The recipe is a lie. There isn't one. It's just meat and fire.
I mean I guess I could post a recipe for barbecue sauce and I might one day, but not today. I'll explain in a bit. I did post a recipe for my brisket rub. Here's an link to the recipe if you want it, though really, all you need is salt, pepper and a procedure.
There. I posted a recipe at the top of the page and have not violated my "never make a reader dig for a recipe" vow. Whew! Now that that's out of the way...
From May 22, 2024
It’s time for “True Confessions” on AnotherDamnFoodBlog.com. Being the first, it doesn’t get to be “AnotherDamnConfession”. That’ll be the next one. So here it goes. Deep breath.
I hate making brisket. Just fucking hate it. I like eating it, but at 90+ calories per ounce (I like the point – Bring me the fat of the beast!) I don’t get to a whole lot. What I hate more than making brisket is paying for someone else to make it. It’s always a crap shoot. Ever since that fucker in Austin started doing his thing, it’s become trendy all over the place and every swinging dick out there thinks they make the best brisket on Earth and charge accordingly.
We have this one place near me that serves a really good brisket, by all accounts. As I understand it, they started as a chocolate shop, but couldn’t make ends meet so they diversified. Good thinking. You’re paying for the space 24 hours a day, might as well use it. Anyway, the reason everyone makes a brisket is because it’s really fairly easy to make a passable one. Customers seldom know if what they are getting is good or not, true story, but if they are told it’s good, they won’t bitch. More than that, they'll wait in line for it!
For reference, barbecue in Texas means brisket. It can also mean pulled pork, pork ribs, smoked pork loin, beef ribs, chicken, sausage (usually pork) links and smoked turkey. But if there’s no brisket, it’s just meat that got cooked outdoors. Sides usually include sliced white bread, potato salad, ranch style beans, thinly sliced yellow onions, pickle chips and copious amounts of excess barbecue sauce.
I’m not actually a fan of barbecue sauce because of what it means. Unless it’s used as a glaze, barbecue sauce is there to moisten and flavor otherwise dry, flavorless meat. That means the “pitmaster” is no pitmaster at all and buggered up his job.
It’s worth mentioning that I have some fairly intense views on what Texas brisket should be. The wife strongly implies that I’m a snob, but it’s not that. Again, for me, it’s always about what brisket means. Yes, meaning in food. You’ll see that a lot here. It’s who I am.
I grew up hating brisket. My dearly departed mother loved it and would try to cook it, but she never had a good grasp on what makes a brisket good. Inevitably, she’d take this giant slab of beef and, over many hours, convert it into this tiny, dried out, hunk of roast jerky, pitch black on the outside, gray as a Bayou City Winter within. Just awful. No amount of barbecue sauce in the world could moisten or flavor the stuff.
If I may go on, which I can because it’s my web site, there is the scientific notion of a singularity.
As a very quick explanation, a singularity is a fixed point in space, infinitely small and infinitely dense, at the center of every black hole. That’s what my mother’s brisket was like, its gravitational pull drawing all moisture from the surrounding atmosphere until South East Texas was no longer humid. OK, maybe I exaggerate, but trust me, it was just bad. God bless her, though. She just kept right on trying.
Anyway, I never really understood her fascination with brisket, but she just kept going crazy for it, so eventually, I tried some that Mom had nothing to do with and I got it. The epiphany of what brisket could be and why my mother kept trying. I sort of picked up where she left off.
Now I make no claims to the title “pitmaster” for a couple reasons. The first is, it actually means something. Like Grillardin, Poissonnier, or Chef. It refers to a professional in a restaurant. I believe in the French Brigade system. Second, because it is thrown around so often by amateurs, it no longer has a meaning. Third, if not a kitchen position, “pitmaster” is just douchey.
Now, that being said, I am not without expertise when it comes to smoking meats, either for preservation or dinner service. The problem with that is I’m also obsessive.
When I started attempting my own briskets, I tried all manner of professionally prepared briskets until I found one that was consistent enough to be able to take notes over. The first rule of brisket obsession is consistency. If you can’t do it consistently, you can’t really do it. That’s also a part of my problem with making brisket. I have some fairly hidebound opinions and if I am to be true to what I believe, I must comply with my opinions. Annoying.
Anyway, long story short, I made a lot of briskets until I was happy with what I could produce, though, because I’m doing this at home and have limited resources, there is always some variation. What I focus on doing consistently is the texture I like, my son calls it “meat butter”, which I think is a very kind exaggeration, and moisture. The flavor should be that of cow as God, Con Agra, or Swift intended, ever so slightly enhanced by me. I’ve never made a brisket from an independent rancher providing grass fed beef. As much as I love their ideals and would love to patronize them, factory food is cheaper. Ideals are for people with way too much money.
Another reason I don’t like to make brisket is waste. I despise waste. Yes, I’ll wind up using the trim from a brisket for something else, but it won’t be brisket. It’ll be stew or barbacoa or chili or something.
The last reason I hate making brisket is the time required. It’s a long fucking process to get the results I’m happy with. I see these people online saying “Wow! I did a brisket in my Instant Pot and it was really pretty good.” Maybe so. But it’s not something I could ever bring myself to do. They’re too expensive. Oh, and speaking of expense…
I will only buy the cheapest packer brisket I can find, on sale. My rule used to be $1.99 per pound or less. I’ve since had to modify that as our government printed way too much money during Covid. I think I paid $1.89 per pound, last year, for the brisket I’m cooking for this Sunday Supper. It’s been fine in the freezer, snug in its cryovac bag. It’s not like the cows you eat in a burger were frolicking in the feedlot the day before. Dead cow has to be aged.
Anyway, brisketry, regardless of the cost, should be about taking the toughest, nastiest piece of meat and turning it into something worth eating, not starting with Wagyu and rendering out everything that makes Wagyu worth eating. Again, I can’t abide waste or frivolous expense, but you do what you dig.
Sorry. Money came up and I get like I get. I was talking about the time involved. I figure it’s about a three day process, most of which is just me standing around, trying to figure out what to do next. Because there’s like fire involved for like 10 to 14 hours, I can’t just run off and do something fun. Likewise, once the process starts, you can’t stop, so nothing can happen between the first day of thawing and the slicing of the brisket. Well that’s not true, anything can happen to derail the process and that’s just dicking with fate.
For example, this time last week, we had no idea we would be without electricity for several days. It’s not hurricane season, Spring has been decent. Then, my town gets hit by a tornado and suddenly we and 800,000 of our fellow citizens are sitting in the dark. For days. My brisket needs at least 24 hours, thawed, post trimming, to get acquainted with the rub in the fridge before it sees a smoker. I might have been able to pull it off with bagged ice if I had to. Point is, shit happens and making brisket is like holding my breath for a week.
I also have to resist the urge to tweak what I do. I but that’s my Nature. So far, I’ve already made the best brisket I’ve ever made years ago and there is a part of me that really wants to top it. The only thing I may do differently this time around is tossing in a stick of butter on the top when I wrap it because the place I buy barbaboa from uses way too much butter and it’s magical.
All that being said, this is how I make brisket. It’s what works for me to get me the results I want. Do what works for you.
- Thawing – Must be completely thawed.
- Trimming – Breaks my heart, but it has to be done for airflow and even cooking thickness. Mostly going to trim off the flat end, meatwise, anyhow. Fat can be rendered down if you choose.
- Rubbing and resting – Use the rub of your choice or make your own. You’re barely going to flavor the meat with it, so don’t go crazy. It’s there for flavoring the bark, honestly. My philosophy is to enhance the flavor, not change it. Here’s what’s in my rub. Again.
- Smoking at 300° F, until the stall, with mesquite and cherry wood. Use what smoker you are most comfortable with. I know my smoker. I assume you know yours. I will usually go for two rounds of smoke.
- Wrap it (foil, butcher paper, plastic wrap) and bake it (in your smoker or your oven) at 250°F until it temps out at 195°F. The oven is good for powering through the stall without second guessing yourself or if you need to get some sleep.
- Pull it, wrap it in a towel and stick it in an ice chest to rest for several hours. As long as the temp doesn’t get below 140°F, it’ll be fine.
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