The Overnight Smoke

Smoke brisket through the night. Sleep by the fire. Wake up and see who cooked it best.

An 18-hour BBQ experience combining hands-on butchery, a brisket smoking masterclass, an overnight cook, heated tipi accommodation, a BBQ banquet and Cowboy breakfast.

Highlights

• An 18-hour overnight BBQ experience
• Two masterclasses: brisket butchery and brisket smoking
• Learn to prepare and cook a full packer brisket
• Your own smoker for the overnight cook
• Heated tipi accommodation with real beds
• BBQ banquet evening meal
• Cowboy breakfast the following morning
• Drinks included during the evening
• All meat, ingredients, rubs and seasonings provided
• Team brisket judging the following morning
• Take-home goody bag
  
  

Two Masterclasses, One Overnight Cook

The Overnight Smoke is built around understanding brisket from beginning to end.

Rather than starting with a pre-trimmed piece of meat and following a recipe, you’ll first learn where the brisket sits on the animal and how the cut is broken down.

From there, we move to the smoker.

Working with our Pitmasters, you’ll prepare a full packer brisket and take it through the stages of a traditional low-and-slow cook.

The format gives us something an ordinary daytime BBQ class can’t: time.

You’ll see how the brisket changes throughout a long cook and learn how to make decisions based on the meat, fire and temperature rather than simply following a timetable.

What You’ll Learn

Brisket Butchery

Before we cook, we start with the animal.

You’ll learn where the brisket comes from, how it is removed and how its structure affects the way we prepare and cook it.

We’ll look at:

• Where the brisket sits on the animal
• The point and flat muscles
• Fat and connective tissue
• Breaking down and preparing the cut
• Selecting and assessing brisket for smoking

This gives you a much better understanding of what happens later during a long cook.

Preparing a Full Packer Brisket

You’ll then prepare a full packer brisket ready for the smoker.

We’ll cover trimming, fat removal, shaping and seasoning, including how the preparation of the brisket affects bark development and the finished cook.

You’ll also look at rubs, seasoning and flavour profiles and learn how to develop your own approach rather than relying on one prescribed recipe.

Fire & Smoke Management

A long brisket cook requires a stable fire and clean smoke.

You’ll learn how to set up the smoker, manage fuel and airflow, maintain the required cooking environment and recognise good-quality smoke.

We’ll also cover how different fuels and woods affect the cook and the flavour of the finished brisket.

The Stall, Wrapping & Foil Boats

As the brisket progresses, we’ll look at what happens during the stall and the options available to you.

You’ll learn when and why you might wrap a brisket, including traditional wrapping and foil-boat techniques, and how these decisions affect bark, moisture and cooking time.

The emphasis is on understanding your options rather than teaching one single ‘correct’ method.

Knowing When It’s Done

Temperature is useful, but it doesn’t tell you everything.

We’ll show you how to assess the brisket as it approaches the end of the cook, using internal temperature alongside feel and tenderness to decide when it is ready to come off the smoker.

You’ll then learn how to rest, hold and slice the finished brisket correctly.

The Overnight Cook

After the daytime masterclasses and evening meal, it’s your turn to manage the smoker.

Working with your team, you’ll take responsibility for your brisket as it cooks overnight.

You’ll monitor the fire and meat, make adjustments when required and put the techniques covered during the day into practice.

There’s a competitive element too: each team is cooking its own brisket, with the results judged the following morning.

It’s friendly competition, but there can only be one team of Brisket Champions.

The Food

You won’t be living on brisket samples for 18 hours.

During the evening, we’ll sit down together for a generous BBQ banquet prepared by our Pitmasters, with opportunities to get involved with the cooking throughout.

The following morning, we’ll serve a full Cowboy breakfast while the overnight briskets are finished and prepared for judging.

All meat, ingredients, rubs, sauces and seasonings required for the experience are included.

Your Overnight Stay

You’ll stay on site in heated tipi accommodation, allowing you to remain close to your smoker throughout the overnight cook.

Accommodation includes:

• Real beds
• Heating
• Power
• Fridge
• Firepit
• A smoker for your team’s overnight brisket

Your fridge will be stocked for the evening, and drinks are also available from the bar.

The Morning After

After breakfast, it’s time to see how the night’s work has paid off.

We’ll take the briskets through the final stages of resting and slicing before tasting and comparing the results.

We’ll discuss what worked, what each team might do differently next time and how the decisions made during the night affected the finished brisket.

Then we’ll crown the night’s Brisket Champions.

Is This Experience Right for Me?

The Overnight Smoke isn’t just for BBQ obsessives. It’s part masterclass, part challenge and part night away on the farm.

You might be taking on your first overnight brisket, or you might already reckon you know exactly what you’re doing. Either way, you’ll spend the night cooking alongside other teams, swapping ideas, keeping the fires going and, inevitably, keeping an eye on the competition.

It’s a great choice if you:

• Want to learn how to prepare and smoke a whole brisket from start to finish
• Already know your way around a smoker and want to put your overnight skills to the test
• Fancy a different night away with a group of friends
• Love BBQ, live-fire cooking and good food
• Enjoy a bit of friendly competition
• Want to pick up new techniques from our Pitmasters
• Like the idea of a BBQ banquet, drinks around the fire and a night in a heated tipi
• Think your team has what it takes to be crowned Brisket Champions in the morning

You don’t need loads of BBQ experience to take part. We’ll teach and guide you through the cook, while giving more experienced guests plenty of opportunity to put their own knowledge and instincts to work.

You’ll Leave With

• Experience preparing and smoking a full packer brisket
• An understanding of brisket butchery and anatomy
• Practical knowledge of trimming and seasoning
• Experience managing fire and smoke over a long cook
• An understanding of the stall, wrapping and foil-boat techniques
• Knowledge of resting, holding and slicing brisket
• Experience of managing an overnight smoke
• A take-home goody bag
• And, for one team, bragging rights as Brisket Champions
  
  

Millington Hall Farm BBQ School

The Overnight Smoke takes place at Millington Hall Farm BBQ School in the Cheshire countryside.

It’s a longer and more involved experience than our daytime classes, giving you the opportunity to follow one of barbecue’s most challenging cuts through the complete process rather than seeing individual stages in isolation.

You’ll butcher, trim, season, smoke, monitor, rest and slice brisket over the course of 18 hours — with plenty of food, drink and time around the fire along the way.