Smoked Brisket

Brisket is one of the cornerstones of BBQ and is one of the most tender and moist cuts of meat you will ever enjoy if cooked correctly. That being said Brisket is also one of the most challenging pieces of meat to cook on a smoker / grill but, if you can get it right it is one of the most rewarding meals you can make. This recipe will help guide you through the process and talk about some tips to help you consistently turn out some melt in your mouth brisket.

Depending on the size of the brisket this recipe can take up to 20 hours to prepare so make sure you have a good part of the weekend free before you attempt it. Cooking a brisket is almost an art form in bbq. There are a lot of things to consider when making this recipe. You need pay attention to the quality of the cut of meat you get, how to trim and prepare, rub to use, how to cook and retain moisture, how long to rest, and finally just how to cut and prepare this for the table. This sounds like a lot but once you have done this once the process becomes a lot less daunting. I will go through each of these in more detail in this recipe.

To help cook this properly I think it is important to know a little about the cut of meat we are dealing with. The brisket is the pectoral muscle of a cow. It helps carry 60% of the weight of the cow when it is standing. Becuase of this there is a lot of connective tissue that can make the meat tough. To deal with this I will have you cook it at a low tempereature for a long amount of time to allow that connective tissue to have a chance to break down. The brisket is comprised of two main parts seperated by a layer of fat. The two pieces are the point and the flat. The point is the fattier piece of meat that is commonly used for burnt ends. The flat is slightly leaner than the point and can be used ot make corned beef.

Some stores will sell just the point or the flat seperately so be sure you are getting a full packer brisket for smoking. When you are shopping for your brisket it is also good to pay attention to a few other things to help give you the best brisket possible. The grade of meat you are getting is the first thing to pay attention to. Each brisket will have a USDA grade. The three most common grades of meat going from highest to lowest are Prime, Choice, and Select. The higher grade you can get the better the marbling you will have in the brisket which helps make it more tender. I don’t usually see Prime unless I go to a butcher and they can get pretty pricey at that grade but they are totally worth it if you can find them, if that is not an option definatley go with Choice over Select. Another thing to look at is how it has been butchered. Sometimes when these are getting processed some incorrect cuts can happen and you should try to look out for that. You want to try to avoid briskets that look like they might have had a gouge in them or if you can see bald patches in the fat cap since that helps protect the meat durring the cook. The last thing you should look for is the thickness of the flat. If you can ifnd one that is thicker that is what you want to go with. It will help it cook more evenly with the point and not dry out. Paying attention to these few things will help you start off with your best chance to make a great brisket. Now that we know a little about what we are cooking lets get into the steps.

Cooking Basics

When you first start out making brisket the prep work for this can take a little time. I definitely reccomend doing it the night before you want to cook. I say this for 2 reasons. Usually to get this done by dinner time you are going to be getting up really early to throw it on. Prepping a brisket is not a fun thing to do at 2 or 3 in the morning. The second reason is that you want to get your rub on the brikset and let it have a little time to adhere before you start cooking.

The first thing we want to do to our brisket is trim it. The first helpful tip on cooking a brisket is to make sure you are trimming it when it is cold. Just out of the fridge is the best because when it warms up the fat gets greasy and it becomes much more of a challenge to trim. We will first want to remove any larger pieces of silver skin as well as any hard pieces of fat because that will not render down in the cook. One side of the brisket will have a fat cap on it. We will want to trim this down to about an 1/4 of an inch as well. Other than this we want to try to make sure to make this aerodynamic so it cooks well in the smoker / grill. If you have any pieces that are sticking out you should trim them as they will just dry out in the cook anyway. Unfortuanately me describing this just does not do the process justice. I suggest watching a video on this process to really get a feel for what you need to do. I have included a link to a video showing How to Trim a Brisket done by Matt from Meat Church BBQ. These guys have some amazing rubs and Matt knows what he is talking about. If you feel like you still need more guidance after this just go search around on YouTube. There are a ton of videos on how to prep your brisket. Once the brisket is trimmed to your liking we need to apply the rub. You can choose to use a binder if you wish or a lot of people will just apply the rub directly to the brisket. If you want to use something to help the rub stick a couple of the common ones are yellow mustard or olive oil. Don’t worry about if you don’t like the taste of mustard because you will not get any flavor from the binder in the finished brisket. I have found that a combination of Holy Gospel and Holy Cow rubs from Meat Church is what I prefer on my brisket. Since you probably wont have that on hand immediately I will include a recipe for a Texas style rub you can make using just some salt and pepper that will still taste amazing. Feel free to use this or whatever rub you prefer. Make sure to put on a good layer and coat every piece to help form a good bark for your brisket. Once all of this work has been done we want to loosely wrap it and then let it sit in the fridge until we are ready to throw it on the grill.

When you are ready to throw the brisket on the smoker / grill you will want to preheat to 225 degrees. Mesquite, Hickory, or Oak are a few of the more popular types of wood to use for smoking a brisket. I use Pit Boss competition blend because I have a pellet smoker and it is hard to find a lot of the different types in my area. Competition blend is nice because it is meant to work with anything you may want to smoke. If you are using a grill you will need to cook with indirect heat and you will want to use a snmoke tube to get the same results you would with a smoker.

You can estimate the time it will take to cook a brisket by counting on it take about an hour and a half per pound so for a 10 pound brisket I would estimate 15 hours to cook and rest. This can definitely vary because no two cuts of meat are exactly the same so I would use the estimate you come up with and then give yourself another couple hours because it is ok to leave a brisket resting in a cooler for quite a while. Better to have it done early than have it done late.

Now that we have talked about time and smoke we need to discuss how to put the brisket on the smoker / grill. A lot of this will depend on where your heat is coming from. In my smoker the fire box is at the bottom over on the left hand side. Becuase of this I like put the fat cap facing down towards the heat to help protect the meat and aslo make sure the point is closest to the heat source because the flat will dry out much more quickly than the point. Different smokers and grills are set up differently but use these tips to help you decide how to place the brisket.

Once the brisket is on the smoker / grill we will leave it alone for the most part until it gets to an internal temperature of 165. The only thing I like to do durring this time is spritz the outside of the brisket every hour or so to help it stay moist. We will leave it for a the first couple of housrs to allow the bark to start to form and then every hour spritz the entire thing. I use apple cider vinegar for my spritz. Feel free to use what you like. I mention some options down below in the final thoughts section of this post. Pay extra close attention when spritzing the flat. This is the part of a brisket that is most likely to dry out just because it is thinner and less fatty than the point. To keep this recipe simple when the brisket gets to an internal temperature of 165 we will want to remove it from the smoker / grill and wrap it to help finish the cooking. When you get comfortable with cooking brisket a lot of people will use the bark to determine when to wrap but it is still usually in the ball park of 165 degrees internal temperature.

The two most common options for wrapping a brisket are to use aluminum foil or butcher paper. I will diwscuss the differences and you can choose for yoruself which method to use. The advantage to using aluminum foil when wrapping the brisket is it is easier to get a tight seal and keep the moisture in. The part about using this that some people do not like is that it will take away some of the bark you have created on the brisket. This is becuase the moisture is held in so well that it softens the bark in the last part of cooking. When using butcher paper you will not have the bark soften because although it can still retain moisture it will allow some moisture out this preserving the crunchy bark. Thsi will retain a little less moisture and you need ot make sure you have wrapped the brisket tightly with a nice seal or you could have some issues with the brisket drying out more than you want. If this is your first brisket I would probably recoomend the aluminum foil as it is easier to get the wrap nice and tight.

Once the brisket is wrapped we will put it back on the smoker / grill until it hits an internal temperature of 203. Once the brisket gets to this temperature you should use your thermometer to do the probe test on the brisket. Basically when you put the thermometer into the meat it should slide in like its going into warm butter. If you still get a little resistance at 203 degrees then I would let it go up a few more degrees until it passes the probe test. Once you take it off the smoker / grill you now come to the hardest part of this recipe. We need to wrap this brisket in a towel and put it in a cooler for an hour or two to allow it to rest. This is the longest rest time required for anything you will smoke but it is very important. This will give the meat time to slowly come down in temperature and allow the juices to thicken and also allow any steam in the meat to redistribute in the meat this retaining the most moisture possible. The great thing about this is you do not have to be axact in how long you rest it. If you get this done 4 or 5 hours before you are ready to heat it you will nto have a problem leaving it in the cooler for that long. Once you are ready to eat it is time to cut this up.

The last thing we need to talk about is how to cut the brisket. Brisket should be cut against the grain for best results. This is a little tricky as the grain changes when you get to the point. What you will want to do is to start cutting on the end of the flat on this end the grain runs the length of the flat so cut that piece as shown below. Once you get about 2/3rds of the way through you will be able to see the grain change. You will want to turn the brisket 90 degrees and cut up the rest. The first pieces along the flat should be cut at about a pencil width slices. When cutting the point you will want the slices to be slightly thicker. Once you are done with that congratulations. You are ready to eat.

Final Thoughts

• Moisture Retention - The toughest thing I have had to deal with while cooking a brisket is to make sure it stays moist. This is tough because it is cooking for a long time. I will mention a couple things you can try if you are having issues with yrou brisket being dry.

• Water Pan - This can help a lot with moisture retention becuase it does the same thing the fat cap helps with. It protects the meat from the direct heat. All you need is an aluminum pan to put some water in and tuck it under the grate if you can and set the brisket over it. I have tried this once and I will say it did seem to make the brisket more moist but it also added a good amount of time to the cook so be sure to consider that if you decide to try this option.

• Injection - I see a lot of people using injections to help give more flavor to the meat and also to help give it more moisture. You can get an injector fairly cheaply at most any place that sells grilling equipment. I will include a link at the bottom for anyone thinking of doing this. I have tried it a couple times and liked the results. It takes a little bit to get this process down and it can be a little messy but it definitely adds to the flavor of the brisket and helps keep it moist. Just search online and you will find any number of variations for brisket injection recipes.

• Brine - I have made a couple briskets where I actually brined them for 24 hours before cooking to allow it to absorb as much moisture as it could. I definitely noticed the results of this over briskets I cooked without brining.

• Alternatives - Not only do you need to try this recipe more than once to perfect how you need to cook it with your setup but there are also plenty of alternative ways to cook a brisket and you need to find out which you prefer.

• Bark - I mentioned above how you can wrap a brisket and how it affects the bark. One thing you need to see is hwo you prefer yrou brisket. Do you like a lot of crunchy bark or do you prefer your brisket to be tender all the way through. Some peopel will not even wrap the brisket at all durring a cook which will give it even more bark but take a little longer to cook.
• Rubs - There are plenty of different options for this and each is good. Its just a matter of preference. Texas style is the most common one I hear about but if you search online there are plenty of variations to fit what you like for flavors.
• Spritz - I use apple cider vinegar usually for a spritz but there are plenty of options ot choose from. You can use water, apple cider, apple cider vinegar, hot sauce, beer, beef broth, or a combination of things. Go crazy and experiment. If you find one you like that I have not mentioned please leave a comment. I woudl love to hear baout it.
• Burnt Ends - You use the point to make these and they are delicious. If you look online you will see all kinds of recipes for poor mans burnt end made from pork belly, chuck roast, and a number of other meats but nothing compares to burnt ends made from brisket. They are super tender and have an amazing amount of flavor. It takes a few extra steps trimming and cooking but they are worth the extra effort.

Recipe