By Dylan Clay
Last Updated:
December 8, 2023
When probing brisket, you should probe near where the flat and the point muscles meet – this occurs at the thickest part of the flat muscle (roughly near the middle). Need a picture, click here to jump to it. The reason for probing here is because the point side (fatty) tends to read higher than the flat (lean), in almost every case. This gives you a better idea of when the entire brisket is near tenderness. More on that below. On any brisket, the flat will take the longest to finish or to reach tenderness. It’s a tight grained muscle and contains far less fat than the point. Here’s an example of probing near the flat burnt ends: So as we can see, the temperature near the flat burnt ends is 167F. However, if we move up towards the thickest part of the flat: We can see the temperature is 174F, meaning we’re near the tail end of the stall. Pictured below is also me probing the point – the internal temperature was 184F. Meaning, on the same brisket probed in three different places, at the same time, we have three different internal temperatures. To help visualize: The biggest reason we’re looking at the thickest part of the flat is because it’s the middle ground between the point (which finishes fast) and the brisket flat (which finishes slow). Through wrapping of the brisket, carry over cooking will naturally occur, causing the flat and point to finish at around the same temperature – usually in the 200-210F range.Why You Shouldn’t Probe the Flat Muscle
However, this can’t be restated enough:
Brisket is considered “done” based on probe tenderness.
Why You Shouldn’t Probe the Point Initially
The point muscle of the brisket will always finish faster than the flat.
Here’s an example of probing the point during the same time frame as the photos above:
If you’re someone who relies on temperature to determine when to wrap your brisket or when to foil boat, you’re likely wrapping too early.
Most people tend to wait for the brisket to stall – which usually occurs around 150 – 160F.
If you were to probe the point and it read 160F, we now know the flat could be as low as 143F. In my above example, the difference between the flat and the point was a 17F difference. Even if you probed in the thickest part of the flat, it could still only be 150F.
At that point the flat is still pushing out tons of moisture and surface evaporation (the stall) is still occurring.
A lot of people are told to wrap during the stall – which I think is bad practice.
If surface evaporation is still occurring and you wrap during it, you miss out on creating a markedly better bark.
Rather, you should wait near the tail end of the stall so that the maillard reaction of amino acids and reducing sugars can occur and you can improve your bark.
While I don’t tend to use temperature for wrapping purposes, my suggestion is to wait until at least 170F – I personally tend to wrap when the probe is reading 175-180F in the thickest part of the flat.
Probing for Tenderness
I think probe tenderness is is something that’s more important than probing for internal temperature. Towards the end of the cook, you should be using your probe to glide through all parts of the brisket.
The most common adage is that the probe should feel like it’s sliding through soft butter.
I know that’s really hard to understand so I recorded a quick video of me probing for tenderness in the brisket above.
I also know it’s hard to convey what I mean by “through soft butter” so I quite literally dropped – and I mean entirely let go of my probe to slide through the brisket.
As you can see, it even punctured a hole in my foil boat and I had to add another layer of aluminum foil.
It proves my point though – you want the probe to slide through like that, with no resistance.
Note: If most of the brisket is probe tender but still has spots with a slight tightness, you can usually resolve these with an extended rest/hold overnight.
For instance, the brisket in this article felt a bit tight near the flat (you can actually see me prod it a few times) so I opted to put it right into my electric smoker at 145F for an overnight rest – this way carry over cooking continues to happen.
However, if all spots of the brisket felt probe tender, you should rest for at least 2 hours until the brisket reaches slicing temperatures like 160F. From there you can slice or continue to hold overnight at 145F.
This brisket the next day:
