How to Smoke a Beef Brisket Whole

How to smoke a beef brisket is a question you need to know the answer to – Smoking a beef brisket is one of those things that any self respecting pitmaster has to be able to do – it's a milestone in your BBQ'ing journey but don't let all that fool you into thinking it's an impossibly difficult task. The trepidation is understandable as not only does the task itself appear huge but a brisket is an expensive piece of meat so the idea of ruining it often puts people off but it really doesn't have to be that difficult a task. Don't get me wrong, it's a task that requires a little thought, a little preparation and a whole lot of time but if you follow our guide then you'll be smoking a brisket like a pro in no time at all – well, maybe ten hours but you get what I mean!

Now there are lots of recipes on the internet, and whilst we recommend following along with one of them once you're comfortable with what you're doing, we wanted to give you a more general guide to the techniques behind smoking brisket and to stick with a straightforward recipe to begin with. There are 'cheats' for cooking a brisket which people argue about and we cover them in a different article but for this piece we look at the tried and tested methods.

THE HERO

What is beef brisket exactly?

Well, brisket comes from the chest area of the cow and is basically the pectoral muscle. It's kind of a strange image, but that is basically what brisket is. It is from the front area, where the two front legs join to the cows central torso.

Do I have to cook beef brisket for hours?

In short, yes, yes you do – generally anything from about 7 – 12 hours dependent on the size and weight of the cut.
Because brisket is the "pectoral muscle" of the cow, it's sinewy with lots of muscle, lots of connective tissue, and lots of cartilage. In order to get that succulent, fall-apart-in-your-mouth texture that is the signature of a good brisket, you need to cook it for a long time over low heat. We don't want to get into too much science here, but we are trying to break down the proteins of these connective tissues, and because there's so much connective tissue it takes a long time to break down. Add to that, that an average size brisket is a big old piece of meat, and we're talking hours of cooking!
We generally would allow around an hour and a half for every pound of brisket at 225 degrees F but this is not precise as multiple things affect the cooking process

Choosing your brisket.

Brisket is a pretty large cut of meat, so it's often cut into two pieces – the flat and the point. The flat is what you will typically find, being a "flat" piece of meat. It's the leaner of the two cuts, and can be easily sliced and is what you will have seen in videos being carved off in thin slices. The point is marbled with fat, which means that it stays moist through those longer cooking times, but can't be sliced as easily as the flat and this is what traditional burnt ends are made from.

As we're smoking the brisket, we ideally want the whole brisket – both parts. This means your smoked brisket will stay moist over the long cooking time, and can then be sliced easily after cooking but if you can only get the flat then don't worry.

PREPARING YOUR BRISKET

Once you've bought your whole brisket the first thing you will need to do is prepare it.
The first thing we recommend doing is trimming the fat cap, which will be on one side of your brisket. Using a sharp knife, trim this to approximately a quarter of an inch. We want fat as it keeps in moisture and contributes to the signature brisket texture and taste, but we don't want so much fat that it can't be broken down (or rendered, as we call it), even during the long cooking time. Once the fat is trimmed, it's seasoning time!

SEASONING

The flavour of a smoked brisket is really coming from: a) the brisket itself and b) the smoke, so we suggest going simple with the seasoning. You want to impart flavour but not overcrowd the palate. With experience the seasoning is something you can play around with and change to your liking, but we think a basic dry rub is a great place to start. Coarsely ground salt and pepper is all you need. You can add more flavours as you like, but really there's no need to get too complicated here. Coat the meat in your seasoning, and don't be afraid to really go for it! There's a really long cooking time here, and that salt is going to help tenderize the meat and bring out its flavours.

Now cover your brisket and place it in the refrigerator and leave overnight if possible. Try and remove it an hour or two before cooking and let it come up to room temperature.

PREPARE YOUR SMOKER

You will want a mix of charcoal and wood to smoke your brisket with the charcoal providing the heat and the wood primarily providing the smoked flavour. There are a number of different types of wood which work well with a beef brisket with hickory, oak, maple and mesquite all working well. For a brisket any of the most common options will suffice but for a better and more in-depth idea of which woods work well, check out our article Which Wood To Use For Smoking.

If it's your first time you might want to keep it simple with just one wood, but over time you can try different wood mixes and varieties and taste the differences. One thing to note is that we don't want lots of smoke, just a steady stream, so go easy on the wood chunks. Too much smoke is going to leave your brisket with an overly smoky flavour and may result in bitterness.

Get a chimney of charcoal ready, place it in your smoker and then let the whole setup come up to temperature. Basically close your lids and leave it all alone for a while until it comes up to about 275 – 300 F.

TIME TO COOK

Now we get to the real magic!
You want to smoke your meat between 225 and 250 degrees F with steady, indirect heat so place the meat in the main cooking chamber and take care to properly adjust your vents to ensure the correct temperature.

The first three hours or so are when the meat is going to take on most of it's smoked flavour so do your best to leave the cooking chamber shut and ensure that you monitor your fire closely enough that you maintain your temperature and keep a good level of smoke.

By the end of this you should have a lovely dark bark on the outside of your brisket.

After these first few hours you now want to start monitoring your meats internal temperature quit closely so this is were you really need a good food thermometer with a probe. Insert the probe into what is roughly the centre of the thickest part of your cut.

Somewhere in the region of 160 F (maybe slightly higher or lower) your meat is going to stall and is not going to get any hotter for quite some time. Basically what is happening is that at this temperature enough moisture is being drawn to the surface of the brisket and evaporating that this has a cooling effect which stops the internal temperature from rising.

Its time for the Texas Crutch.

TEXAS CRUTCH

The Texas Crutch is the way of getting past The Stall and will reduce the cooking time by hours as well as helping retain loads of moisture in the meat by sealing in all of those juices and stopping them evaporating.

Remove the brisket from the BBQ and close it back up to stop all the heat escaping. If you're using a remote thermometer you want to insert your probe now prior to wrapping the meat so you don't have to pierce the wrapping.

Now take some foil, parchment paper or butchers paper and wrap the brisket tightly in two or three layers. We don't want any space between the meat and the foil and we don't want any of the juices to escape. If you're not using a remote thermometer then leave a tiny little space on top so you can insert your temperature probe without breaking the foil and all of your wrapping!

Now place it back in the BBQ and continue the cooking process but stop adding wood now as you're not looking to add any more smoked flavour.

Now continue to cook until you hit an internal temperature of 205 F.

REST THEN SLICE

Once your brisket's done, it's time to let it rest for at least an hour. If it's not already wrapped in foil, now is the time to wrap it up and set it aside or even better, place it inside a cooler (that isn't cool or full of ice) as this will help to keep it warm. This process allows juices to be reabsorbed back into the meat.

The last step is slicing the meat. If you have a cut with the point still attached then you want to remove that now and set it aside then take the flat and slice it across the grain.
And that's it. Ready to serve!

IN SUMMARY

• Start your preparation the night before.

• Trim any excess fat off the Flat of the brisket and trim the fat cap back to about a quarter of an inch on the Point.

• Give it a good, generous rubs with salt and pepper.

• Let it rest overnight in the refrigerator and remove an hour or two before you plan to start cooking.

• Preheat your smoker to about 275-300F and have a supply of some smoking wood – try something like hickory or oak to begin.

• Place the brisket in the cooking chamber and smoke for three hours at 225-250F.

• Once it stalls, remove and wrap tightly in foil or butchers paper then return to the smoker at 225-250F.

• Cook until the internal temperature of the brisket hits about 205F.

• Remove and allow to rest for at least an hour.

• Slice across the grain and serve.

Just as I explained earlier, this process isn't particularly difficult. Just get your prep work done and set aside enough time to cook the meat through properly thenall you have to do is follow the steps above and you'll nail it.

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Source: https://homebbqpro.com/cooking-meat-and-fish/how-to-smoke-a-beef-brisket/

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