Smoked Brisket - Recipe

Jonathon

How to Make Smoked Brisket - Recipe

Meat Block

10 lb Trimmed Flat Beef Brisket

Additives

1 Bag Pa’s Black Bull Marinade
3.5 lb of water

Or for injecting

1 Bag of Soluble Pa’s Black Bull BBQ Soluble Seasoning
14 oz of water

Process

Cook times will be long. Typically at least 8 hours and sometimes up to 14 or more hours. Cook times are long because we are not just cooking to 160° like many other meat products. We want to cook up to an internal temperature of around 190° to 200°. This is going to help break down the tough muscle fibers, collagen, connective tissue, and fat to make a more tender meat product.

When we cook for that long and up to a higher temperature, moisture control and creating a juicy final product becomes more difficult. This is a common point of failure for many people smoking briskets. The way to ensure you end up with a juicy and tender final product is to use a marinade, particularly one that includes sodium phosphate to help with moisture retention. Using phosphates will greatly increase the final yield and juiciness of the brisket.

Marinating

Our favorite option for brisket marinade and seasoning, which also contains phosphates, is Pa’s Black Bull Marinade from Excalibur Seasoning. Hands down, this is the best brisket seasoning out there. Mix .9 lb of seasoning with 24 oz of water and place in a food-safe container with your brisket and marinade for at least 12 hours. For best results, vacuum pack your brisket with the marinade; this will help your marinade penetrate deeper into the meat.

Injecting

Mix 1.4 oz of seasoning into 14 oz of water until fully dissolved, and inject all of the solutions into your brisket, making sure that you do so evenly throughout the entire cut. The other way to do this is to mix up the entire bag with a gallon of water and inject as much as the brisket will take, and then use the rest of the solution to marinate the brisket in overnight. With a seasoning like this, you are not going to overseason it by injecting as much of the solution as the brisket will take. Once you are done injecting, you should vacuum pack your brisket with any additional solution you have and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.

Once you are done injecting, you should vacuum pack your brisket with any additional solution you have and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.

Note

Since this does not have a cure in it, you are free to hold it longer in the refrigerator to try to get it to pick up even more flavor.

Thermal Processing & Smoking

Stage 1 - 140° for 2 hours
Stage 2 - 210° until internal temp is 190°

Cooling

For best results, fully cool the brisket in the fridge before slicing, unless you want to eat hot immediately, then go at it quickly.

Slicing

Slice across the grain into about 1/4" pieces.

Wrap up

Brisket can be an intimidating thing to cook for the first time, but if you keep it fairly simple and use a marinade that contains phosphates or add phosphates, it really is not that hard to end up with a wonderfully tasty Brisket!

Additional Tips

Try to get a Packer’s Cut that has “wet aged” for around 30 or so days; this will help with tenderness
Some people will use a "Texas Crutch” wrap to avoid the stall. The stall is when the meat starts sweating, and the evaporation energy keeps the meat from cooking. This is something we are familiar with as it is the exact reason that showering a cooked product for a minute and then letting it sit for a few minutes and then showering again will actually cool your product quicker than placing it in an ice bath.
Cooking fat side up will give you the best end result as the fat will begin to render or melt, and while it will not penetrate the middle of the meat, it will render along the sides.

Other Notes

Our recipe did not use a rub, so we are not going to end up with the same “bark” that using a rub would impart. Feel free to add a rub after marinating or injecting.

What Is Brisket?

Brisket is the lower chest of beef. It is a heavily used muscle, so if you do not cook it correctly, it can be very tough. However, when seasoned and cooked correctly, it is a great cut of beef. Brisket is most often smoked in the U.S., but it can also be boiled or roasted. Here at Walton’s, we think the only way to do it right is to smoke it! In a whole entire Brisket, there are actually two cuts of meat. First is the Brisket Flat, and second is the Brisket Point. A Brisket Flat is typically thinner and leaner but has a nice fat cap to it. This is what is typically viewed and desired for brisket. The Brisket Point is thicker, fattier, and more marbled fat. Brisket Points are great for making burnt ends but not the sliced brisket that many people think of as the initial word and thought of brisket.

Watch WaltonsTV: How to Make Homemade Smoked Brisket

Shop waltonsinc.com for PK 100 Pro Smoker Smokehouse

Shop waltonsinc.com for Heat Resistant Silicone BBQ Glove

Shop waltonsinc.com for Orange Silicone Tongs Set

spetersen07

With the PK 100, I am going to follow this recipe. But what do I do with the dampers? And I’m new to the PK 100…which wattage should I use? Thanks in advance!

processhead

spetersen07 said in How to Smoke Brisket - Recipe:

With the PK 100, I am going to follow this recipe. But what do I do with the dampers? And I’m new to the PK 100…which wattage should I use? Thanks in advance!

I would plan on using the high wattage setting. Set the dampers about 1/2 open and you should be fine.

It will be a long smoke to get a brisket cooked till its tender. Some folks will smoke for several hours and then wrap in foil and finish in the oven (see Texas Crutch above in the instructions.

After cooking, I like to let the cooked brisket rest in a insulated container like a cooler for another hour or so before slicing and serving.