Brisket smoke 11/9/21

 

This was the last of our $1.79/lb briskets we had stored in my wife's nephew's freezer.  His smoker is in storage so we smoked this one for his family.  We followed our usual procedure and had a few quality control bites at the end.

Brisket smoke 11/7/21

 

If you'll remember, some months back, we found choice briskets on sale for $1.79/lb.  We picked up three, which my wife's nephew was kind enough to store in his giant freezer.  They are preparing to move so we decided we would smoke the last two, one for us, one for them.  This is the first one.  

It started off at 14.6 lbs, but I had to trim off about 3 lbs of fat.  We followed the usual prep steps for our little bullet smoker.  It was trimmed, cut in half, and sprinkled liberally with North Main All N 1 spice.  After 6 hours on the smoker this was the result.  The little pieces on the top are the "snacky bits" of meat that were left from trimming.

Both halves went into heavy foil and into the oven at 250 degrees.

After 4 hours in the oven, the temperature probe showed 201 degrees and slipped into the meat like butter.  The pan went into a cooler lined with towels to rest over night.  The house smelled wonderful!

The next morning we unwrapped and cut the brisket into large chunks for the fridge.  I have found it retains a lot more moisture if you don't slice until you need it.  

After a few samples, the chunks went into the fridge to feed us for the next week or so.  

We plan to do brisket #2 on Tuesday.

Blues, Bandits, & BBQ, Oak Cliff, 11/6/21

 

https://www.gooakcliff.org/blues-bandits-bbq

This is one of our favorite annual festivals and we were very happy to see them back in action this year.  Held at Kidd Springs Park in Oak Cliff, this year's fest was held on a glorious Fall day with temperatures in the mid 70's and light winds.  It was very laid back with lots of kids and dogs wandering around while live music happened on a small stage.  

This year's fest seemed smaller than usual, I only counted 13 teams, but I think the food was better than it usually is.  There did not seem to be much sliced brisket on offer, however at least 7 booths offered ribs.  There were a lot of the usual pulled pork and brisket tacos.  

My favorite bites of the day included ribs from White Rock Cue and Team Meat Sweats, and pork belly bites from Mijos.  

Previous fests have featured lots of seating, but there was none this year.  Fortunately we had brought our concert chairs.

Blues, Bandits, & BBQ, Oak Cliff, 11/6/21 more photos