Wrapping hot and fast brisket

[braindoc]

Planning on smoking a brisket tomorrow.  It will be about 10 lbs trimmed.  Rather than the usual low and slow at about 225°F I want to try for a faster cook at about 275°, perhaps a little higher.

I usually wrap with pink butcher paper.  However, the recipes I’m seeing all say aluminum foil for the wrap.

So, in the context of this somewhat higher than usual temp, what say you all?  Butcher paper or aluminum foil??

[tony b]

I'd stick with the butcher paper. I'm not a fan of wrapping in AL foil, as it softens the bark too much - IMHO. 

[Syzygies]

It always helps to consider the source, and how their requirements are different than yours. Thomas Keller calls for quick 10% salt brines for seafood? In a restaurant kitchen there isn't room for an overnight "equilibrium" 0.5% brine. At home that same brine lets you buy fish for several days.

Most recipes are really dumbed down, and most people spread techniques that are only partially evolved. And a popular author could be aware that readers have foil, but they don't have pink (uncoated! white is coated, wrong) butcher paper. Do they say something?

I would only trust a source recommending foil if they explicitly make the comparison with pink butcher paper, and explain why they prefer foil.

Aaron Franklin is arguably the most deservedly famous barbecue guru today. He's primarily a restauranteur, not a "personality", so he's freed from a financial incentive to dumb down his advice. On the contrary, there's a showstopper chapter "Building a Smoker" in Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto [A Cookbook], how anyone can make their own cooker from a recycled 500 gallon propane tank with "basic metalworking skills". I can do most things but this is still on my list...

He faces a restaurant constraint, perfect for you: All of his cookers run at 275°. Why? He prefers this to lower temperatures, gets better throughput, and doesn't have to juggle capacities of cookers set to different temperatures.

He gives the clearest directions I've seen anywhere for cooking a 12 to 14-pound packer cut brisket, wrapping at 6 hours or so in pink butcher paper.

I've varied my approach over the years: Temperature, wrapping, beef source, dry age? I believe that following exactly Aaron Franklin's protocol is spot-on.

For a different opinion, in Brisket Tricks and elsewhere, @mguerra has been advocating for 325° or so. What you propose is decidedly not "hot and fast". 275° is reasonable middle ground, not falling prey to equating seriousness of intent with slowness of cook. The very idea that "low & slow"  is such a sticky idea should serve as a warning not to take it as gospel. On the contrary, another of my favorite BBQ books is Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pitmasters. I don't follow any of the recipes, but I learned a lot about the diversity of approaches in Texas. It freed me from a blind adherence to "low & slow".

I believe that the most important factor in brisket is the beef itself. I'll travel an hour and pay three times what others consider reasonable to buy brisket from the Golden Gate Meat Company in San Francisco. They'll dry age a few days on request.

I also believe that the ideal cooker temperature is a function of the quality of the meat: 275° for the meat that takes an hour's drive and serious cash, varying up to 325° for more typical and affordable briskets. When there's less collagen/whatever to dissolve, time is your enemy. I no longer cook any brisket at 225°.

I've never eaten at Franklin's Barbecue, but the best brisket I've had in my life was in Elgin, Texas. (#2, #3, #4 would be my own.) They can source better brisket in Texas, the market demands it. It melts, you want to spread the fat cap on toast like marmalade. Aaron Franklin's advice is tuned to Texas brisket sources.

For potential owners, let me be clear that while Aaron Franklin uses an entirely different cooker, my own preferences are adapted to a Komodo Kamado. Compared to other ceramic cookers, a KK is far better insulated, so it maintains temperature with far less airflow. Airflow dries the meat out. Franklin's 1000 gallon cookers are good guides for us, because with scale he also controls evaporation.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Syzygies

[tony b]

THE MAN speaks!

(2) BBQ with Franklin: Brisket Wrap Test - YouTube

A couple of other side-by-side cooks from some folks that know a thing or two about Q:

(2) Brisket Wrap Test | Foil, Butcher Paper, Naked | BBQ Champion Harry Soo SlapYoDaddyBBQ.com - YouTube

(2) Butcher Paper vs. Foil for Barbecue - YouTube

(2) Smoking Brisket wrapped in Foil vs Butcher Paper - Brisket Series part 1 of 3 - YouTube

[Syzygies]

1 hour ago, tony b said:

THE MAN speaks!

(2) BBQ with Franklin: Brisket Wrap Test - YouTube

[braindoc]

Thanks guys.  Not that I’ve done all that many briskets, but I mostly have been influenced by Aaron Franklin.  After getting his book, I switched from foil to pink unwaxed butcher paper a couple of years ago.  The recipes I saw did not give any particular justification for foil so I will go ahead with my original plan.

BTW, @Syzygies, the meat is Whole Akuashi Wagyu Brisket from Derek Allan's Texas Barbecue - a splurge eased with $50 back from Amex.

 

[C6Bill]

Franklin does a Masterclass, I bought it. It was extremely informative and when complete you can download the PDF and go back and watch the call again anytime you like. I think i have watched it 4 times lol

 

Aaron Franklin Masterclass

Edited July 24, 2021 by C6Bill

[Forrest]

Applying just about anything Franklin teaches from an offset smoker to a Kamado will not yield the best results. Oranges and apples.


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[Forrest]

Also my vote is for neither. Start your cook way early so there is no need for a wrap. You can always rest longer. If you must, pink butcher.


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[Syzygies]

1 hour ago, C6Bill said:

Franklin does a Masterclass, I bought it.

I actually bought a year, during a promotion that lets me gift a year. I haven't made my way to Franklin yet, as I've studied his book, but the other cooking videos are worth the membership. It's fun watching Thomas Keller relax over time. As a fellow teacher, I get distracted analyzing each person's presentation.

[braindoc]

Now for the postmortem.  The brisket was a big hit.  My best ever, according to my wife (yes, I know she’s a little biased).  The photos don’t really do it justice.  The flat was juicy and the point was absolutely melt in your mouth.  The rub was sea salt, pepper, and some cayenne.

We started inside with apps - smoked salmon on mustard butter toasts and shrimp.  Then outside for dinner, tablescape curtesy of my wife.  Started with an intermezzo - lemon sorbetto in Prosecco and grappa.  Sides were a hash brown potato casserole (no photo) and a Malaysian fruit and vegetable slaw.  

 

 

[tekobo]

What a lovely aspect and dinner @braindoc.  Those sides and your sorbet sound really good.  Bravo.  

[Troble]

Looks like a great meal. Well done 

[C6Bill]

Great looking meal !!!!!

So how did you end up cooking the brisket ?

[braindoc]

The meat went into the KK at about 7:30AM, 275°F dome temp.  At about 6 hours the bark looked good; the brisket was reading 170°.  I wrapped it in butcher paper.  It reached 203° maybe four hours after that.  It had a nice jiggle.  I let it rest, wrapped in a towel, in a cooler until we were ready to eat around 8PM.

[tony b]

[C6Bill]

Well done !!!!!! The good kind of well done not the bad kind lol

Edited July 26, 2021 by C6Bill