Culinary Disasters

Brisket is my favorite piece of meat to put on a smoker.  It requires a lot of patience and skill because briskets hate temperature swings and are tempermental pieces of meat.  However, if cooked properly it becomes a very flavorful piece of meat that will melt in your mouth.

First thing we want to do is create the rub and this is perfect to do the night before.  This is a basic rub but can be expanded on very easily to add your favorite flavors.  Just remember when adding to a rub that even small changes can drastically change the taste of the rub so add small.  Also, it is easier to add more than remove so add some, taste, and adjust. 

In order to create this rub you will need the following:

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 TB paprika
• 1 tb garlic powder
• 1 tb onion powder
• 1 tb salt
• 1 tb black pepper
• 1 tb chili powder
• 1 tea celery salt
• 1/4 tea allsipce
• 1/4 tea thyme

Combine all ingredients and stir to combine.

Now we are going to turn our direction towards the brisket.  Getting it out of the package you will notice this is one ugly piece of meat.  First thing is dry it off.  I like to line a disposable pan with paper towels and throw it in.  Pat the top of it with more paper towels and then place it in the pan.

The brisket is going to have two sides.  One of them being covered in fat and this is referred to as the fat cap.  We want to keep this in tact so do nothing.

The other side is going to be speckled with fat.  The only thing I like to do on this side is trim up any larger pockets of fat and make it even with the meat.

Before:

After:

After the brisket has been patted dried and trimmed up we want to cover the brisket in worcestershire sauce.  This will help create a base so that the rub has something to stick to.

After that apply the rub.

Now the brisket is ready.  So lets get the Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) up to temperature.

First fill the charcoal chamber with unlit charcoal and distribute a few chunks of whatever wood you like amongst the charcoal.

Place 15 charcoal briquets into a charcoal chimmey and light.

Once the briquets have greyed over add them to the unlit charcoal.

Fill the water pan with water (very little if any taste is going to be added through the water pan so plain water is perfect), cover the smoker, open all 3 vents on the bottom and the top vent (this vent should never get closed) to fully open and wait till the temperature rises to 200 degrees.  After it has hit 200 degrees I like to close 3 bottom vents to only a 1/4 open and see if the tempature continues to rise or stabalizes.  Basically we want to stabalize the temperature at around 200-215 degrees.

Once the smoker temperature has stabalized go ahead and add the brisket fat side down.  Cover and do not touch till the internal temperature of the brisket has reached 165 degrees.  Also, as far as smoke we are looking for wispy barely visable streams of smoke not nuclear reactor style of smoke.  The problem with a lot of smoke is that the smoke is unable to exit the smoker quickly and will sit in the main chamber and stale smoke will add a very bitter taste to the meat. 

After the brisket has reached 165 degrees.  Remove from the smoker and wrap it in aluminum foil and place back on the smoker fat side down till the internal temperature is 190 degrees.  For brisket I usually figure that it is going to take anywhere from 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours per pound of meat.  Around 160 degrees also the meat is going to plateau while it is breaking fat and fibers down so you will not see the internal temperature rise.  Sometimes it breaks through the plateau very quickly and other times it up to a couple hours.  Just relax and realize your equipment is working fine.  Once it breaks through the plateau it will take it very little time to get to 190.

After the internal temperature has reached 190 degrees remove the brisket from the smoker and let it sit still wrapped for a good hour.  We want to give the juices a chance to settle. 

Slice into 1/2 inch slices (about the width of a pencil) and enjoy.

Tags: beef, BBQ, All //