Pit Boss, high temps, and brisket

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Bodine
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Pit Boss, high temps, and brisket

Postby Bodine » Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:44 am

Howdy all!

I’m going to be smoking a brisket a week from now and would love some input.

I’ve got a Pit Boss 340, and I love it but man does it get hot.
I’ve cooked a lot on it over the past year, so I’ve learned a thing or two, but basically it all boils down to two things:
1. Temps swing up and down, but I believe that’s normal on an auger-based feed - it makes sense.
2. What doesn’t make sense is my pitboss temps range from +20° as the lowest temp, to upwards of +80° for the highest!

My brisket evenings tend to go like this:
Fire up the pit boss (smoke > then preheat at 350)
Trim and season my brisket while this happens.

Could the high temp preheat be part of my temp problem? It makes sense, then again I’ve read on this forum that to prevent wild temp swings (which I’m seeming to get), I should follow that exact process, and then set my desired temp.

So I’ll do that, then dial it down to 225° after 30 mins, and bring in the brisket.

More often than not the high temps and the fast cooking rate will out the fear of god in me, and I’ll turn the heat down by like 25°.

I butcher paper wrap at around 160° internal temp and then crank up the heat a tiny bit and pull at around 203° and let it rest for an hour or until it reaches around 140°.

All in all the briskets have turned out fine. Not dry but not juicy either, the family likes it, but I feel it could be juicer and better.

Any tips?

I also have only done fat cap up, as I want the fat to melt into the meat, but maybe I should try fat cap down to act as a bit of a barrier from the temps?

Thanks for reading my essay haha!

- Bo
papa tom USER_AVATAR
Papa Tom
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Re: Pit Boss, high temps, and brisket

Postby Papa Tom » Sat Jun 13, 2020 4:58 pm

Mostly I like your technique, however mine is a bit different.

My preheat is only done only to sterilize the pit and may be done some hours in advance and the pit is allowed to cool lid down.

At cook time the pit is turned on to "Smoke" and allowed to fire up and get past the big smoke before putting meat on fat side down (fat between the meat and the heat on my PG 500 I put fat side up).
After a hour or so I jack the heat up to 250°F (really more like 275°F on my Pit Boss). My PB has the griddle mod that reduces the swings some but I am not sure the swings are bad however the griddle really helped the hot spot over the fire box.
I go to 160°F IT and foil.
Interesting note here I have not used paper because I am satisfied with what I get foiled HOWEVER I got a roll of brown butcher paper 20 years ago because that is what my mother did with her turkeys and they were special. The roll of brown paper is still unused except the masking job it did on a couple paint jobs......

I then let it go to just like you 200-205°F then put in ice chest to rest.

Another note on the last brisket I did (pictures here of that one) it was cooking too fast so when it got to 190°F IT I cranked the heat down and brought it to 203° slowly I had never done that before but it turned out GREAT. Whether it was the meat or the process I don't know but worth trying again. The big difference was it was moist, very tender but sliced very nicely without pulling apart.
tarde venientibus ossa....
Bodine
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Re: Pit Boss, high temps, and brisket

Postby Bodine » Sat Jun 13, 2020 9:09 pm

Thanks Papa Tom!

I don’t really do the Smoke setting as much as I should, think I’ll give your method and shoot for maybe 225° after the first hour (mostly since when the temps get high, they get really high).

Really curious about the griddle mod, usually I use a plancha, but never for smoking - just direct heat cooking.
Is the one you’re taking about basically one that replaces the griddle with an all flat surface? I can see that distributing the heat a lot more evenly.
Might even try putting the plancha between the griddle and the heat box+cover to help spread out the heat (too small to hold a full brisket).

Also great to know that even though it was cooking fast up to 190°, you low and slowed it for the final push and got great results! This will give me peace of mind going forward! :salut:

Thanks again!
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Re: Pit Boss, high temps, and brisket

Postby Papa Tom » Sat Jun 13, 2020 9:19 pm

My PB 820 just has a flame deflector over the fire pot with a grease drain plate above it. The griddle is just a flat cast iron mounted on top of the flame deflector to spread the heat out. Because it is cast iron and has mass that stores heat this probably accounts for the reduced temperature swings.

Actually a plancha and a griddle are about the same with the plancha being steel and the griddle cast iron. Also a plancha has a single heat source under it where griddle typically has more in our example we only have a single heat source so same deal to me.
tarde venientibus ossa....

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