Brisket excess fat

[Tiny]

Good people
I cooked a brisket last weekend, it was an small bit around 7lbs and all flat. It was nicely marbled with a seam of intramuscular fat and a fair fat cap.

I smoked it on the GMG at 110c for around 4 hours and then wrapped in foil with beef broth and a dash of red wine and then finished in the oven at 100C for around 6 more hours.

It was very tasty and quite tender but the biggest issue was that very little of the fat had rendered, there were great hunks that had to be hacked out or off and this probably weighed north of 2.5lbs when finished.

Mrs Tiny is certain that lo and slow is too low to render fat as have had similar results with ribs where the meat is tender but they seem fatty.

I am thinking of trying turbo brisket next time as a comparison but does anyone have any thoughts on why the fat doesn't seem to render?

Cheers, Tiny

[essexsmoker]

I would agree with Mrs Tiny. That's not a long cook and rendering takes time.

Maybe more trimming before cook?
Did you cut out any big seams?

Maybe smoke, foil and then cook at 140 in the foil or something?

Was it jiggley?

Think I'd be careful of going turbo, mostly done by competition bods AFAIK and they tend to use wagyu, with phospahtes and christ knows what else these days.

Be interesting to know how you get on and what you find out.

[GingerBen]

the fat cap on a brisket is never going to fully render and the hard knarly stuff needs trimming off first to be honest. Anything that is thick and waxy is best got rid of or alternatively cook it fat side down so it protects the leaner meat from the heat.

[sleepybones]

I did my first full packer brisket a couple of weeks back. Whilst prepping I felt around the whole cap and along the fat vein between the flat & the point, removing any sections that felt harder than the rest. Some fat still existed on serving but it was the gooey type (all got eaten lol)

[Tiny]

Thanks chaps,
I thought at 10 hours I would have been there or there abouts, it seems the answer might be to trim more fat off / out. I have always been loathed to do this as previous briskets I have done have gone a touch dry even though I have wrapped and foiled.

The leftovers were all rather splendid in a chilli so got 2 meals from it so cant really complain.
Cheers
Tiny

[essexsmoker]

Thanks chaps,
I thought at 10 hours I would have been there or there abouts, it seems the answer might be to trim more fat off / out. I have always been loathed to do this as previous briskets I have done have gone a touch dry even though I have wrapped and foiled.

The leftovers were all rather splendid in a chilli so got 2 meals from it so cant really complain.
Cheers
Tiny

The flip side is that all that fat protected the leaner bits...

Did you cook fat cap down? I defo would in a Danny B.

It's really hard to get a good bit of brisket unless you go USDA, and even then there will be good and bad bits. You can't guarantee marbling will be where you want in a living animal.

[Toby]

Tom Hixson now has a good stock of USDA, took delivery of two 7kg nationals today which I will be cooking up at grillstock. They have them much smaller I just wanted the biggest they had.

[essexsmoker]

Ooo, as in USA national beef?