You have your smoker, your gauges are good, you have found any hotspots, you understand heat flow/control and you have successfully kept your smoker at 200 – 275 for longer than 10mins. You should now be ready to cook a larger cut of meat! Now I don’t eat pork but if you like pulled pork go get you a pork shoulder and make that your first attempt at a larger cut of meat. Pork shoulder CANNOT be messed up, there is just too much fat in them to get messed up. The following brisket steps will work fine on a shoulder. However if you are wiser beyond your years and don’t eat pork either I recommend cooking a brisket as your fist larger cut.
First things first, what kind of brisket should you get? This is easy, look for a packer style brisket, or untrimmed brisket. If you are walking through the store these are those MONSTER size briskets (as long as your arm, and they have a huge section of fat on them). A packer style brisket is basically an untrimmed brisket that has both the point and the flat together; these two sections of meat are separated by a layer of fat. The main thing I look for is flexibility. Take the package and shake it around see which one has more flexibility to it. The more flexible the more marbling and fat within the tissue which will in turn create an even juicer more tender BBQ brisket. These briskets can be scary because of their price, but don’t worry if you follow this guide you don’t have to worry about $40 worth of meat going up in smoke.
Step 1: Get your fire started.
I don’t know how many times I see people waste time getting food ready and then try and start a fire. As you know Charcoal and firewood takes a little while to get going, so why not kick the fire off first, it normally works prefect. You walk out to a smoker that is up to heat ready for food and your food is ready for the smoker.
Here again my goal is SIMPLE BBQ that is amazing. I don’t do anything to my brisket except COVER the entire brisket with Nate’s BBQ rub. I don’t trim, I don’t score, and I don’t do ANYTHING outside of rub. All the techniques I hear don’t make any difference or if they do it’s not enough for me to justify the time and the work to use them. BBQ is simple and brisket is one of the simplest. The key here is the flour that is in the rub. If you did not have the flour your meat would turn out to salty, spicy or sweet. With the flour you can COVER every inch of your brisket with rub; this rub caramelizes with the fat creating a perfect bark that keeps all that moisture in the meat, right where we want it.
Step 3: Watch Duty.
Once the smoker is up the 200 – 275 degrees put the brisket in. At this point all you are concerned with is heat control you don’t want that smoker going above 275 and you really don’t want it going any lower than 200. Now obviously the lower the temperature the more tender the meat is going to be. I normally keep mine at 250ish that way if I miss a cycle or lose track I have more time to catch it and bring it back up to heat. If the heat gets too low you start exposing your meat to the danger zone of bacteria.
At this point you should be roughly 6 – 8 hours into the smoking process. You have been a champ keeping your smoker at temp for this long. This is the point that I normally check the internal temp of the meat. Your brisket should look almost burnt (it might scare you at first, but don’t be worried). With all hopes your internal temp is somewhere around 165 – 175ish. This is the point that I will wrap the brisket in foil. Now to clear up any confusion keeping the brisket open (not wrapped in foil) will do NOTHING but give you bragging rights in the BBQ community. Your brisket will not get anymore smoke flavor. I challenge anyone to be able to tell the difference between a brisket that was smoked open for 7 or 8 hours and then wrapped in foil vs. one that was open the entire cooking process. Also if you are just exhausted and tired of tending to the fire pre-heat that oven to 225 and finish the brisket off in the oven, it’s not going to get any more smoke on the smoker wrapped in foil. The reason I like to wrap in foil is it just makes the cooking process easier; it helps keep the moisture in and expedites the cooking process in general.
Step 5: Monitor the internal temp.
Get yourself a good quality remote digital temperature, this way you can keep it probed in the meat while it is cooking. If you are planning to make just chopped brisket or pulled pork cook until the internal temperature reaches 200. If you plan to slice any of the brisket cook to an internal temperature of 190, the lower temperature will allow you to slice the brisket without it falling apart. Once the brisket has reached its finished temperature pull it out of the smoker and let it rest (still wrapped in foil) at room temperature for 45 minutes to an hour. This will allow the meat to rest (another topic all together).
The way I start is cut the brisket in half at the thickest point (this is the place where the point and the flat meat). This way you can clearly see the point, the flat, fat cap, etc. You will see where the point and the flat are separated by a layer of fat. Separate the point from the flat. Once completed on both halves you should end up with two pieces of flat, and two pieces of point. Cut off all excess fat and fat cap (keep the larger sections of the fat cap we will use them later). Now once the flat is cleaned off you will be able to see the grain of the meat. At this point you want to slice the brisket against the grain. The flat will be the part that has a really tight grain and runs almost parallel with the length of the brisket (when you cut the brisket in half it’s the part that was cut against the grain or close to). Now that the flat is sliced you can chop the point.
Note: See video for details on slicing and chopping.
Step 7: Now that you have everything chopped and sliced if you have any leftover or are planning to heat this up for an upcoming party simply put the brisket in a cake pan and then cover with the slices of fat cap that you kept and cover pan with foil. To re-heat pre-heat oven to 350 and place pan in over for 15 – 20 minutes, the slices of fat cap will help keep the brisket moist while you re-heat as well as add flavor.
- From no to know
Nathan Conner
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