How I Brisket'd

how I smoked a brisket with the kid and now we think we expert enough to write about it...

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Listen, Hammy (my husband for those who do not know) is so into BBQ, but then again, we Texan and who ain’t all about the Bee Bee Que? But he is drowning in this stuff. He is in all the Facebook groups, my YouTube homepage looks like an outdoor cooking channel (I just wanna watch wax pulled from ears, Son, get on your own account!), and he is pretty much out there on the smoker every single weekend that he is off. Rain, hail, cold, Hell heat, don’t matter…he out there. Like a City Boy, he outside.

I told him one day, “I’m gonna do the brisket.” I’m proud as hell on the outside, but on the inside, I’m falling apart. A brisket is a commitment. It is the holy grail of Texas BBQ. This slab of beef will make or break you. And should it break you, you gon’ keep hearing about it for the rest of your life. Don’t matter if you make 49 immacculate briskets, you muck up one…that’s gonna be the story they tell everybody and they mama.

But hell, I wanted to tackle the big fish. I mean, beef. Go big or go home, right?

This is my story about how it all went down…but not down like my trash can did in that fire when I tried my very first brisket. It went down in the up kind of way. So, that’s a good thing.

Follow along.

It was a clear black night, a clear white moon…ha, just kidding…that’s the intro to Warren G’s “Regulate” though I did “regulate” on this brisket.

Oooohhh! Jokes for miles, y’all. I am here all day.

Okay, for real, let’s get after it. But wait, disclaimer time: ya girl ain’t really an expert, I was just winging it and it happened to turn out really damn good. This is what I did. This don’t mean this what you should do. But if you were to try it and it came out decent…that’s pretty damn amazing right there.

Alright, let’s continue.

The Meat:

Ain’t no way in hell you can start this process off with a sucky ass cut of brisket. Then again, for eons brisket itself was considered the sucky ass cut of beef that was tough as baby teeth and took too damn long to make chewable and shit. So, what do I know? Grab some damn brisket yo. If you have a butcher that will trim it up for you, you can do that if you ain’t confident enough to do it yourself. If you are fortunate enough to have a grocer that sells them already trimmed, go on and grab that up if you wanna. But hell, they be charging you more for that and the meat be smaller. I think for more bang for you buck, buy the untrimmed, watch some YouTube videos on how to slice and dice that monster meat, and voila! You well on your way to becoming legendary in these BBQ streets.

That’s what I did, got my doctorate from the School of YouTube: Trimming Brisket.

So, I bought my untrimmed brisket from the fine folks at HEB, which is like Lord of the Grocery Stores in Texas, but also everywhere else cause Texans don’t acknowledge shit else. It was a whopping 13 pounds. That’s more than enough for our little family of four. I can’t remember the cost off the top of my head but brisket can run you some coinage, that’s why you gotta be super sure this what you want to get into cause you jack this meat up, you gonna be howling about them dollars wasted.

But don’t fret, you might could save it by throwing it in the pressure cooker or oven, or supply your dog with the remains of what should have been dinner for a few days. See, all won’t be lost, but your brisket will be.

Lemme stop.

HEB keep the brisket, as all meat, cool in the refridgerated meat section and I came home and put it straight in my fridge because the University of YouTube told me that it is easier to trim cold brisket than it is room temp brisket. Makes sense, right?

You know what else makes sense?

A PROPER SLICING KNIFE!

Yo, where Hammy failed in his previous endeavors, in his early brisket smoking days, is we had shit knives. They might slice butter but that’s about it. You need some good ass knives. At least two different ones. One to trim the brisket. One to slice the brisket.

Trust me, for real.

We bought what were designated as “brisket slicing knives” at Walmart in the grilling section next to Garden. One long rounded knife was for slicing the finished product and a much shorter one but sharp as shit knife for trimming the uncooked brisket.

Is it the best knives on the market? Fuck no! This is Walmart, c’mon! But it did a damn fine job though. You order one for delivery, pick up or take your behind to the store and grab you one if you’d like. Image should be linked. If not, click here to check it out for yourself.

I don’t get no damn commission from Walmart, but hell, I should.

Trimming.

Aight, so boom…you got your knives, your cold brisket. Get to trimming that baby. Now, for this part I turned to…you guessed it, YouTube. There are so many brisket trimming videos on there. I can’t give a specific one I watched, I took tips from like four of them. But go there if you can’t figure out how to trim your brisket.

And trimming is a must. Several videos explain why that is, I can’t remember why, but I am sure it is as scientifical as it is taste and texture wise.

I took my brisket out of that tighter than a midi dress from Fashion Nova wrapping. And patted it dry. That blood and stuff be making it icky, not to mention slippery. I then trimmed the brisket according to four different videos. When it finally looked how I wanted it to look, I patted it dry some more and it was time for seasoning that bad boy.

Seasoning.

Now, for a true Texas brisket all you need is salt and pepper, baby. I threw in some garlic powder though. Cause…Black people. Hammy be getting all fancy with his seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar, some other things I can’t remember, and a wet rub of mustard (or something else, I can’t quite remember, but this ain’t about him so…moving on).

I wanted a Texas brisket. I wanted smoke ass flavor, with smoke ass ring, with black ass bark.

So, I put about 2 tbsp each of kosher salt, garlic powder, and pepper in a canister. And I sprinkled and rubbed until the ancestors said stop. I coated that brisket with every bit of those seasonings and then I put it aside to start my fire.

Smoking.

Hardwood, patience, and some orange juice for energy or something is what your ass need for this smoke. I used what wood we had left, pecan. I filled my aluminum pan that I used for drippings and to add a bit of moisture to the smoker, with water and placed it below the grill grates. I lit up our wood. I learned my lesson using lighter fluid, don’t ever use that. It makes your food taste like…lighter fluid.

I waited until my smoker said 225 degrees and it was time to add my brisket to the smoker. Now, before I did I stuck a meat thermometer into the fattest part. We have one of those ones where you don’t have to open the lid to get a read. Get one of them. You do not want to open your damn smoker lid for like half a damn day.

I placed the brisket with the point end facing the heat source. The point is the fatter part of the brisket and should be better able to handle the higher temp. Putting it the other way would cook the thinner end too fast and it get all crispy and shit.

And you don’t want that. Unless you do, then by all means…put the thinner end near the fire.

So, I placed my seasoned brisket on the grill plates, fat side closer to the fire. I feel like I am gonna be a broken record with that one. And I shut the lid and went on about my life.

Nah, not really but kinda really. I ain’t open nor touch that lid. I just let it smoke at a consistent 225 degrees. And that was hard as fuck to do. If you ain’t using a pellet smoker then you gotta be using all the science you learned in grade school to help you out here. Maintaining that heat was a chore. Opening the vents, closing the vents…all of that to make sure it stayed at 225.

In my readings, I learned that it takes roughly 1.5 to 2 hours per pound of brisket. We had a 13 pound brisket and I started at like 5pm.

Yeah.

We binged the Night Agent and The Recruit the whole time that brisket smoked. Setting alarms and punching the air when they went off so we had to check that brisket.

“We” is the me and the youngest. He helped me with this smoke.

Wrapping.

When the internal temp hit 165 degrees, that is when we opened the lid. I spray the fuck out of that meat with some apple juice and then we wrapped it in butcher paper.

This where I fucked up. Now, you can wrap in butcher paper or foil. I let them folks online fight about which is the proper way to do it. Our brisket was not gaining temp wrapped in that damn butcher paper. It was like it fucking stalled on us. Apparently there’s a term for that: thermo-stall. When the damn temp don’t fucking move.

I thought turning the temp up way higher than 225 was gonna drive my brisket temp up. It did no such thing. And actually the temp went down! Lawd. I let it sit like that for about 2 hours before I was like, “fuck it, let’s wrap it with foil.”

And guess what? It worked.

So, I was able to put my temp back to 225 and continue to smoke it for another 6 hours until it reached an internal temp of 202 degrees.

I ain’t skilled enough for butcher paper. Shit.

Once we removed the foil wrapped brisket at 202 degrees, we let it rest for about an hour or two.

By this time it was next day and we were drowsy and hungry.

I took at damn nap. This was a chore.

Slicing.

Once I stumbled out the bed is when I decided that it would be time to cut this baby.

Against the grain or you gonna get shredded beef.

Unless that’s what you want.

That brisket knife cut through that meat like it was nothing. Like air. I have to work on the thickness of my cuts but hell it is just us. Who we trying to impress?

I made no sides like we usually do with our BBQ. This was just gonna be sandwiches.

Meat. Bread. And the BBQ sauce I made (I will share that in another post).

Moment of truth time though. It was time to taste.

And when we did….LAWD.

WE DID THAT.

Even Hammy had to admit defeat. I surprised my damn self. Like what? It was tender, juicy, flavorful. It wasn’t gonna win any awards for presentation but it was sooooo good.

I present to you, the meats:

Took us a total of 16 hours (to include them lost hours to the butcher paper), full season of the night agent, half a season of the recruit, no sleep whatsoever, and a six pack of apple juice, but we did the damn thing!

That smoke ring thicker than a fresh BBL. That bark is barking. Meat softer than a two minute egg.

Okay, lemme stop. Hammy was about to shed a tear or three.

I’m just gassing myself up at this point. And I’ll do it again. Who gon’ check me, Boo? I don’t know how Hammy will recover from this meat beatdown, but I welcome him to try. And I am actually excited to try this again, see if I can duplicate the results or make it even better.

Who knows? If you have made your own brisket, let me know what worked for you. Let me know what didn’t. Share any tips, advice, and pointers you may have.