We have Cash and Carry<\/a> around here, so that was a good thing for this exercise. Still, a nearly 15 pound piece of meat at nearly $4 per pound meant this was going to be a spendy project.<\/p>\n Brisket Before<\/p><\/div>\n Simply, this is the decision whether you are going to remove any of the fat that runs (probably) along one side of the brisket. I chose to not trim because there seemed to be decent evidence that the fat would help keep the brisket moist and you can always remove it when you\u2019re done and before serving.<\/p>\n Most brisket experts I read said a rub of some sort was good and that many of these experts used a simple mix of salt and pepper and that doing anything else was largely a waste.<\/p>\n I opted for a simple rub made of some things I had around the house:<\/p>\n The rub was added after I brushed the brisket with a light coat of vegetable oil to give it something to stick to.<\/p>\n I applied the rub the night before, put the brisket on a large pan, covered it in plastic wrap and let it sit over night.<\/p>\n I wanted to smoke the meat, too, but I am using a gas grill. This fact may have led to some of the issues that occurred later. In any case, I bought a small bag of hickory chips and soaked them in water overnight by putting them in a bucket and covering them in water. I put a plate on them and a weight on the plate to keep the chips submerged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hardwood Chips<\/p><\/div>\n I wasn\u2019t sure I was going to pump, which means use some sort of injection mechanism to insert some kind of liquid in to the meat. This is all to try and make sure you end up with moist brisket.<\/p>\n In the end, because it was cheap to purchase, I did try this and used beef broth.<\/p>\n This probably led to the most embarrasing part of the experience as I clearly did not know what I was doing because when I attempted to inject an ounce of beef broth in to the brisket the night before, it either expanded like a balloon, only to seep out later or it sprayed out comically from some other place like a water balloon with a leak.<\/p>\n Based on my research, I knew I could let the temperature of my grill float between 225 and 250 degrees and it would likely have very little impact on the end success of the project.<\/p>\n The brisket should not be on direct heat. My grill has three burners running from end to end of the grill. So, I turned on the back burner, put the smoker box on that and planned on the brisket covering the front two burners so it would only have indirect heat.<\/p>\n The Stall<\/strong> is one of the things that many of the sources talked about. This is where the temperature of the brisket will stick<\/strong> at 150 degrees for a long period time. I won\u2019t duplicate the content here, but if you\u2019re curious about the explanation, you can read about it more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is lots of information out there about the right temp or checking doneness by, literally, \u201csticking a fork in it\u201d. Testing brisket, one article claimed, is where this saying comes from. The writer was from Texas, so there may have been some hyperbole, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n I settled on 203-205 degrees as my goal.<\/p>\n Well, based on my reading, I was prepared for 12 to 14 hours. Working backwards from a goal of actually eating my brisket for dinner on Sunday, I worked backwards and my math said I needed to get up at 4pm to pull the meat out and start the grill. Then, according to my reading, I would need to add more chips every hour or so. Suddenly my major concern was the sleep I was going to miss. Yawn!<\/em><\/p>\n The brisket is made up of those two parts mentioned earlier: the flat and the point. These two pieces were much more easily identified (for me) after cooking.<\/p>\n Some folks separate the flat and the point and cook them at the same time, but separately as the flat can finish more quickly then the point can take a bit longer. I chose not to do this because I lacked any confidence in my ability to separate them before cooking and I didn\u2019t believe my grill had room for both chunks of meat and still allow the brisket to not<\/strong> be on direct heat.<\/p>\n The right way to carve a brisket involves separating the flat from the point and then cutting the flag perpendicular to the grain of the meat. I forgot this in the end and cut parallel to the grain. It still tasted good, but it was one of several areas where I didn\u2019t execute correctly despite my research.<\/p>\n Some of the sources I read indicate that \u201creal\u201d brisket doesn\u2019t require any sauce or will use something more akin to a gravy than a sauce, but since we\u2019re not in Texas and it\u2019s my damn brisket, I can do what I want and I like barbecue sauce on my brisket.<\/p>\n I was hoping for something with a bit of kick, but in the end I ended up with something sweet that was close to a sauce you might find in Kansas City.<\/p>\n Here is the (nearly) recipe I used:<\/p>\n Kansas City Barbecue Sauce<\/strong><\/p>\n By Derrick Riches<\/p>\n This variation of the traditional Kansas City BBQ Sauce is a thick sweet sauce with a touch of heat to give it a little kick. This is a great barbecue sauce on BBQ Ribs.<\/p>\n Prep Time:<\/strong> 10\u00a0minutes<\/p>\n Cook Time:<\/strong> 30\u00a0minutes<\/p>\n Total Time:<\/strong> 40\u00a0minutes<\/p>\n Yield:<\/strong> Makes about 3 cups<\/p>\n Ingredients:<\/strong><\/p>\n Preparation:<\/strong><\/p>\n Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir constantly for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sauce should be thick. Allow to cool. Store in an airtight container. Refrigerate.<\/p>\n Modifications:<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are the major events that I knew to expect:<\/p>\n One of the key things I needed and made this whole process was a dual probe barbecue thermometer – one for the meat, one for the temperature in the barbecue. The one I chose also had a remote so I could carry it around with me. Additionally, it had alarms for low and high temperature on either probe. I didn\u2019t use those this time.<\/p>\n The one I chose was this one<\/a> from Amazon for $45. It was easily worth the peace of mind and the ability to know whether I needed to adjust the barbecue temperature or when the meat reached the necessary temperatures.<\/p>\n I also purchased a cheap smoker box, which is just a metal box with holes in the top and bottom to hold the hardwood chips (choose your favorite flavor – I used hickory).<\/p>\n It\u2019s not science if you don\u2019t have data and one of the pieces of data I wanted was the temperature versus time. Data below for posterity and so that I can draw upon it next time.<\/p>\n Here is a link<\/a> to the Google Table doc with my cook times.<\/p>\n This was a fun project but also very time intensive. I don\u2019t know of a better<\/em> way to get good brisket, but it certainly would have been cheaper to just go buy it at our favorite barbecue joint and less time intensive, but that wouldn\u2019t have been as much fun.<\/p>\n When you look at the cost of the gadgets, supplies and brisket itself – taking aside entirely the cost of my time, it was the most expensive dinner we\u2019ve had at home in a very long time. But, I\u2019ll get a good return on the gadgets.<\/p>\n Of course, if I look in to a Traeger smoker, I could really<\/strong><\/p>\n make an expensive brisket!<\/p>\n I\u2019d recommend trying this, to anyone who is interested, at least once. Getting to eat something you spend hours working on is always rewarding.<\/p>\n Here are a few links to sites I accessed in my research and are well worth checking out, especially the first one which is a pretty definitive course on brisket:<\/p>\n This last weekend I decided to take the plunge and attempt that most manly of pursuits: Making a Brisket. (This for certain values of \u201cmanly\u201d) The results were a mixed bag and I have lots to learn and to try and do better\/differently the next time I try this. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-make"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"darrin","author_link":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/author\/darrin\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"BrisketUncooked\"](\"http:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/BrisketUncooked-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Trim or Not to Trim?<\/h3>\n
Rub<\/h3>\n
\n
Wood Chips<\/h3>\n
![\"Hardwood](\"http:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/BrisketWoodChips-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Pump It Up!<\/h3>\n
Cooking Temperature<\/h3>\n
Where Does It Go?<\/h3>\n
Texas Crutch<\/h3>\n
When Is It Done?<\/h3>\n
How long will it take?<\/h3>\n
Carving<\/h3>\n
Barbecue Sauce<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
Major Steps<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
End Results<\/h3>\n
![\"BrisketDone\"](\"http:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/BrisketDone-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"BrisketLeftovers\"](\"http:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/BrisketLeftovers-300x278.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRequired Gadgets<\/h3>\n
![\"Barbecue](\"http:\/\/mossor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-28-at-8.49.12-PM-300x277.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nData: Time To Cook<\/h3>\n
Key Learnings<\/h3>\n
\n
Things I Did Wrong<\/h3>\n
\n
Things That Went Well<\/h3>\n
\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n
Links<\/h3>\n
\n