I've wrecked a couple of Briskets before finding the foil boat method for the YS640 and it's been a success ever since I started using it.
trim and season the meat and let it get close to room temperature. Put it onto the top wrack with the point side facing the smoke stack and the fat side up.
Start the smoker at 180 and let it go for 4 hours.
Bump to 200 for 1.5 hours
Bump to 225 for 1.5 hours
Check the color and bark, should be looking pretty good and if so wrap in a foil boat. If you have extra beef tallow throw some on the foil under the meat. If you don't make some with your trimmings this time for use next time.
Google foil boat if you aren't familiar but you're basically putting the brisket in a boat made of foil, the foil protects the exposed meat leaving the fat to continue to render.
Back in the smoker at 250 until probe tender.
Pull and wrap completely, let it rest in a cooler. Longer is better here, I've let a thanksgiving brisket rest for 7 hours in an RTIC/YETI cooler and it was still plenty hot and the moisture had redistributed nicely.
I've had the cooking process take 12 hours and I've had it take almost 16 hours but because you can rest it for so long I always give myself plenty of time on the backend.
Thank you very much for this! I just picked up my YS640S and I’d like to do a couple of racks of pork back ribs. Would a similar technique work in that case? If you’ve done some back ribs I’d love to know if you’ve found a technique that worked particularly well!
I wouldn't use it for ribs because there's not nearly as much fat that you want to render. It works great for Brisket and Pork Butt (Shoulder) though. For pork ribs I've done 3-2-1 and I've done them without wrapping and I've had success doing both. Keep in mind I'm not a huge fan of super saucy or sweet ribs.
Prep: Remove silver skin and season liberally with your favorite rub, let the ribs get close to room temp while you preheat the grill to 250
3-2-1 you are smoking for 3 hours, wrapping for 2 hours (I use butcher paper because I want some moisture to escape I'm not a fan of the texture I get with foil).
Post the 2 hours wrapped I tend to unwrap and see how they look, they're generally pretty much done at this point but it's the time I coat with a light coat of bbq sauce and increase the temp in the grill to 300 and give them an additional 30-60 mins to firm up the crust/set the sauce keeping a close eye on them to ensure they don't over cook.
Unwrapped: The fear here is that the rib dries out so I typically spray with a mixture of apple juice, vinegar, etc. every 45 minutes or so after the first 3 hours to ensure they don't dry out. 5-6 hours unwrapped and you should be good to go.
The nice thing about ribs is you can grab a few racks and try different methods all at the same time since you aren't really messing with the temp or the time. Grab a 3 pack from Costco and do 1 unwrapped, 1 foil and 1 butcher paper. Or mess around with different rubs and sauces.
Edit: You can also do bone in chicken pieces at the same time if you have folks that enjoy bbq chicken. It generally cooks a bit faster but you can add it (not where it will drip on the ribs) a bit later in the process to work with that as well.
Finally a vacuum sealer is clutch when you are doing big cooks. Vacuum seal the extra and freeze it, you can throw the bag in hot water to reheat and have very solid left overs weeks/months later. I always figure if I'm firing the beast up I might as well fill it up ;)
You are the best!
I bought two racks yesterday so I'm going to cook them both up and then vacuum seal the extra as you said. Tomorrow is the day! I'll let you know how it goes!
Again, thanks so much for your detailed reply! It's really appreciated.
No problem keep me posted. I need to do a few racks soon, my freezer is full of pork butt but low on ribs :)
One other option for the 3-2-1 is to do the last portion over charcoal or on the grill grates and just do it for a few minutes to add some crispy to the outside of the ribs but you have to be very careful because the sugar in the bbq sauce burns super easy.
So I did up two racks yesterday with this method. I used a Louisiana-style rub and because I was going to be away from the smoker and was worried I might be a little late returning I set it for 240. I did get back in time and wrapped them at the 3hr mark for 2hrs. Cranked it up to 300, added BBQ sauce and baked them another 30m.
Best ribs I’ve ever done at home and may even be the best I’ve had out (but I don’t live in the south so I’m sure there is much better out there). Bark was good. Meat was tender but not sloppy. Taste was amazing.
I froze one rack and we only ate half of the other. Any advice for getting it back up to temp after refrigeration? I was going to spray it was apple juice, wrap it in tinfoil and bring it up slowly at 300 in the oven.
Anyway, thanks again!
That's awesome news! For the fridge ones I typically use a toaster oven or oven, you can wrap or just put them on foil. For the freezer ones I put them in a pot of water that I them bring to a boil to defrost and heat up then pop them in the oven for a min.
I’d get it trimmed (figure 14#), rubbed, and onto the cooker by 1600 for an overnight at 225. I’d likely bump it to 275-300 in the morning, pull it at noon assuming it is done, rest it in a cooler tightly wrapped for 4 hours, and that gives you 2 hours to spare just in case.
I stopped wrapping and have had great results. Lid down, lid up, done.
Ran out of runway between work and other stuff. Got it trimmed nice, which was a challenge. This one was a really unbalanced and an awkward shape. So I really cut to shape more than anything. It looked balanced in the end and hope I have enough marbling in the meat to make it tender.
Here is a link to the smoke session.
Fri Jun 14 Session
https://share.fireboard.io/67661A
It will contain notes and details as I go. Wish me luck or it will be smash burgers for dinner. LOL
I've always just eyeballed the 5" thing, never really had an issue with it either way. I cook at 275 on the top shelf fat cap down no need for water pan.
I'll start my yoder around 11pm and let it run until midnight to get it up to temp , throw that bad boy on the middle of the top rack toss my probe in (for the 640s users) set my alarms for low temps/high temps and check it around 6 as well, usually by then I will wrap (I use foil i like a more competition style brisket) and just keep checking until its probe tender. if it finishes early wrap it up and hold in a cooler.
I've wrecked a couple of Briskets before finding the foil boat method for the YS640 and it's been a success ever since I started using it. trim and season the meat and let it get close to room temperature. Put it onto the top wrack with the point side facing the smoke stack and the fat side up. Start the smoker at 180 and let it go for 4 hours. Bump to 200 for 1.5 hours Bump to 225 for 1.5 hours Check the color and bark, should be looking pretty good and if so wrap in a foil boat. If you have extra beef tallow throw some on the foil under the meat. If you don't make some with your trimmings this time for use next time. Google foil boat if you aren't familiar but you're basically putting the brisket in a boat made of foil, the foil protects the exposed meat leaving the fat to continue to render. Back in the smoker at 250 until probe tender. Pull and wrap completely, let it rest in a cooler. Longer is better here, I've let a thanksgiving brisket rest for 7 hours in an RTIC/YETI cooler and it was still plenty hot and the moisture had redistributed nicely. I've had the cooking process take 12 hours and I've had it take almost 16 hours but because you can rest it for so long I always give myself plenty of time on the backend.
It’s is a really good method. Hit atbbq.com and check Chef Tom’s foil boat video. That’s how I learned it.
I’m going to give this a shot! Appreciate the detail
Thank you very much for this! I just picked up my YS640S and I’d like to do a couple of racks of pork back ribs. Would a similar technique work in that case? If you’ve done some back ribs I’d love to know if you’ve found a technique that worked particularly well!
I wouldn't use it for ribs because there's not nearly as much fat that you want to render. It works great for Brisket and Pork Butt (Shoulder) though. For pork ribs I've done 3-2-1 and I've done them without wrapping and I've had success doing both. Keep in mind I'm not a huge fan of super saucy or sweet ribs. Prep: Remove silver skin and season liberally with your favorite rub, let the ribs get close to room temp while you preheat the grill to 250 3-2-1 you are smoking for 3 hours, wrapping for 2 hours (I use butcher paper because I want some moisture to escape I'm not a fan of the texture I get with foil). Post the 2 hours wrapped I tend to unwrap and see how they look, they're generally pretty much done at this point but it's the time I coat with a light coat of bbq sauce and increase the temp in the grill to 300 and give them an additional 30-60 mins to firm up the crust/set the sauce keeping a close eye on them to ensure they don't over cook. Unwrapped: The fear here is that the rib dries out so I typically spray with a mixture of apple juice, vinegar, etc. every 45 minutes or so after the first 3 hours to ensure they don't dry out. 5-6 hours unwrapped and you should be good to go. The nice thing about ribs is you can grab a few racks and try different methods all at the same time since you aren't really messing with the temp or the time. Grab a 3 pack from Costco and do 1 unwrapped, 1 foil and 1 butcher paper. Or mess around with different rubs and sauces. Edit: You can also do bone in chicken pieces at the same time if you have folks that enjoy bbq chicken. It generally cooks a bit faster but you can add it (not where it will drip on the ribs) a bit later in the process to work with that as well. Finally a vacuum sealer is clutch when you are doing big cooks. Vacuum seal the extra and freeze it, you can throw the bag in hot water to reheat and have very solid left overs weeks/months later. I always figure if I'm firing the beast up I might as well fill it up ;)
You are the best! I bought two racks yesterday so I'm going to cook them both up and then vacuum seal the extra as you said. Tomorrow is the day! I'll let you know how it goes! Again, thanks so much for your detailed reply! It's really appreciated.
No problem keep me posted. I need to do a few racks soon, my freezer is full of pork butt but low on ribs :) One other option for the 3-2-1 is to do the last portion over charcoal or on the grill grates and just do it for a few minutes to add some crispy to the outside of the ribs but you have to be very careful because the sugar in the bbq sauce burns super easy.
So I did up two racks yesterday with this method. I used a Louisiana-style rub and because I was going to be away from the smoker and was worried I might be a little late returning I set it for 240. I did get back in time and wrapped them at the 3hr mark for 2hrs. Cranked it up to 300, added BBQ sauce and baked them another 30m. Best ribs I’ve ever done at home and may even be the best I’ve had out (but I don’t live in the south so I’m sure there is much better out there). Bark was good. Meat was tender but not sloppy. Taste was amazing. I froze one rack and we only ate half of the other. Any advice for getting it back up to temp after refrigeration? I was going to spray it was apple juice, wrap it in tinfoil and bring it up slowly at 300 in the oven. Anyway, thanks again!
That's awesome news! For the fridge ones I typically use a toaster oven or oven, you can wrap or just put them on foil. For the freezer ones I put them in a pot of water that I them bring to a boil to defrost and heat up then pop them in the oven for a min.
I’d get it trimmed (figure 14#), rubbed, and onto the cooker by 1600 for an overnight at 225. I’d likely bump it to 275-300 in the morning, pull it at noon assuming it is done, rest it in a cooler tightly wrapped for 4 hours, and that gives you 2 hours to spare just in case. I stopped wrapping and have had great results. Lid down, lid up, done.
Ran out of runway between work and other stuff. Got it trimmed nice, which was a challenge. This one was a really unbalanced and an awkward shape. So I really cut to shape more than anything. It looked balanced in the end and hope I have enough marbling in the meat to make it tender. Here is a link to the smoke session. Fri Jun 14 Session https://share.fireboard.io/67661A It will contain notes and details as I go. Wish me luck or it will be smash burgers for dinner. LOL
Nice - I forgot about that Fireboard session sharing feature. Good luck indeed - may yer brisket be jiggly.
Haha. Jiggly. Made me laugh. Thanks!
I've always just eyeballed the 5" thing, never really had an issue with it either way. I cook at 275 on the top shelf fat cap down no need for water pan. I'll start my yoder around 11pm and let it run until midnight to get it up to temp , throw that bad boy on the middle of the top rack toss my probe in (for the 640s users) set my alarms for low temps/high temps and check it around 6 as well, usually by then I will wrap (I use foil i like a more competition style brisket) and just keep checking until its probe tender. if it finishes early wrap it up and hold in a cooler.