Watched my uncle's brisket go from shoe leather to the best I've ever had in 8 months

David Rivera · 2026-09-18T02:20:05.347893+00:00

My uncle has been cooking on the same Oklahoma Joe offset for 12 years and every family cookout his brisket came out dry and gray, like roast beef you'd get at a hospital. Back in February he drove up to Lockhart with me for the meetup and one of the old timers looked at his fire and asked why he was running it so hot, told him he was basically baking the thing at 325 the whole cook. He switched to keeping it between 225 and 250, started wrapping in butcher paper at the stall instead of foil, and let it rest in a cooler for 2 hours before slicing. Last weekend I watched him slice it and the thing jiggled, the flat was moist all the way through and the bark was dark and sticky, not burnt. Same smoker, same wood, same rub he's used forever, the only thing that changed was his fire control and the wrap and the rest. Has anyone else seen that big of a jump just from temps and wrapping, or was my uncle just cooking bad for a decade and got lucky once?

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Watched my uncle's brisket go from shoe leather to the best I've ever had in 8 months | BBQ Pitmasters - Talk Freely