Alright pitmasters, help me know where I went wrong.
Background: I’ve smoked probably ~7-8 briskets, all over the past couple years, all using the Franklin method. It took a couple tries to get it down, but I have been able to produce some damn good meat since then using that approach. I have a Camp Chef Woodwind Pro 24 pellet smoker with the smoke box for chunks and chips.
Ok so I decided to smoke a brisket for the 4th, and like the idiot I am, I decided that this was the time to experiment with the Goldees method, which I’d never done before. I got a ~16lb wagyu brisket from Costco, I prefer prime but I went shopping on the 2nd and Wagyu was all they had left.
I left it sealed in the package overnight in the fridge, and took it out for the cook midday on the 3rd. I trimmed more fat than I think I’ve ever trimmed from a brisket and I still think I could/should have trimmed more. I wish I’d have taken a pic of the trim, but I was simultaneously cooking some other things so I neglected to do so.
For seasoning, I used the 16 grain pepper, coarse salt, and Lawrys as recommended in the Jirby YouTube videos, but I did forget to use any binder.
I got the brisket on the smoker at ~4:00pm at 220, and left it mostly untouched for the duration of the cook, other than a couple spritzes of water because it was looking weird at one point. I used some new Chef iQ probes also from Costco, and they showed the temp at 191 in the flat and 178 in the point at ~6.5 hours (so ~10:30pm), so I took it off despite it not feeling particularly tender with the probe.
I wrapped in foil over a half cup or so of tallow, and put it into an Aroma turkey roaster overnight on the “Keep Warm” setting, which my probe registered as around 142 throughout the night (no clue if the ambient reading for the probe is accurate - it wasn’t particularly accurate in the smoker, which I expected due to the evaporation of the meat.) I’m not sure exactly what time I got it wrapped and in the warmer, but calling it ~11:00pm is probably accurate.
At the point I took it off, the bark was… ok, but certainly not great. I used post oak chunks and chips from Academy throughout the cook, but stupidly dumped out all the embers from the smoke box at one point in the first few hours and didn’t think about that making it take longer to ignite the next set of chunks, so I had an extended period (~30 minutes) in there with no real smoke other than the pellets. This also ended up causing a temp spike to like 265, which only lasted about 5 minutes until I realized it and cooled it off a bit. Other than that the temp stayed pretty steady mostly throughout.
At about 9:45am on the 4th I had to unplug the warmer for about 45 minutes to take it to my in-laws house, where I plugged it back in until around 12:00pm when I took it off to cut and serve. So all in all a hold period of ~13 hours.
It tasted fine, and it was really juicy as you’d expect from a Wagyu (especially the point), but the texture was bad. It absolutely failed the bend test, and the flat was downright chewy. I would say it didn’t render well, but I am open to counter explanation like overcooked instead of undercooked.
So help me diagnose the two major issues here - mediocre bark and bad texture!