[h1]BRISKET[/h1][h2]A SUCCESS STORY[/h2]
A while back DukeBurger had alerted me about a big meat sale--briskets and pork butts. Since pork butt is a staple around our house and I wanted to try a brisket it didn’t take me long to decide to drive in for the sale. I came home with (2) 10 pound bone in butts and an 8 ½ pound packer.
Now being born and raised in Saskatchewan, brisket was NEVER on the menu. Whenever a beef was butchered, the brisket just naturally became hamburger. Once I moved to Alberta, I actually ate brisket once (only got to see the sliced meat once it was on the table). It was cooked up by a transplanted Texas boy and after eating dinner that night I understood full well why he was in Alberta. It was pretty obvious he must have served brisket to company back home and had, as a result, been run out of Texas. It was disgusting—tough, dry, and very fatty. I figured there was no way I could do worse than he had, so I decided to have at it, in spite of the whole whack of posts describing Brisket Failure. Everything I know about brisket I’ve learned on this forum. As added insurance, I read everything on brisket posted by my good friend and undisputed Master of the Brisket, gary s.
Wednesday I started the preparations for the next day’s smoke. As it turned out, the brisket was too big to fit in my MES 30, so I had to separate the point from the flat. Now that’s a procedure that looks a lot easier in the video clips than it actually is, especially when you’ve never even seen a packer before. First I trimmed off most of the fat, leaving about a ¼ inch fat cap which I scored heavily. When I was done trimming, I separated the point from the flat--I really had no idea if I had made my cuts properly or not, but it was separated and that how it would be cooked.
I seasoned the brisket liberally with SPO (that would be SPOG minus the Garlic). I was only going to use sea salt and fresh coarse ground black pepper, but Miss Linda and I both like onion powder on our beef, so the meat got a real good coating of all three. Then it went into the fridge til morning.
Point:
Flat with corner cut off so I can remember the grain direction:
At 7 0’clock Thursday morning I fired up the MES 30 and set the cook temperature at 240*. I figured, since it was only 36 F outside, that I’d let it heat and stabilize for an hour while I had my morning coffee and smoke(s). At about 7:45 I fired up the AMNPS with a 50/50 mix of Hickory and Pecan pellets and let it burn for about 10 minutes. At 8 AM the AMNPS went into the mailbox and the brisket went into the MES. The flat, fat cap up, went on the second rack with the point, also fat cap up, went above it so the juices would drip down onto the flat.
Nothing to do now for the next 6 hours but occasionally check the Maverick temperature readings and the smoke stack to ensure the AMNPS was performing as it otta. Everything was going great. The MES held the temperature quite steady, but to maintain 240 degrees I had to set the MES temp much much higher than normal—close to 270. Just might be a new controller in my near future. We’ll see after some testing.
So at 2 PM, six hours into the cook with no peaking, I pulled both the flat and the point out and headed into the kitchen. After wrapping both cuts in parchment paper, the end result looked like a 3 year old had wrapped an awkward shaped Christmas gift. Well there was no way that wrap job was going to keep either heat or moisture in, so I figured What the Heck and wrapped tinfoil over the parchment paper. Then these well wrapped bundles of meat went back into the MES. The AMNPS, I extinguished—no need for smoke now.
Two and a half hours later, after exactly 8 ½ hours of cook time, the brisket was done. The flat registered 204* IT and the point 207 degrees. I probed both pieces of meat in several places and the probe slid in and out just like butter. Excellent!!
Then it was into a stack of towels for a one hour rest on the counter, while we sat around starving.
After resting, the point was cubed and vac sealed. It will soon become burnt ends. Just don’t know how I survived without a vac/sealer.
Finally, it was time to slice the flat for supper. The carving knife simply slid through the flat. I had to use extra care not to end up with shredded brisket.
Supper that night was a very simple meal—slices of brisket, salad, and fresh sourdough bread, with horseradish on the side. The brisket was to be the star attraction not the sides. Desert was a superb dish of rich and creamy homemade guava ice cream.
IT. WAS. FANTASTIC!!
Both Miss Linda and I were amazed and overjoyed at how moist, tender, and delicious it was. Brisket quickly became our Number 2 favorite meat ever to come out of the MES, with pork butt still firmly in first place. Sorry Texas. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.
As Gary once said, “Brisket isn’t hard. It’s the waiting that’s hard”. Ain't that the truth!.
**Special thanks to Gary, for all the help and the inspiration to actually attempt a brisket.**
Thanks for looking.
Gary
A while back DukeBurger had alerted me about a big meat sale--briskets and pork butts. Since pork butt is a staple around our house and I wanted to try a brisket it didn’t take me long to decide to drive in for the sale. I came home with (2) 10 pound bone in butts and an 8 ½ pound packer.
Now being born and raised in Saskatchewan, brisket was NEVER on the menu. Whenever a beef was butchered, the brisket just naturally became hamburger. Once I moved to Alberta, I actually ate brisket once (only got to see the sliced meat once it was on the table). It was cooked up by a transplanted Texas boy and after eating dinner that night I understood full well why he was in Alberta. It was pretty obvious he must have served brisket to company back home and had, as a result, been run out of Texas. It was disgusting—tough, dry, and very fatty. I figured there was no way I could do worse than he had, so I decided to have at it, in spite of the whole whack of posts describing Brisket Failure. Everything I know about brisket I’ve learned on this forum. As added insurance, I read everything on brisket posted by my good friend and undisputed Master of the Brisket, gary s.
Wednesday I started the preparations for the next day’s smoke. As it turned out, the brisket was too big to fit in my MES 30, so I had to separate the point from the flat. Now that’s a procedure that looks a lot easier in the video clips than it actually is, especially when you’ve never even seen a packer before. First I trimmed off most of the fat, leaving about a ¼ inch fat cap which I scored heavily. When I was done trimming, I separated the point from the flat--I really had no idea if I had made my cuts properly or not, but it was separated and that how it would be cooked.
I seasoned the brisket liberally with SPO (that would be SPOG minus the Garlic). I was only going to use sea salt and fresh coarse ground black pepper, but Miss Linda and I both like onion powder on our beef, so the meat got a real good coating of all three. Then it went into the fridge til morning.
Point:
Flat with corner cut off so I can remember the grain direction:
At 7 0’clock Thursday morning I fired up the MES 30 and set the cook temperature at 240*. I figured, since it was only 36 F outside, that I’d let it heat and stabilize for an hour while I had my morning coffee and smoke(s). At about 7:45 I fired up the AMNPS with a 50/50 mix of Hickory and Pecan pellets and let it burn for about 10 minutes. At 8 AM the AMNPS went into the mailbox and the brisket went into the MES. The flat, fat cap up, went on the second rack with the point, also fat cap up, went above it so the juices would drip down onto the flat.
Nothing to do now for the next 6 hours but occasionally check the Maverick temperature readings and the smoke stack to ensure the AMNPS was performing as it otta. Everything was going great. The MES held the temperature quite steady, but to maintain 240 degrees I had to set the MES temp much much higher than normal—close to 270. Just might be a new controller in my near future. We’ll see after some testing.
So at 2 PM, six hours into the cook with no peaking, I pulled both the flat and the point out and headed into the kitchen. After wrapping both cuts in parchment paper, the end result looked like a 3 year old had wrapped an awkward shaped Christmas gift. Well there was no way that wrap job was going to keep either heat or moisture in, so I figured What the Heck and wrapped tinfoil over the parchment paper. Then these well wrapped bundles of meat went back into the MES. The AMNPS, I extinguished—no need for smoke now.
Two and a half hours later, after exactly 8 ½ hours of cook time, the brisket was done. The flat registered 204* IT and the point 207 degrees. I probed both pieces of meat in several places and the probe slid in and out just like butter. Excellent!!
Then it was into a stack of towels for a one hour rest on the counter, while we sat around starving.
After resting, the point was cubed and vac sealed. It will soon become burnt ends. Just don’t know how I survived without a vac/sealer.
Finally, it was time to slice the flat for supper. The carving knife simply slid through the flat. I had to use extra care not to end up with shredded brisket.
Supper that night was a very simple meal—slices of brisket, salad, and fresh sourdough bread, with horseradish on the side. The brisket was to be the star attraction not the sides. Desert was a superb dish of rich and creamy homemade guava ice cream.
IT. WAS. FANTASTIC!!
Both Miss Linda and I were amazed and overjoyed at how moist, tender, and delicious it was. Brisket quickly became our Number 2 favorite meat ever to come out of the MES, with pork butt still firmly in first place. Sorry Texas. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.
As Gary once said, “Brisket isn’t hard. It’s the waiting that’s hard”. Ain't that the truth!.
**Special thanks to Gary, for all the help and the inspiration to actually attempt a brisket.**
Thanks for looking.
Gary
