Brisket advice

[ThreeDJ16]

Re: empirical observations

The only reason I mentioned the time was it surprised me it both cooked that fast and came out so tender. Just an observation. It concurs with some observations made over on the Weber forum about cooking briskets faster than I would have thought. As far as cooling' date=' again I'm just making an observation of what happened, esp. regarding the lack of juice loss. It was only my 2nd brisket, I'm no expert! All I can do is learn from y'all. BTW, got a turkey on there right now, 13 pounder, at 240. No rub, no baste, no breast ice down, just threw it on. We'll see.[/quote']

It is funny, there are more people moving towards cooking briskets faster/hotter as they like the results better (middle of the road for me). I tend to cook mine around 240 degrees, which is somewhat hotter than the 225 where most of us learn to start. The Guru folks recommend their ramp mode for brisket and starting around 275. Pretty much everyone seems to have their own magic bullet.....it is usually a fun road finding yours.

-=Jasen=-

[Syzygies]

Golden Gate Meat Company

I've made quite a few briskets, and more so even than ribs or butt, the meat makes the 'cue. I can kid myself that my technique entered in, but truth be told, the Komodo Kamado makes easy work of cooking a brisket, putting me more in the role of an Alsatian wine maker, trying to stand out of the way and not screw up what nature created.

For anyone in the SF Bay Area, by far the best source of brisket I've found is a butcher shop at the Ferry Building:

Golden Gate Meat Company

They have a dry aging room. I tried eight days once and one could eat the brisket with a spoon. My guests loved it but it was too much for me; perhaps the sweet spot is four days.

I bought an 11 lb brisket on Monday for $76, to serve last night at a friend's party. Rubbed in 0.6% sea salt by weight, then black pepper and pan-roasted ground dried chiles (actually, in a freezer vacuum pack left over from a previous rub), and some Aleppo pepper to bulk out and heat up the rub. I put hickory chunks and apple chips in a two quart cast iron dutch oven "smoke pot" with three 1/8" holes drilled in the bottom, lid sealed on with flour paste, set this on coconut extruded lump and cooked the brisket at 210 F for 19 hours. Foiled and toweled in a cooler for the two hours before serving at the remote location. This is quite the opposite extreme of a fast cook, which I want to try, but with ample marbling in the meat, it works.

A half hour's work, some waiting, and a stronger crowd reaction than spending two days making gumbo. I'd say this was my best barbecue ever, except it had a quiet "I can do this any time I like" reproducible authority to it. The Komodo Kamado did a better job than my old Kamado K7 ever did, and a huge advance over getting up every two hours to tend an offset firebox metal cooker.

Brisket rocks.

[Porkchop]

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company

I bought an 11 lb brisket on Monday for $76...

i just swallowed my gum. to me (as in, "my opinion", not everybody's), BBQ means the applications of sugar, spice, smoke, low heat, and sweet time turn a CHEAP piece of meat into tender victuals. that sorta price-per-pound is anathema to a cheapskate like me.

[bryan]

I just bought a 14# brisket for 25 and change.

[Syzygies]

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company

sweet time turn a CHEAP piece of meat into tender victuals.

Yep, that is the BBQ tradition. Along with staying up all night minding a cooker made from spare oil rig parts, rather than sleeping like a baby after sending a month's pay to some guy in Bali.

This is also a forum where discussions of Waygu beef take place. I like the Niman Ranch take on the parallel question for pork: They like their pigs to spend hard winters outdoors, and recently trendy pure breeds just can't take the midwest cold.

I can only say that this $76 brisket made fantastic barbecue. Inexpensive briskets have been hit-or-miss for me. I wanted our guests to be dumbfounded, and I needed a reliable source.

(And a reliable cooker. Because the KK is so tight and well-insulated, it exchanged less air than my old K7, for a moister brisket.)

It's hard to carry out a controlled experiment, because the treatments optimized for cheap meat are different, and could make Charlie Chaplin's boots taste great. I like more naked approaches, where the meat itself has nowhere to hide.

[tnt]

Brisket from snake river farms

So I'm glad I read this post I just purchased a 14# brisket from snake river "Wagyu beef". I have been trying to read everything I can so I will have some idea what to do with this monster. I assume I have a packers cut?? which I think means it has both the flat and the point??

I'm surprised that I should cook it fat side down, I would have tried it fat side up thinking that the fat would melt and keep it moist...

So I'm thinking I cook it whole and then separate the flat from the point and get rid of the fat between the flat and the point because that's "bad fat".

Then I should put the point back on to make burnt ends??

It looks like the fat on top is pretty thick should I trim it or leave it...

I bought a Wagyu brisket based on comments about how outstanding Wagyu beef is. The price did not seem bad a 5-6# brisket at a local market was $30-$40 and this at 14# was about $80 delivered..

Right about now I'm thinking "What the %&$#@ was I thinking" but I know with the suggestions on the forum I should be just fine..

Any and all advice will be appreciated......

Tony

[Porkchop]

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company

I can only say that this $76 brisket made fantastic barbecue. Inexpensive briskets have been hit-or-miss for me.

point taken. "expense" is one of those relative things... what is expensive to one is reasonable to another.

I'm surprised that I should cook it fat side down' date=' I would have tried it fat side up thinking that the fat would melt and keep it moist...[/quote']

depends on who you ask. most folks (i think) reason like that, thinking fat-up causes the brisket to "self baste". i do fat side down b/c i've had trouble before with the lean underside of the brisket overcooking and drying out. what keeps the interior of your brisket moist is the breakdown of the internal connective tissue (collagen) over time. collagen breaks down into water and gelatin during the slow process of bbq, lubricating the meat fibers of your brisket uniformly from the inside. the melting fat cap would never penetrate the brisket that deeply, regardless of any "self basting" effect.

bottom line, if i were in your shoes, i might try both methods and see what works best for you.

as far as putting the point back in the cooker after trimming it away from the flat, that's what i do as well. i don't really do burnt ends with it tho. the point has a lot more internal fat than the flat, and benefits greatly from a longer time in the pit. after i get that out of the cooker, i roll it up like a "chiffonade" (oooooooo, fancy), slice it across, and then chop it all up for chopped beef. i also don't trim my packer cut briskets. i paid for it, so i'm gonna eat as much of it as i can.

by the time your point is ready to chop, the fat should be close to the consistancy of melted butter, so that when you get done chopping it all up, you mix it all in. i use my hands with some heat resistant rubber gloves; getting your fingers into it and squishing it in is the best way to get it mixed in right. you don't want chunks of fat, so if you have some bits that haven't melted all the way, pick them out. use your best judgement; some points have more fat than others. some need to be trimmed, others don't.

i know competition cookers trim their packer briskets. i think lots of folks prefer to trim. for my money, there's a LOT of flavor in that fat, and you need to retain as much of it as you are comfortable with.

last piece of advice; if you've not done a brisket before, i'd "practice" on a cheapo one before i risked the $80 cadillac brisket.

[mguerra]

concepts

Go buy a cheap brisket and practice a fast, high temp brisket per the sticky post in the "Techniques" section. I get consistent, super moist and tender results this way. Did one Saturday, the whole cook was about 330 degrees. Took 4 1/2 hours. You will NEVER dry out your flat with this trick.

The fat cap melting does not penetrate the dense cellular structure of the meat, that is a myth. Put your fat cap down during the first, unfoiled part of the cook, to protect the flat from the "direct" heat of the indirect heat! Sounds funny, I know, but just adds to keeping the flat moister. The fast hot trick exposes the flat to hot air for about two hours, until you foil it, compared to the traditional low and slow, unfoiled technique that exposes the flat to air for 10 or 12 or 14 or whatever long number of hours.

[Syzygies]

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company

last piece of advice; if you've not done a brisket before' date=' i'd "practice" on a cheapo one before i risked the $80 cadillac brisket.[/quote']

Reasonable advice, except the cheap brisket may have issues that the fancy brisket doesn't exhibit.

Dissolving the connective tissue is the goal of careful brisket cooking. I haven't yet experimented with fast cooks, in part because I don't understand them. A dream cheap brisket would be cheap simply because of poor marbling, but would still have plenty of well-distributed connective tissue. More often than not, a cheap brisket that I buy is simply lean, uninterrupted meat. Makes for a great component to hamburger, but not something I'd cook slow.

The temps I give are from memory and approximate, but the "life stages" of a brisket (or butt...) cook are as follows:

< 130 F

Only up to this point will the brisket absorbs smoke, and form a smoke ring. Some competitors put cold brisket into a cold cooker, to prolong this phase, intensify the smoke ring for judges with blown palates (from all the acrid smoke) who just look at texture and the ring. I often put cold brisket into a hot cooker out of convenience, in which case the trick is getting smoke production to start at this time.

170 - 180 F

In this range the connective tissue melts away. The collagen doesn't literally boil off, but it draws energy as if it does. With careful monitoring one sees the internal temperature stall or even drop while this takes place.

If I steer at all, I try to race from 130 to 170 F, and after 180 F I turn down my cooker temp to 195 F to go into a holding pattern. I want to go as slowly as possible through the above crucial ranges, to amplify those effects. Any other cooking is just drying out the meat.

I remember advocating this variable temp approach on earlier forums, and actual competitors responded with eye roll "oh, child" responses. Truth be told, once one nails the basics (steady temp with minimal airflow but good smoke), any approach comes out quite good.

[Syzygies]

Re: concepts

Go buy a cheap brisket and practice a fast' date=' high temp brisket per the sticky post in the "Techniques" section.[/quote']

One should view "fast" and "slow" as very different techniques, alongside the third technique of a slow indoor braise. The ideal quality of meat to match each technique will vary.

I had read somewhere (I can't find my source) that early cowboys couldn't sell the briskets, so they ate them, and the technique was perfected by the Eastern European Jews among them, who had previous experience with slow-cooking brisket. So in a certain sense all briskets descend from one tradition, just as there is an ancestral African precursor to gumbo. (I've eaten it; it was good!)

Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses has a great, open-minded chapter on brisket; Texans practice every imaginable technique. To combine one thread in that chapter with my above temp guide, one can foil after 130 F, adding liquids that morph the brisket in the direction of the original braise.

[Porkchop]

syz, i have learnt to keep quiet about foiling briskets, so that more diplomatical sorts as yourself may prevail. the term is "braising", for sure, but i know you don't need me backin you up on it.

i've also heard a similar story about cowboys and briskets, but that they would send all of them ornery briskets east for those suckers in NYC, while they chowed down on the best parts. that makes less sense than your story tho, otherwise, where'd NY strip come from?? which came first ya figure, pastrami or bbq brisket? i bet it was pastrami.

[mguerra]

It's BBQ

OK you hairsplitters, the hot fast briskie comes out like the best traditional low and slow you have ever had. The first two hours, plus or minus, in the smoke gets you the bark, the smokey flavor, and smoke ring you want. Especially if you throw it on nice and cold. The two hours, plus or minus, in foil denatures the proteins and gets you the tenderness you want. It doesn't come out like something from Grannie's oven, or a pressure cooker, or a pot of boiling water, it's BBQ!!! You can try it in one afternoon, then come back and brag on it like I do. Just follow the directions in the sticky.

[Syzygies]

Re: It's BBQ

the hot fast briskie comes out like the best traditional low and slow you have ever had.

I also know Italians who claim you can make wonderful Risotto in a microwave.

In either case, I simply don't understand the physics, but clearly I have to try this.

[Porkchop]

Re: It's BBQ

denatures...

"...serutan spelled backwards is 'natures'..." i sure do miss Mad magazine! sorry for splittin your hairs, doc, but don't take it personally. cook how you like. you won't change my mind n i won't change yours. hopefully you can take a little ribbin about using that old texas security blanket. you can tease me about doin my briskets upside-down, or just for being a damn yankee...

pobody's nerfect! we're all cheatin by using our KK's anyhow; who ever heard of getting sleep cookin butts and brisket?

[mguerra]

I don't understand the short nuclear force, either.

I'm a scientist. I think, Syz, you are too; at least you seem to be a mathematician. Don't try to understand it. JUST DO IT! Once. It will take 5 hours to decide you like it. And just for fun, get the cheapest, nastiest looking brisket you can for this experiment.

[Porkchop]

Re: I don't understand the short nuclear force, either.

Don't try to understand it.

that's good advice. i don't know about short nuclear force, but i do know that erwin schrodinger was a big fan of beef brisket. IN FACT, the theory goes, a brisket wrapped in foil waits in an "in-between" state, neither pot-roast nor bbq, UNTIL it is unwrapped and observed by the chef and his guests. this postulation is refered to as "Schrodinger's Brisket", and is the basis of Quantum BBQ.

i can't seem to get my head around this stuff...

[bryan]

Re: concepts

Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses has a great' date=' open-minded chapter on brisket; .[/quote']

Thanks for the book reference found it for for $3.79 at

http://www.promotionalbookservices.com/ (339) 987-4860

Good site-good prices Asked him to find deal on Chris Lilly book.

Again thanks. Great book.

[mguerra]

Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg were uncertain whether they preferred pork butts in energy state 1 or 2. It was related to the wave/particle duality of the porky goodness quanta. Ultimately, they just wiped the BBQ sauce off their chins, shrugged, and figured Tesla could work it out, because "he is the oldest."

[Porkchop]

porky goodness quanta.

i am detecting massive quantities of WIN in this sector, captain! this will forever be refered to as PGQ! we need a PGQ meter...

or better yet, a PGQ gun. i'm sure it could be used for mind-control.

[Syzygies]

porky goodness quanta (a.k.a. pretty good 'que)

(also k.a. peptide with amino-terminal glycine and carboxyl- terminal glutamine)

Spock Detecting Large Quantities Of Win In This Sector Captain

So I stopped laughing enough to type again, and it did sound like a trekkie reference, but I have no idea what WIN is.