I've had my BGE for about 8 years and feel pretty great about most things I cook on it except brisket. I live in South Dakota so whatever the results are people love it but I know the truth - it's awful.

Please shed light on what you consider the best way to get moist brisket on a BGE. Im smoking one of the best prime briskets I've ever had tomorrow and want to know yalls tips on doing it right. Generally I feel that 203 is too long and I stuff too much fogo charcoal in it that it's too near the place setter. But I'd love to hear from you guys who are really happy with your results

Invest in a quality thermometer. Consider a water bath between your heat diffuser and grill.

I can't cook a brisket for **** on my BGE and have deduced that my temps are too high (despite what the OEM thermometer says) with too much direct heat.

dodger02 said:

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Invest in a quality thermometer. Consider a water bath between your heat diffuser and grill.

I can't cook a brisket for **** on my BGE and have deduced that my temps are too high (despite what the OEM thermometer says) with too much direct heat.

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I put a full water pan underneath it for sure. Same results

dodger02 said:

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Invest in a quality thermometer. Consider a water bath between your heat diffuser and grill.

I can't cook a brisket for **** on my BGE and have deduced that my temps are too high (despite what the OEM thermometer says) with too much direct heat.

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I have a FireBoard to monitor temps too

Both Brad (Chuds) and Jeremy (Mad Scientist BBQ) have great content on this. Not specifically for a BGE, but the principles they preach are solid and will apply regardless of your smoker. They have both done lots of cooking and collaboration with the top TX BBQ pitmasters out there and they know what they are talking about.

Resting is the most commonly skipped step in a brisket cook. Resting for a minimum of 4 hrs is huge. Most of the Top 50 BBQ joints are resting their briskets overnight at an oven temp of 140-150F and then serving the next day at lunch.

Also, you're on the right track with a prime brisket. That buys you a lot of insurance when it comes to juiciness.

Trim it properly. Don't leave more than 1/4" or so of fat on it.

Another tip that helps is to cook it low and slow until it has time to break down all the tough collagen in the brisket. A lot of guys will tell you they go more by feel than by temp. Once the brisket jiggles like jello and your thermometer probe goes in easy like room temp butter, that's when you want to pull it.

Here is basic brisket 101 from a guy who has done about 15 competitions and won a few.

Temp is key! BGE are a little tough because temps can get high fast and not come down, so I cheat with my egg. Keep it low 225 go until your internal is 170 and it looks really good to your eye on the outside. Keep the lid closed if brisket hangs out over place setter or close to edges you need to rotate it at least once ie spin the grate 90 degrees. Keep fat side down entire cook. No need to spray, you want bark to set.

After that wrap tight in foil put in pan and stick it oven at 275. When it hits 200 start to poke it with Thermo till it slides in like butter. Pull it partial open to let some heat escape 5 mins or so then close back up and rest in an ice chest with towels 3 hours or more.

Oh and practice makes perfect, with notes so you can duplicate what works and what does not work.

Ask your wife,kids, friends etc.. to be honest about flavor, moisture and texture. Keep notes and modify to get closer to what they like.

Even then brisket is an unforgiving piece of meat that will slap you upside your head just when you think you have it all figured out!

Brisket has 3 steps - all equally important.

1. Trim - you need to cut the brisket way down. Trim off the hard fat, pull out and remove the eyebrow, ensure the brisket is of equal thickness to the extent you can, round the corners and edges. All the top 50 spots in TX pull tiny briskets from their proofers - they didn't start that way.

2. Seasoning. Use a yellow mustard base and then pepper, salt, and for simplicity, add a good layer of your favorite BBQ seasoning. It's a big piece of meat, dont be afraid to overdo it. Bonus points if you can let it sit off 12 hrs or so.

3. Cook. Fat down, start low, make sure you have good smoke, keep a half full water pan below meat to keep the ceramic grill environment humid, gradually bring BGE heat up to ~275. When the internal temp hits 170, pull it, wrap it up in butcher paper (extra points if you can add some leftover beef tallow), put it on a wire rack, in an aluminum pan, and back on the grill. Pull when internal temp hits ~205, while still in paper, wrap in a spare towel and throw into a yeti type cooler for at least a few hours. Don't wash that towel with anything you care about.

How to make it moist?

Take all your day trimmings, put in a pot or foil pan. Stick in with the brisket. It'll render to liquid beef tallow.

When your brisket gets out of the stall (watch that digital thermometer), take either butcher paper or foil, make a big / wide flat for the brisket to go on. Take that tallow and brush it all over the foil or butcher paper. Cost the whole thing.

Throw the brisket in there, wrap it up, put thermometer back in, wait until it hits 203 and pull it.

Don't open the wrapping. Put it on the counter and leave it for 30 minutes so the cook stops. Then throw it in a warm cooler for two hours.

Pull it out, unwrap and be ready to serve. Only cut off pieces as people come to get a plate (don't cut the whole thing up in one shot).

Enjoy.

FTAG 2000 said:

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Only cut off pieces as people come to get a plate (don't cut the whole thing up in one shot).

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Super important advice here.

Brisket dries out fast once it is sliced.

How much coal do you put in the bowl? I usually fill it up so I don't have to worry about adding more but that makes me think it might be too close to the plate setter and the cause of some of my dried out issues

205 seems way too long given my last experience (I've done about a dozen) I'm thinking about 198 this go around.

I'm also considering wrapping in foil - which surprises even me. But I did it with spare ribs two weekends ago doing 2-2-1 and they turned out great

My first couple of briskets on my BGE were terrible. Agree with everyone on low and slow, water pan, good oak chunks mixed in with your lump.

What messed my first few up is I was checking things to much. I would open the lid to check temperature, to add water to the pan, to add wood chunks if it stopped smoking. Now I get it going and leave it. 100X better results with just leaving it alone.

"but I know the truth - it's awful."

So what's awful about it specifically? Depending on what's wrong will influence how you should be changing your cook. Is it too dry, not tender enough, too tender/fall apart, not good taste, or what?

For starters don't change 10 things on your next cook, as I'm sure you're going to get tons of suggestions in this thread. Slowly implement small changes so you can take note of what the effect of each change has. As somebody already suggested, keep a log/notebook and record results, technique, etc. I use a google sheets app on my phone and have recorded every cook I've done since 2017.

My main recommendations:

1) proper trim. Look up how to trim a brisket by chuds bbq or mad scientist bbq on YouTube. It's crazy aggressive and you'll probably recoil at first when you see it. Its ok, you're maximizing the part of the brisket that will survive a long cook and taking off anything that won't, use those trimmings for ground meat, tallow, and more, don't just throw them in the trash so it's not wasteful.

2) Wrap after the stall (if you are going to at all). Lots of folks say to do it beforehand or even during, but that just kills your momentum and usually your bark isnt done setting yet. Don't wrap at a specific time or temp, just when it looks like you want it, I'm usually in the 170-180 internal temp range. Go unwrapped or use the foil boat if you want a crispier top bark, use butcher paper for a softer bark.

3) Pull at the right time and rest. As you'll see many people say, pull when it probes soft like butter. Don't go to a specific time or temp, each brisket is different. Start checking around 195 internal and see when it needs to be pulled. Once pulled, rest as long as you can. Coolers can hold single briskets 6+ hours, if you have an oven that can go down to 150ish, you can use that to go up to 24 hours and not lose quality. It takes a bit of preplanning, but it can help so much by having that extended rest. As noted above, all the popular Texas bbq places aren't cooking brisket overnight to pull off the pit at 9am and serve it to you at 11 when they open. They cook throughout the day and hold in warming ovens overnight, then serve it the next day. A long heated rest can really help the quality of your brisket.


Those are the 3 most important things in my book, getting good at the basics will help you much more than using all the smaller stuff like wrapping with tallow. There's no silver bullet to making a 6/10 brisket jump to a 9/10, it takes practice and perfecting your craft on your specific cooker.

Done is not a temp it is a feel. 198 could be a tough brisket.

VERY important a brisket is done at 145 but it will be tough but it is "done".

Feel is what you are looking for. Start to check after 200 by pushing a thermometer in. IF it just slides right in, pull it, if not go longer until the thermometer top slides in without resistance.

Check out this video on Brisket 101. He uses Kamado Joe instead of BGE. But cooking on a ceramic is very different from an offset.

I have a Home Depot Akorn egg (ceramic lined, not fully ceramic) and I have a VERY difficult time keeping the temp down and that is always my issue when smoking something on the egg. In an effort to try and have enough fuel to get the smoke, I cannot keep the temp down well enough to not burn the fat cap on the bottom.

I am a bit confused about how you have so much charcoal. When I smoke things on my egg I use a good lump charcoal and mix in some chunks of wood. I use the "ring of fire" method which works great for me. Once you get it going/temp you want/vents set you can basically walk away from it.
The only thing to remember with the ring of fire is that you need it to be continuous, so if you have a bunch of large chunks you also need to have small pieces sprinkled in there as well to make sure you have enough contact between everything to keep that fire creeping along.

The few I've smoked on my egg have been OK, but that's it. The smaller area I think has a lot to do with it - far less air flow than my stick burner. Sure, it's easier to control temps, but that's only a part of the process. When using the egg, a smaller brisket is better. I have no issues at all with pork butts on the egg because they are smaller and you get good air movement, keep your briskets small and you increase the chances of a better outcome.

Trim correctly, save yoru trimmings and render them while you are cooking instead of a water pan. Serves essentially the same purpose, but you get tallow out of it at the end to use for other things.

Lower temps at a longer smoke are better IMO than shorter at a faster smoke. Remember with an egg that once it gets hot, it is hard to cool back down....so start low and make adjustments in very small increments to bring the temp up. If it stabilizes good at 200-225, leave it alone.

Use wood chunks in addition to lump charcoal

Season good, with a brisket more is better than less because of the ratio of surface area to meat. Personally I like a mustard base with a mix of spicy brown mustard, regular yellow and if I have it - pickle juice. Apply in a thin layer, then pepper, salt and garlic salt for me. I've tried other rubs and seasonings and always come back to the simpler one. If you can season and let it sit overnight (or longer) uncovered in the fridge - the better.

Wrap with pink butcher paper once bark is set how you like it (typically at the stall for me). Minimize how many times you open and close the lid.

DON'T.COOK.TO.TEMP!!!! Temp is nothing more than a guide to start checking with probe. When the probe slides in without resistance, you pull regardless of temp. May be 197, may be 203, may be 205 - every brisket is different. Prime tend to be at lower temps than others by a few degrees.

Let it rest! Wrap in several old towels and put in a cooler - half hour minimum, but if you can get 1-2 hours, it's optimal.

After that, cut the right direction according to point or flat, and only cut what you need to cut versus cutting the whole thing up at once. The more you cut, the more internal juice will drain out.

Ceramics need practice to get vents right. I close my top vent way down to keep temp low. On my offset my vent is wide open. Every pit type is different.

Ceramics are also very good at holding temp as long as you don't open them up all the time.

FriedTex said:

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How much coal do you put in the bowl? I usually fill it up so I don't have to worry about adding more but that makes me think it might be too close to the plate setter and the cause of some of my dried out issues

205 seems way too long given my last experience (I've done about a dozen) I'm thinking about 198 this go around.

I'm also considering wrapping in foil - which surprises even me. But I did it with spare ribs two weekends ago doing 2-2-1 and they turned out great

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Temperature is not how you judge a brisket for doneness! It's good info to have, but not what you base decisions on.

I don't use my egg for briskets (I have a gravity feed smoker that I prefer), but I used to. There are 3 types of heating... conduction, convection and radiation. Conduction is not really at play here (minor bits where the brisket touches the grate/grill, but negligible). Convection is what you want, and what BBQ is based on, historically. With offset smokers, it's ALL you have. With an egg, you get a LOT of radiation heating if you don't use SOMETHING to block it. Water pan, place setter, whatever, but to me, that's the main difference between eggs and true smoker pits.

You don't have to wrap, but I do, and I think it gives a lot of protection against drying out. The beef tallow suggestion above is a great one! What I do is wait for the bark to set and have good color. Whenever I get there, I wrap. I use butcher paper or butcher paper AND foil (bp on the inside, foil on the outside). I pour half a beer and a good amount of beef tallow over the brisket and seal it up, then put it back on the grill.

The way I check for doneness: I monitor the temp and wait until it reaches 200. Now I'm done with the dial on the thermometer. I DO use the probe of the thermometer from here on out. You want the probe to slip into the brisket with about the same resistance that it gets when inserting it into a jar of creamy peanut butter. I ACTUALLY PRACTICE POKING A JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER TO GET THE FEEL and when the probe feels the same in the brisket, that's when it's done.

Rest in cooler at least an hour, and up to 6-8 hours, depending on your plan for the day. You can wait longer, but you probably need to hold it in an oven, not a cooler, for those situations.

schmelba gave some good suggestions that I forgot (yellow mustard, wood chunks, etc.)! I think I agree with everything he said, too!

I have a decade+ old Komodo with worn gaskets and parts that cooks like a damn champ. So what I do for the heat source is a big chunk of cured oak in the middle of the bowl, ringed by lump, and additional smaller pieces mixed in.

I light on one side, get it going with a torch and let it come up to temp. Brisket is prepped as stated by others. Now my old girl cooks hot. So I usually crank along at around 285. I have dual probes for the temp of the egg and brisket. I will apply a little beef tallow every few hours, but lightly so as not to impact the bark.

At 165+ I'll wrap in butcher paper and add more tallow. I never pull until it's over 200 and my thermapen isn't feeling any dryness as I probe around.

Then it goes into the cooler for another few hours. As a personal preference, I like a "crumbly" brisket - as you can chop it up and make sammiches.

Biggest thing is time - don't paint yourself into a corner with hungry guests and it's just not ready and you start rationalizing that it's "probably" ok. A brisket can stay in the cooler for hours and hours and be great when it's ready to be served.

Side note - have you practiced on smoked chuck roasts? A smoked chuckie done well is amazing. I usually cook two at a time for a fraction of the price of a prime brisket.

Season and cook as you would a brisket. Usually take 4-5 hours to get to 165-ish. Then I'll add them to a foil pan with beef tallow or broth, diced hatch chilis and a rough cut onion and cover with foil. Usually 3+ hours later they're ready. Let it sit until ready to serve in a cooler. When ready to serve: Drain off the juices and veggies (and save). Chuck shreds like pulled pork in the pan you smoked it in.

Then add back as much or as little of the veggie-broth that you want and serve on brioche buns with more white onion and pickles.

GD delicious and cooks in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the price. Like pot roast brisket!

BlueSmoke said:

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Biggest thing is time - don't paint yourself into a corner with hungry guests and it's just not ready and you start rationalizing that it's "probably" ok. A brisket can stay in the cooler for hours and hours and be great when it's ready to be served.

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This is another good one. FAR better to be finished way ahead of time and give a brisket "extra" time resting in a cooler than to feel rushed and pull it early, or not let it rest enough.

Also, when probing for feel, remember you're probing the resistance from the brisket, not the wrap! When you're near enough to the point of doneness, cut a slit in the foil/butcher paper to probe thru so you're ONLY feeling resistance from the brisket. (Just remember to leave the slit facing up when you rest the whole thing in the cooler!)

TX AG 88 said:

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(Just remember to leave the slit facing up when you rest the whole thing in the cooler!)

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Yeah, I learned that the hard way.....

BlueSmoke said:

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TX AG 88 said:

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(Just remember to leave the slit facing up when you rest the whole thing in the cooler!)

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Yeah, I learned that the hard way.....

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What does this mean. This thread is great!

If you put it in the cooler with the slit (the opening on the foil wrap) downward, it will leak juice all over your cooler and make a mess.


This thread does have some great tips. But there are a ton of really good videos out there on this stuff. Personally, I think Chuds BBQ and Mad Scientist BBQ do the best job of explaining stuff with a high degree of credibility, and not so much personal preference. Just search their videos on YouTube and adapt their methods to your smoker.

I've had my large BGE since 2013 ... smoked dozens of briskets the past decade ... got it down to a science, and they come out fantastic every time now.

• I never spring for prime - brisket is a crap cut of meat, so why pay the premium for prime? I always go with choice. The difference from select to choice is worth it to me, but not from choice to prime. I use a whole brisket, 14-15 lbs., and I don't trim it. Because of the space limitation of the large BGE, I always have to be mindful of getting a shorter, thicker cut than a longer, thinner one, so it will fit on the grill.
• Rub it down with honey mustard (what kind of mustard really doesn't matter, as you can't taste it - it's just there to bind the dry rub). I use Adkins as my rub of choice - get it at a local butcher's shop. I use an entire package on a 14-15 lb. brisket.
• Wrap in Press 'N Seal, put it on a cookie sheet fat side down, and refrigerate 12 hours.
• I plan for about an hour a pound - but every piece of meat is different, so I try to give myself some wiggle room on the finish time. I want it to rest between 1-4 hours when I pull it off the smoker.
• I always do a fresh clean-out of the BGE before a long smoke - I get my little Shop-Vac out and pull out every last ounce of dust and start fresh. I fill the firebox 50/50 with new lump charcoal and hickory chunks.
• I start the fire 90 minutes before I want to start the cook, and I also pull the brisket out of the fridge and set it on the counter at that time to get the room temp.
• Once there's a good fire going, I add the plate-setter with one foot pointing away from me, close the lid and adjust the vent and daisywheel to my normal smoking settings.
• Once the dome temperature gets to about 250, I add a 9x13 aluminum pan of water on top of the plate setter. That drops the temp a bit while the water warms up.
• I also add the cooking grate and my electronic temperature probe at that time. The dome temperature typically reads higher than the grate, which makes sense because the hot air is coming off the coals, around the plate-setter and into the dome - so if your grate probe is positioned over the plate-setter and not on the edge where the hot air comes up, it's telling you what the temperature is close to the meat.
• I've got a dual-probe thermometer - one probe attaches to the grate and one goes in the brisket. I set the grill temperature alarm to go off outside of the 215-235 range, and I set the meat alarm to go off at 175.
• Once the dome temp is at 225 steady, I'll add the brisket fat side up, and point at the back. I'll sprinkle the remaining dry rub on at this time, because the fat side that was down in the fridge and now is up usually loses some coverage while marinating. I stick the meat probe in through the side of the point.
• The next time I open the BGE lid is when my meat alarm goes off.
• So many factors impact the consistency of your BGE temperature - air temp, humidity, age and freshness of lump charcoal, size of wood chunks - so even when you prep the same every time, you still have to watch the temp and make slight adjustments to keep it in an acceptable range. My target smoking temperature is 225.
• Once the meat probe gets to 175, I'll manually check the temperature in the flat, and it's usually around 180. Once the meat probe hits 180 in the point, time for it to come off.
• I triple-wrap the brisket in heavy-duty foil, then pack it with towels in a warm cooler to rest inside the house.
• I target a 3-hour rest, but have been forced to go as little as an hour, and as much as 6 hours. It stays incredibly hot in the cooler - I've actually never measured the temp before carving, which is odd when I think about it now. But I suspect it rises to around 200 during the rest.
• When it's time to serve, make sure everyone eating is ready to get their meat - you can ruin a perfectly-cooked brisket by carving it too early and letting it sit.
• I usually separate the point from the flat, and then ask if they want lean or moist. Once everyone has been served, I wrap everything back up and put it back in the cooler, and when it's time for anyone who wants seconds, I repeat the process.
• The meat is always juicy and pull-apart soft, with a nice bark and surprisingly good smoke ring.

There's no one "right" way to smoke a brisket on the BGE - this is just the process I have been following for the past several years, and the results have been excellent!

Good luck on your next one ...

So pulling it earlier than 203 is what I am going to experiment with - even though I get one everyone else is saying about feel and being above 200.

I too think that something is happening in the cooler that makes it probably run up to 210-220 that dries the whole thing out.

I don't know if I can imagine doing it at 180, yet, but will definitely pull earlier. I'm putting it on tonight so that it's easily ready by tomorrow evening

BlueSmoke: You sir are CORRECT! Wanting to add that cooking for two I find that a brisket the size we can eat of just a day or too is very difficult to find, and if found, that small a brisket cooked to 195-203 is way too dry. The chuck roasts are a great option for us, and still very tasty! Will try your method next time, sounds good.

FriedTex said:

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BlueSmoke said:

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TX AG 88 said:

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(Just remember to leave the slit facing up when you rest the whole thing in the cooler!)

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Yeah, I learned that the hard way.....

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What does this mean. This thread is great!

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All of the juices poured out

What size BGE do you have?

WhoHe has lots of good comments.

I have an XL and do lots of briskets. Prime cooks lots faster than choice. I am usually looking at 50 minutes to 1 hr per lb. I run at about 240 to give me a little leeway both sides. If I do use a water pan I don't put much water in and its usually to catch drippings. The BGE as opposed to offsets dont need near as much water in the pan due to the airflow and moisture retention. Also, set it and maybe open only once to wrap. I also tend to wrap later with the egg to get a better bark. I try to pull mine off the BGE about 198'ish.

If you're going straight from the smoker and into the cooler, then I would pull it off around 195-200 once it probes soft. You're correct in saying that the temp will rise for a while after cooking. Alternatively, you could pull it off the smoker and rest it on the table for 30 minutes or so until the internal temp starts to drop a little. Then put it in the cooler to rest. Just be careful holding it too long in a cooler because you don't have a heat source in there. You do not want to let the internal temp of the product drop below 140 because that is the danger zone for bacterial growth. The best thing you could do is find an oven or warmer that will hold your temperature at around 145 to 150. My oven will only go down to 170 I think, but some go lower.

The reason it is dry is it is not hot enough to fully render the cologen. NOT because it is too hot.

The reason multiple people are saying it is feel is because you are looking to feel the collagen breakdown, the resistance is collagen which has not released its moisture or it tenderness.

The reason you crack open the foil, paper etc.. is to release some heat before sealing it up to rest preventing the meat from continuing to rise.

From my experience, it will not rise more than 10 degrees if you do not crack it open. It will not rise at all if you do crack it open.