Smoking meat

“That said, the purchase of a grill/smoker type-thing for my housemate’s 30th birthday, and the fact that said smoker was purchased three days in advance of the party at our house, could mean only one thing. It was time to sacrifice our brisket virginity at the altar of meat and friendship. Cobbling together all of our combined knowledge from living in Texas, me and my brave housemate (who is from Virginia, of course) braved Costco to purchase the largest piece of meat I had ever even tried lifting. The smoker we had bought, which was only purchased because it’s one of those cool oil-drum with a chimney-type ones you see behind dozens of little barbecue places all over Texas, was barely big enough to accommodate the meat. [...] With the caked-over brisket diagonally in place (fat cap up, we’re not total amateurs), all that remained to do was wait, we presumed. The temperature, however, had other ideas. After I abandoned all hope at 2am on a very cold Saturday morning, my dogged and resilient housemate, who was presumably more worried about his own birthday party than I was, woke up every two hours to find the temperature too low, and apply more coals and wood.”

“First time smoking meat in a Masterbuilt 30" vertical smoker a buddy of mine gave me. Mistakes were made, but they turned out alright. I used hot jalapeño mustard as a binder and used Weber Kansas City rib rub on it and waited until the mustard absorbed the rub, then sprayed with apple juice after going in. I smoked it with a mix of cherry and apple; I think I'm going to go with cherry and hickory next time. Smoked for about 3 hours at 250F, then I drizzled some honey, brown sugar, and butter, wrapped, then put them back in for 1.5hrs with no smoke. Unwrapped, glazed with BBQ sauce mixed with honey, then back in at 275F for about 20-30 minutes. They were tender and came off the bone nicely, but were a little dry in my opinion. [...] I think the reason they were dry was because I was spraying waaaaay too much apple juice on them at the beginning.”