Pellet Smoker Cooking: Brisket for Thanksgiving

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