Love is in the air. No wait, that’s BBQ never mind.

For many parts of the world, Spring Break is the week after Easter. The British Hubby and I had an opportunity for a long weekend. We had intended to get away for a few days, but for a variety of reasons it just didn’t work out. Instead we decided to take advantage of the extra days off to smoke our first brisket. Wednesday night our 14 lb. brisket was treated to a rub down with a roasted garlic and onion jam along with some beef rub. Thursday morning my hot yoga/sauna quest got me out of bed at 5 a.m. The British Hubby decided that was a great time to prep the grill. Our first smoking adventure taught us to factor in a few extra hours of smoking. The first brisket started to smoke at 6:00 a.m.

Three hours in we started the mop water. Ours was a blend of paprika, butter and organic apple juice. You can see a nice bark starting to form on the outside. Notice the brisket just barely fits in our smoker. At 3:00 p.m. our smoker is billowing away. Our local butcher gave us a few tips. The first was to get the internal temp. to 207 degrees Fahrenheit. The second was to wrap the joint in foil when it starts to stall. The third was you can always finish it off in the oven if it’s taking too long. Fortunately, we didn’t need the last one. 14 hours and 45 minutes later we had a finished brisket. Above is a photo of it resting. We were worried the outside was too blackened, but it tastes amazing. The kitties love smoking days. They have more chances to smell the wild! Or maybe they want their kitty food smoked?