Brisket 2023

It is times again for the cooking of the brisket.

We purchased a 9 pound brisket at Costco earlier this week. It’s probably down to 8 pounds now that I have cut off a bunch of the fat.

I seasoned it last night and it sat for about 14 hours coated with salt and pepper.

It is now just after 9:00AM and the brisket is on the grill. This is going to take seven to eight hours and it shall be delicious.

I am changing the subject now to discuss our skunk. I’m pretty sure I have announced here recently that we have another skunk. She managed to dig a hole around the cement I poured last summer into the cravas of the heaved cement floor of the garage.

So…we are again stuck with a skunk who will most likely have babies and spend the next couple of months here. We can live with that. We have before.

Last night, the babies appeared. SEVEN of them. I don’t have good pictures of them yet. You’ll have to settle for these.

Back the the brisket.

It’s a little after ten now and the meat is up to 100°. For this first part, I’m cooking the meat to 170°. My instructions say that will take 5 hours but I’ve had get to 170° sooner. After it hits one seventy, I will wrap it in aluminum (known as “the Texas Crutch”) and continue the cook until it reaches 205°. That will take another couple of hours.

11:27AM: This thing is going fast. Too fast! When I checked the temperature at 11, it was at 180. I pulled it off and wrapped it in foil. It’s very snuggly wrapped now and I closed off both vents. The top and bottom vents are just slightly open. I hope that slows it down.

I’m wondering if I can trust the thermometer I’m using. I can’t find my wireless “Meeter” probe. I have no idea where it’s hiding but I really wish I had it.

12 Noon: We’ll, this is the quickest slow cook I’ve ever done. It took barely half an hour to reach 205. I pulled it the grill and placed it fat side up in my cooler. According to the recipe, it stays in the cooler for three hours. It should cool to around 160 in that time.

Stand by and we’ll find out. 

3:47PM: I am not disappointed. I think it came out pretty good but Susan thinks it’s too salty. I can see where she might think that but too salty has never been an issue for this heart patient.

It was still hot when I pulled the roast out of the ice chest. In any event, I think it’s going to be a good dinner.

  

Sliding Shelves

The rumor is that all the cabinets we are waiting on are in town and will be delivered next week. That gets us back on track. 

While we've been waiting, we've been working on the deck...the railing and arbor on the deck. We've been scraping and sanding and filling holes and cracks with wood putty. I've been using the epoxy version of wood putty. You mix a hardener into the main paste and then you have about ten minutes to work with it before it becomes too hard.

Susan has been doing most of the work on the deck. Yesterday she finally got to start priming. 

I had another project to work on today. We ordered a rack with two sliding shelves earlier in the week. It cost about $90.00. It arrived today so I assembled and installed it in the cabinet we designated for it.

It took me a little bit to figure out what I was doing but once I had it, it all made sense and went together easily. 

    

Another Setback

 Carter arrived at 7:30, right on schedule to help me install the downdraft fan. I brought him into the kitchen to survey the project. He agreed that even though it is very tight, the fan and the gas cooktop would fit in the cabinet.

He started getting a bunch of measurements, he cut a hole in the bottom for the fan duct, and I gave him the installation manual and the mounting brackets for the fan.

I ordered the brackets back in March through G.E. When they came, I just packed them by the fan and left them alone.

It was immediately apparent that they sent the wrong brackets. Why I didn’t double check when they came in, I cannot tell you.

Needless to say, the fan did not get installed today.

I drove over to Fred’s Appliance where we puRchased the unit and had Devin order the correct parts. AGAIN, why I didn’t order the brackets from him in the first place, I cannot say. I clearly have a recessive gene that prevents me from thinking clearly.

Additionally needless to say, no work is being done on the kitchen today.

Well…that’s not true either. Susan is working on stowing plates and platters and small appliances in the cabinets. The mess in the dining and living rooms is receding.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Now that the Pantry is finished and being loaded up with food, we set today to start work on the island. I have Carter from Anderson Sheet Metal coming back on Friday to help me install the downdraft fan. That cabinet, which has the gas cook top on it, will be the anchor for the island location.

So we broke out all the island cabinets and hauled them into the kitchen and got them in place.

Can you see a problem in the picture above. No, it's not the model.

The problem is that the end of the island is not flush. We are missing a cabinet. The other problem that is less apparent in the photo is the the thinner cabinets on the north side of the island are the wrong size. They are supposed to be 36 inches wide. The ones we unpacked are 30 inches wide. 

So we are another six weeks out waiting for the revised cabinets plus the one that we are missing. That puts us into July before we can get the counter top people in here.

Washing dishes in the bathroom is getting old.

Pantry Completion

Shaun came by this afternoon and we buttoned up the work on the Pantry.

I have attached little tabs of white duct tape to the cabinets so they are easier to open. We haven't even looked at hardware for the doors and drawers yet.

Anyway, now we can get to work on the island.

More Deck Work

Progress continues slowly on the kitchen as we haven’t seen Shaun in a few days. I’m not blaming him. In fact, I’m tempted to finish up without him but he has a couple of tools that I would need to do it properly.

In the meantime, we have the deck. The railing needs to be rehabilitated. Susan has been working tirelessly on the deck railing. She’s been scraping and sanding and filling cracks with wood putty. Yesterday she finally got around to priming and it continued today.

I have been working on a different part of the deck…the decking. Earlier this year, I noticed a couple of soft spots on the deck where the decking felt mushy.

I got under the deck to discover a badly rotting structure. Not everything. Just a couple of the joists that sit on the beams. The area with the mushy decking was a mostly rotted joist. I could not even remove some of the deck screws because they were seated in rotten wood. 

I don’t think the superstructure of the deck was properly built in the first place. When we redecked it several years ago, my builder commented on how under sized the joist were. I remember one joist was a 2x4. We replaced the sub standard lumber with 2x6’s and even sister Ed some pieces on to that. 

I have purchased a couple of treated 2x6’s for the replacements. I’m not yet sure how I will be attaching the new joists. I’ll figure that out when I get it down there.