple.

FedoraDave wrote:That brisket looks great, Steve! I gotta try my hand at a brisket some day. My brother is the expert at it, though. I swear, you could cut his brisket with a plastic spoon once it's done. He uses mesquite smoke, and it really sets the meat off well.

Enjoy!

200 -205 IT is the trick to tender, usually 250 for 8-10 hours gives the fat cap time to render down thru the meat and breakdown the connective tissue. So far, knock on wood, I have not yet made a brisket that wasn't fork tender. Mesquite is a flavor that sometimes needs to be an acquired taste. I ran out of Hickory so went with the Apple/Cherry mix.

Yeah, my brother has also come to realize that you get a temperature plateau around 170 - 180, and you just have to ride it out until it starts to climb again. It takes real patience to smoke a brisket. He's gone as long as 16 hours on some of his larger cuts of meat.

But it's worth it.

And any smoke will do, don't get me wrong. We like how the acrid mesquite smoke complements the hearty flavor of the beef. Nothing else can stand up to mesquite that well (and if you used it for poultry, you'd be better off just napalming the damn bird and putting it out of its misery). We've wondered about chestnut, too. I've got stove lengths of chestnut wood I'd really like to use for BBQing, but I don't know what the properties are. Probably similar to other hickory, pecan, and other nut-bearing trees, I'd guess, so it would work well for nearly any kind of meat.

Research the woods, had a buddy that took down a Black Walnut, sounded like it might be a good smoke, asked him to split me some, till I researched and found out it could be toxic.