Well we had the brisket yesterday around 4. It had been in the cooler around 3 hours and was still about 178*. The meat was pretty good. It was not dry by any means, but it could have been more moist. I thought it tuned out pretty well, as did most people that tried it, but for me the rub was a bit over-powering. Maybe I am sensitive to cumin, but I thought it just had too much. Here’s the rub recipe we used:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup brown sugar (dried)
8 teaspoon chili poweder (or 2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoon MSG/Accent
2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon onion powder

I think because chili powder also contains cumin, next time I would leave the cumin out. The brisket had a little heat to it, which I didn’t mind, but it may be too spicy for some. I think next time I will half the cayenne pepper, omit the extra cumin, and see how that goes.

After I cooked the brisket, I loaded up the WSM yet again with charcoal and did a pork butt from Walmart. They are one of the few places that had bone-in pork butt. Unfortunately the butt had been “enhanced”, I couldn’t find one that was not enhanced. Essentially this means they inject a saline solution into the meat, so there is already a lot of salt in it. For the rub, I used Salt Lick BBQ’s Dry Rub, and I didn’t go too heavy on the rub. I put it on the WSM around 1800 Saturday, and added about 15 coals before going to bed. At that time it was around 170* and I was afraid it would get way too done overnight so I backed down the vents to only 30% open. When I woke up the WSM lid temp was around 175* so I fired up a chimney full of coals to get the temp back up. When the butt hit 190* I pulled it from the WSM and wrapped it in foil for 30 minutes to let it rest. After that I pulled the pork and put serving-size portions in the foodsaver bags, then into the freezer. Jenn and I had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch with a little BBQ sauce and it was really good. A really forgiving piece of meat.