It is fascinating to read Aaron Franklin’s book. The guy is a brisket legend. His brick and mortar place has been open for years and still has a long, long line. His book tells you exactly how to achieve results that rival his, and those instructions are simple and easy to follow, but it’s just like the drinking game Cardinal Puff, really hard to execute successfully. In addition to the requirement of a decent stick burner, it is really challenging to have plenty of the right wood, well seasoned, to find a super high quality brisket, to trim it to perfection, and to have an unerring sixth sense on temperature, timing, the wrap, and the rest. You just cannot write a recipe that says to cook at X degrees for Y hours. As much as I have enjoyed my attempts, I’d rather go to Franklin, La BBQ, or any of the other good ones.
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You didn’t even get into the science of how meat tenderizes around 160 degrees and that rushing through this ‘plateau’ negatively impacts the end product (which is why the rage with cooking hot isn’t all that it is cracked up to be) or how long the hold is before cutting the brisket and how that impacts the end product. There are so many subtle and ineffable factors that make great barbecue. It’s like baking more than most other kinds of cooking because so many factors including humidity impact the fire and make every day a different cooking experience. The experience of a pitmaster to adjust to those conditions when producing food in volume is what keeps it from being the set it and forget it project.
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