If you are just starting out with a smoker. Here's a step by step guide to making a brisket that comes out perfect every time.
One of the first things I tried to make in my smoker was brisket. I had done a lot of research and found that everyone has a different way of doing it. I also polled a few friends that make brisket on a regular basis. This is the way I make it and I've never had a dry, tough or under seasoned bite.. For the most part, brisket is easy. You don't have to fuss with it a lot, you just need several hours, a little bit of planning and some patience.
Selecting Your Meat
I live in a pretty populated area so it's pretty easy for me to go to a wholesale club like Sam's or Costco and get a good piece of brisket. I always look for a decent layer of fat on the top. I also pick it up and see if it's pliable. I found it's a pretty good indication of how tender your brisket will be. If you pick it up, and place your hand underneath the meat, the sides should droop down. If it doesn't want to "bend" then look for another one. If you shop at a store where the meat is behind a counter ask the butcher to do this for you. If you're shopping in a store that uses those styrofoam trays on all their meat this might be difficult. My experience is brisket is usually a pretty big cut and it's usually in a heat sealed plastic wrap.
The Night Before Your Smoke
Two things will add flavor and tenderness to your brisket. Rub and and a liquid injection. I have two favorite products I use that you can purchase on Amazon. My friend Mark, who does BBQ competitions recommended both of these and I have used them ever since. First up, the injection liquid.
Kosmos Q Brisket Injection Blend is great. It runs about $25 but the bag lasts quite a while. For a 5 lb brisket you only need about a cup of liquid. Use a injection syringe to evenly distribute the liquid inside of the meat.
Next up the rub. I love to use The Most Powerful Stuff by Eat Barbecue. I usually buy the really big bottle because I will use it on grilled onions, chicken and all sorts of stuff. Slather both sides of the brisket with run-of-the-mill yellow mustard then dust with the rub. The rub needs to stick to something and you don't need to worry about having it taste "mustardy", the flavor of the mustard will evaporate as you smoke.
after the meat is slathered and dusted, cover it up with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge overnight.
The Morning of Your Smoke
Bring the brisket out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature while you heat up the smoker. For both the pellet and propane smokers I like to use Hickory.
On the pellet smoker: Load up the hopper with the hickory pellets and set the temperature to 250°. Give it a good 10 minutes after you close the lid to get to temperature. Everything on the PitBoss is pretty automatic so there isn't much of a need to keep track of the ambient temperature. Just make sure you're checking the hopper throughout the day since with a pellet smoker, the pellets are also the fuel.
On the propane smoker, when I take the meat out of the refrigerator I'll also place my hickory wood chips in a bowl of water. If you go on any meat smoking forum, there is a pretty hot debate the need to soak your wood chips. Personally,....I'm a soaker. I feel like soaking the chips helps keep my smoker temp from getting too high and I also like the satisfaction of seeing actual smoke come out of the chimney. At the end of the day, most find there is not a significant difference in soaking vs. not soaking so this is completely up to you. Before adding the chips to the smoker I'll get the temperature to 275° inside. I like to use a digital thermometer that has 4 ports (iGrill is the brand I have) and I use one of the probes to keep track of the ambient temperature in the smoker. Once it gets up to temp, then I will place my trays with the wet wood chips in side.
Load It Up!
Next put the brisket in the smoker. I put my digital bluetooth temperature probe in the thickest part of the meat and set it to 195°, If you are using the propane smoker, keep an eye on your wood chips for about the first 1.5-2 hours of smoking. The meat doesn't absorb that smokey taste after the first couple of hours so you don't have to worry about keeping the trays stocked with fresh wood chips. The propane is going to do the cooking.
When the meat reaches around 170-180° it can sometimes "stall" a little on it's way to fully cooked. Technically the meat is cooked and ok to eat at this temperature but it wont be that tender, melt-in-your-mouth brisket you want. It really needs to get all the way up to 195°. I will usually foil wrap a bigger brisket at this point and continue cooking. You will rob yourself of the yummy burnt ends when you do this however, so it's personal preference. For the 5 lb brisket pictured here, I did not wrap it and it took about 5 1/2 hours to get to 195°. This is a small brisket, most of the ones I get are a lot larger and can take up to 7-8 hours to get to temp.
Let It Rest - DON'T SKIP THIS STEP
Once you've reach a temperature of 195° on the brisket the most important thing is to let that meat rest. My personal strategy for this is to use my "meat cooler". It's a smaller cooler that I use just for this purpose. Take the foil wrapped meat (if you didn't wrap it before, you will want to do it now) and then wrap the foiled meat in a towel and place it in the cooler for no less than 1 hour. This particular smoke it was in the cooler for 3 hours. ....yeah, 3 hours! No kidding! And when it comes out, it is still pipping hot so there is no need to freak out.
This 1-3 hour time period is a great opportunity to throw some side dishes in the smoker!! Check out my Smoked Mac and Cheese and Jeff Phillip's Dutch's Wicked Baked Beans. They are awesome with the brisket!
Time to Eat!
Unwrap your brisket and slice along the short end. The knife should go through "like buddah!"
I use this method to make brisket every time and I have never been disappointed. The secret to good brisket is to keep it simple and do the work the night before and most importantly.....let it rest!
Enjoy!
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