My First Brisket On The Grill

 If you follow my blog regularly, you know, I have recently been barbecuing meat on my grill, which is equipped with a smoker box, and I decided it was finally time to try a beef brisket – the most difficult cut of meat to get right.  And since I was cooking, I decided to do a pork butt just to have some pulled pork on hand.  And since I was cooking the pork, Bev wanted me to wrap it in banana leaves ala Hawaiian Luau.

I used my normal pork rub and harvested a couple of big leaves from our hardy banana to wrap it with.

The brisket flat was trimmed and seasoned with Chris Lilly’s Brisket Rub.  Both meats were cooked fat side down in an aluminum pan to catch the juices.

This is my set up and the pans are sitting on a jelly roll pan with a rack to insure indirect heat.  With the smoker box burner and one other set on low, the grill maintained a temp of about 250F.

I pulled the brisket from the grill when it hit an internal temp of 195F, wrapped it in foil and put it in a cooler until supper time.  Total cooking time was 6½ hours.  The thicker end was still moist but the thin end was pretty dry so next time, I’ll pull at 185F.

I pulled the pork from the grill when the meat probe could be easily inserted and it turned out moist and tender.  We couldn’t tell that the banana leaves added any flavor but they prevented normal bark formation so we won’t need to try them again.

After cooling some, we pulled the pork and removed the fat then added back the defatted juice from the pan along with one tablespoon of SOP (salty lemon juice) per pound – we got six pounds of meat and it tasted very good.

I continue to be pleased with how my grill is working as a smoker and think I’ll try some salmon soon.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

8/4/20 event date