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Cooking on a UDS Smoker
Cooking a brisket on an ugly drum smoker is really no different than smoking on any other type of cooker or smoker to begin with. All you have to do is just heat it up properly in place of brisk inside.
This allows the ambient temperature to begin hitting the meat and cooking it thoroughly up until an internal temperature around 205°F.
Preferably, you’ll want to pull the brisket around 200°F and once it probes tender. That’s really all it takes to be cooking on an ugly drunk smoker. From a high-level of course.
What temperature do I smoke brisket at UDS?
The temperature ranges are very similar to smoking on other cookers or smokers. For the most part you should never cook below 225°F or above 320°F.
In other words, the most common cooking range for an Ugly Gym smoker is anywhere from 225°F to 320°F.
These are a very wide array of temperature ranges, but allows the pit-master to select one and begin cooking at Will. That’s really one of the great things about BBQ, you always have different options available to you depending on what your needs are.
If you want to cook very fas, then cook very hot. That simple. If you want to cook very slow then obviously you’re going to want to cook around the 225° mark. That’s low and slow.
How do you smoke a brisket in a drum?
Since a drum smoker is a vertical cooker, then you’ll want to place the wood and lit charcoal at the very bottom before you actually place the meat onto the grate.
By doing that, you also allow the temperatures to start rising while you begin seasoning the meat. You’ll want to be very efficient.
Once you have gotten the charcoal lit and have laid several logs of wood or chunks of wood down at the bottom of the smoker, start placing the grates onto their little notches that are located above the firebox.
Go ahead and grab your seasoned meat or brisket, and throw it on either the bottom or the top grate.
It doesn’t really matter which one you pick, what matters most is getting the most Smoke flavor for your brisket.
Once the brisket is on either of the two cooking grates, grab your meat thermometer and stick one inside of the thickest part of the flat of the brisket, and the other on the cooking grate itself to measure the ambient temperature.
Once you’ve done that, that’s really all it takes.
Just continue to monitor the ambient temperatures out of the grate and make sure that it is within the range of 225°F to 320°F.
Once your brisket reaches an internal temperature of 200°F, then you’re ready to pull out the smoker and begin resting it.
Final Thoughts
Smoking a brisket on an ugly drunk smoker is a fantastic way to BBQ.
All you have to do is make sure to light the charcoal and wood in advance, to let the ambient temperatures rise to an adequate amount before actually placing the meat on the smoker.
Once that happens, then just fasten the cooking grates onto their respective notches and then place the brisket on top of one of them. Let the temperatures rise adequately and you’re good to go.
Robert is a certified Pitmaster, with over a decade of experience in smoking the best meats you’ll ever feast upon. He also has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio. When he’s not researching technical topics, he’s most likely barbecuing in his backyard.