Best to smoke in the heat.

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The smoker runs a bit hot.  If, as it turns out, that is a good thing.  For several reasons.  First, no way around it, a brisket is a massive hunk of meat.  Reaching the right internal temperature is... only the beginning.  Second, while hot outside, the smoker is using far fewer pellets.

Could the first batch of pellets have simply been inferior?  Maybe.  But the meats cooked yesterday, and today, have taken three times the time taken together, than that first burn, smoke, call it what you will, yet have used a fifth the number of pellets total.

It wasn't even cold, when I last smoked.  In the eighties.  While today and yesterday were closer to or over 100.  To my mind, that couldn't be it, or all of it.  Larger cuts of meat, though too.  Perhaps they become heat sinks, heat wells?

The brisket has three more hours, maybe more.  Mom put the ribs back on.  Not finished it seems.  All good.  I told Mom about a keto barbecue sauce.  She whipped it up.  Excellent.  Plus, no sugar spike.  I have to admit, I used to miss that sugar spike/hit.

Now I look out for sugar spikes the way one looks out for a serious food allergy.  If I sense it, I review all I recently ate.  A bowl of cherries?  No guff.  But without an obvious culprit, I begin sleuthing my ingredients.  A ingredient change to an old standby, even adding dextrose.  Something slipped by my scans.  Or mom using regular flour, or else.

The woman sometimes completely ignores.  Then can't figure out why her weight remains elevated.  Sure, she lost between fifty and sixty pounds.  But could stand to lose another twenty to forty.  Not my fight and she is nearly 84.  I won't push, just say.  Dieting doesn't work, but a good diet (as in the right foods, not limited calories) does work.  And, she is a grazer.  She stumbled on the novel notion of intermittent fasting, on her own terms.  I certainly told her about it long ago, but okay.  But she has absolutely zero capacity to not eat for more than a few hours, often waking to do so.

As mentioned, at her age, it is what it is.  I still have twenty pounds to lose, but my motabolism isn't there.  Adding swimming, lifting, might help.  Though in truth, I would gain more muscle mass than any fat I might burn.  Not a bad thing, just noting limitations, caveats.

Back to sleep for a bit.  Will check the brisket then.  Ugh but that beast of a hunk of meat is a wrestle and long slow cook.