Meat: Epilogue

Do you have any idea how much liquor it takes to sit outside and smoke a brisket for nigh on 24 hours? As soon as that internal temp hit 190, I wrapped it in foil, threw it in the oven to rest, and passed out. I stuck it in the fridge Sunday morning and forgot about. This ordeal had left me withered and crapulous. I spent Sunday laying around watching the two basketball games I had missed the night before and whatever I had recently recorded off Discovery or History. I didn't even open my laptop.

So it wasn't until today that I saw what I had created. Upon my initial inspection of the exterior, it looked like a proper brisket, and it smelled like a proper brisket. I located the grain direction and cut a few perpendicular slices. Proper red smoke ring, check, perfect meat color elsewhere. It was hard to cut because the damn thing was cold; I'll chalk that up to a lesson learned. And I'll be damned if the sumbitch didn't taste like a proper Texas brisket ready for a sandwich near you. I sliced up the flat (lean) part of the brisket, then roughly trimmed and chopped up the point (more marbled) to be used for chopped brisked at a later date.

After all that hard work, I'm happy to say it was a success. I've only learned about 1500 things I'd do differently, but, by god, it worked.