My First Successful Brisket Cook
…and my biggest take aways.
It takes a lot of experience to be confident in what you cook. For me it took many years, lots of dry pork chops, chewy steaks, and overcooked chicken to finally become comfortable around my grill. Let’s wind the clocks back to 2010. I challenged myself to cooking traditional bbq foods. I started out on a vertical small charcoal smoker that had a water pan. I think it was a Brinkman, I might be mistaken. I cooked every weekend it seemed and eventually outgrew it. I wanted to cook more and more and got myself an electric Masterbuilt vertical, I learned that I didn’t want to mess with temperature anymore. I cooked lots of ribs on that thing. I was never really happy with the results though. If you’re struggling with BBQ cooks, you’re probably doing what I did, reading through articles and watching Youtube videos of the things you want to BBQ. I used to watch tons of Malcom Reed’s videos, he made it look so easy! I could never get my cooks to come out like his though. I was convinced it was the cooker, and ended up buying a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker. This is the most popular “bullet” style cooker, affectionately known as the WSM. I took Jay’s advice and got the big one. It probably has the best reviews on Amazon I’ve ever seen. I thought, if I could get dial in the temps on this thing then I'm golden. I’d be enjoying succulent ribs, chicken, and tri-tips in no time! Alas, I still struggled with mediocre food even with my stellar new cooker. Sadly, I knew the problem lay with my skills now and not the cooker.
So how did I overcome that? It was really finding friends in the hobby that changed everything. I could find good examples of what I was trying to do. I didn’t eat a lot of local BBQ because I didn’t feel like the BBQ scene around me was all that great at the time. I wanted to cook some world class pork shoulder, and ribs, and that magical piece of beef known simply as “brisket”. Jay at the time was just hitting his stride and becoming really good at it, I knew I needed to be around his cookers and learn as much as I could. Over the years I became more than proficient and have made some truly stunning dishes on my grills and smokers. There was one mysterious piece of meat that has eluded me though.
Brisket.
I'd done it a few times, and while I thought I knew what I was doing they never came out right. The flat (the bottom muscle) was always too dry or undercooked. The point though was hard to mess up, so it was never a total but I Even though I was doing everything Malcom Reed said I should be doing!
Fast forward now to 2020. Yep, this year. Jay and I (and the families) took a trip to California’s central coast for our annual trip together. We usually eat really good on these trips and it’s something we all look forward to. This year I suggested a brisket cook, but I wanted to cook it with some supervision. This would be a good learning experience for myself and we’d eat great in the process. Jay sourced a USDA Prime brisket and I hauled my WSM with me.
The first thing I did was prep the brisket. I trimmed as much of the thick hard fat off of it as I could leaving the meat exposed around all sides of it. I’m not going to gloss over this completely, I will add that trimming a brisket properly is a lot of work. I made sure I had my sharp knife with me for this task too. Very important and not to be underestimated, the place we stayed had some knives but they were very dull (dangerous!).
Next was the dry brine. Regular kosher salt does the trick. I generously applied the salt to all sides of it. I covered it and stuck it in the fridge for an overnighter. I’d be cooking that bad boy in the morning.
I was confident in my abilities usually up until this point. This is where I took my learning cap out and put it on.
I configured the smoker to go low and slow (meaning I wanted to cook for an extended period of time at a temperature between 200-250F). I let it ride at that temp all day it seemed. We checked on it periodically to make sure the WSM had enough fuel and we monitored the temp with my handy digital thermometer. It slowly climbed up past 180 degrees. I was still in familiar territory as far as cooks go.
My goal was a piece of brisket flat that would fold over a fork like you may have seen on Instagram. That and some outrageously beefy point meat.
We started inching closer to that “done” temp of 195F. This was my biggest take away, past me might have pulled it right then and there and hoped for the best. Grilling and BBQ takes all your senses though. Jay reminded me that a brisket will “let you know” when it's done. Was this some sort of Jedi mind trick? One too many Union Jacks? What he was talking about was the feel of the brisket. When I probed the brisket in the flat and point the resistance of the thermometer penetrating the meat was a great indicator of if the meat was tender. The point was tender early because of its natural marbly-ness (yep), the flat however I had to play chicken with on the temp. I had to not flinch as the temps climbed past 195 and into crazy town temps.
Patience.
After several temperature checks the probe inserted easily without any resistance and it was done. We rested it for about a half an hour in foil, in a cooler.
It was shortly after slicing it that I was overcome with an immense sense of satisfaction. Stealing a small slice here and there, marveling at the masterpiece I had created. I received some of the best compliments I've ever received that night when I learned that the kids snuck down in the middle of the night and devoured the small bit of leftovers from dinner.
My biggest takeaways were patience and cooking with all my senses. It helped to know what to look for and have those visual cues along with physical cues from the cook. I think I would have ruined many more briskets before I had that experience. It’s been about 2 months since that trip and I've cooked 3 successful briskets now since that trip.
Now get out there and grill!