This Thanksgiving will be special to me, the first time in awhile; I will have all of my family here. My oldest daughter & husband from Indiana, my school teacher daughter from Illinois, my son, daughter-in-law, & grandson from Las Vegas. My son & family will just be here the one day & head to Toledo to have Thanksgiving with his wife’s family the next day. Since they will have turkey there; I decided to have beef. I am really not a turkey person anyway.
I had planned on smoking some chuck roasts & shredding; then heating in a Crockpot for my meal. I don’t usually like to buy meat from Wal Mart but saw this 14 lb. brisket on sale for $1.90 a lb. I would buy it & if it turned out good would have it re-heated with some good au jus.
I trimmed some of the fat off, but left most of the fat cap on. I seasoned it up; top & sides with some of Penzey’s beef seasoning, cracked black pepper, and dried garlic & onion flakes. I wrapped in saran wrap & in the fridge about noon. I planned to get it on at 10:00 PM so it would sit 10 hours.
That evening I got the smoker fired up on smoke mode then went to 180 deg. It settled to 175 to 190 deg. so put the brisket on at 10 PM; fat side down. I placed it fat cap on the right side of my Traeger; it runs hotter. I got up at 4 AM & everything was going fine so went back to bed. Awoke at 7 AM & all was going good, added some pellets & inserted a temp probe at 8 AM. IT, (internal temp) was at 154 deg.
At 9 AM the IT was at 168 deg; at 9:30 IT was at 169 deg. It was in the stall so I decided to foil it. I double wrapped it along with ¾ cup of beef broth; Swanson’s low fat, no MSG. I added a second temp probe in the flat end. I upped the smoker to 225 deg. When the cap end was 190 deg the flat end was at 175 deg; I turned the brisket 180 deg. It finished with the cap end at 200 deg & the flat end at 193 deg at 11:30; a total of 13 ½ hours. I removed it & placed in a pre-heated 200 deg oven, turned the oven off & let it rest for one hour. I poured off the juices cooled in the fridge & skimmed off the fat later. I cut the brisket in half; wrapped in foil & in the fridge to cool for slicing.
I trimmed the fat, & sliced into less than ¼ inch slices. I saved out some to have for our supper & see how good it was. I got two one gallon bags of nice slices & one bag of burnt ends vacuum packed & in the freezer.
For our supper I placed the brisket in a pan, some of the au jus, & enough beef broth to cover. I had some leftover baby gold potatoes I sliced & browned up in olive oil. For a veggie I had a steamer bag of Green Giant cauliflower, sugar snap peas, carrots, & dried cranberries in a butter sauce. What they don’t come up with! It even had a little circle that would read done when it was nuked long enough. It all came together good. We had the beef as a sandwich, mustard & Claussens dill pickle slices. The beef was super tender & will be our Thanksgiving meat. We both loved the veggies, it made for a colorful plate, and what a time saver.
Beef Brisket
Seasoned
170 deg Ready to Foil
All Done
Sliced in Half
Frozen for Thanksgiving
My Supper Plate
Smokin Don
There are not many blogs out there dedicated to cooking on a pellet smoker. I have been cooking, grilling & smoking over 35 yrs now. I recently bought a Traeger Lil Tex Elite pellet smoker & have cooked on it over six yrs. now. I would like to share recipes & info I have gained from cooking on it. Update 2014: I have plenty of recipes here for the pellet smoker so I am now including other outdoor cooking and some of my indoor cooking too.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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