This weeekend's Cook...

   To start off, there not called "Pitmasters" for nothing.    It seems that every time I cook something on the smoker, another lesson is learned.  This weekend was dollar wise my biggest catering cook.  5 briskets, 2 pork shoulders & 6 lbs of sausage.  It was full of positives and negatives.  I'll start out with the negatives.

negatives:
never use foil again for briskets.  I've used foil in the past and it helps with the tenderness.  I didn't want to make any mistakes so foil was used instead of butcher paper and the briskets came out to mushy.  It might be ok for a few contest turn in slices but it's just not Texas brisket.  All the hard work I've put in over the past five years trying to perfect the butcher paper brisket cook and these briskets that I wanted to be perfect were not even close.  #neveragain.

My Lang 60 is a great smoker.  But it's not a mass quantity smoker.  The next bigger Lang 84 is.

Lang 84.

From now on my Max cook is 4 briskets, or 3 briskets & 2 pork shoulders.

things to remember:

For max perfect briskets, they cannot touch each other while cooking. 

Cut more fat off the flat so slices will be perfect.

Always take the brisket out of the paper before cutting. 

Take gloves & a knife when delivering Q just in case they ask you to cut for them.

Cook briskets to 180 before wrapping in paper.

positives:

I'm now a 100% post oak brisket & pork shoulder texas cooker.  Mr. Firewood delivered 1/4 cord of post oak to me last week & was tried out this weekend.  Nothing better.  It's the real thing & he says it's no problem to get.  It turns the meat darker but the taste is "real tx bbq".

Begin search for better sausage. 

Many lessons learned which is what one has to go through to be a pitmaster.

Really think I'm one step closer to becoming the kind of bbq man I want to be.  Don't know what that is yet but I know I'm one step closer.  #thatdoesntmakesense

 #paid