Last summer we fell in love with smoking meat on out gas grill. I bought a little heat spreader smoke box from Amazon, got some wood chips from a local store, and started Googling how to smoke meats. We did burgers, sausages, steaks – all delicious.
So when my wife bought a small brisket in the middle of winter we wondered if we could smoke it on a snowy, windy day where the temperature was below freezing. Turns out, smoking in the winter is possible but harder, and takes a long time to get done. I had never smoked a brisket before so this was a great learning experience.
The Details
The brisket was a small one – 1.6kg or about 3.5 lbs with not much of a flat, so we decided to smoke it as a single piece. It was below freezing out, about -7 Celsius / 20 Fahrenheit with strong winds and wind gusts. We ended up getting about an inch of snow during the day while the brisket was smoking. As this was our first brisket we were working mostly from blogs and YouTube videos with the obvious difference being that everyone smokes their food during warmer weather.
From the blogs and videos I expected that a grill heated to 225f (based on a thermometer at grate level on indirect heat) it would take 3-4 hours for the brisket to come to 165f internally before wrapping it for the final cook. Contrary to what we expected it took a full 6 hours to come to 165, and that was with several grill temperature increases along the way to the point where my grill level ambient thermometer was showing 300f. The internal temperature of the brisket also seemed to stall about 163, and wouldn’t cross that 165f threshold where I could wrap it.
In desperation I began to Google ”oven-finishing a smoked brisket”, and it turns out it is a tried and true method for great brisket – so we pulled the brisket from the grill and wrapped what we had. I put a couple of slices of butter on it as I wrapped it and put it in the oven at 300f using the convection feature. Just over an hour later the probe thermometer in the brisket hit 205f internally in the meat. Given all the time on the grill it was very tender. We unwrapped the brisket, made a little boat out of the aluminum foil and put it back in the over for about 10 minutes to get the texture of the bark back.
The Result
It was amazing. We don’t eat a lot of brisket, but this is one of the better pieces of meat we’ve ever had. We decided to make hasselback potatoes for the first time as well and added some steamed broccoli and were in heaven for dinner. This proved to me that you can smoke even something like a brisket at any time of the year – it’s just going to take you a lot longer than it would during the summer months and you’ll need a higher temperature on the grill.
The long cook time was irritating, and we ate significantly later than we normally would have, but it was worth the wait.
What Happened During the Cook, What I Will Do Next Time
I’ve had a chance to ponder what was happening that would take so much longer to cook, and what I think happened is that the wind and cold pulled the heat out of the top of the barbecue faster than it could be replaced – so while it was measuring 225 at the grate, it was likely cooler at the top of the meat. That lead to less heat getting to the meat. With the super long and low temps, we did get a great tender brisket out of it.
Next time (and there will be a next time) I try a winter brisket, I’m going to start at a higher temperature on the grill – if we use a 3-4 lb brisket again I really want it to be ready to wrap in about 4 hours – which means it will likely need to read 275f-300f at the grill. The oven finish worked really well, so we’ll try that one again.
The best part of the night was that we actually had some leftovers. Stored in an airtight container with the remainder of the jus it tasted even better when reheated the next couple of days.
We’ve had a great time experimenting with the little smoker box – and we’re definitely not going to stop here. The point of your backyard is to have fun – go do a little experimenting!
If you’re interested in the smoker box, it’s this one from Charcoal Companion. It’s been a great addition to our BBQ repertoire and does a great job in imparting that smoky flavor.
