Cooking with Bill: Traeger Smoked Beef Brisket

okay welcome back to another cookingshow with us trying to show yousomething different last time we wereworking on some artisanal bread told youthat we like to do different things sotoday we’re going to tackle one of thethings that a lot of people don’t liketo do because they find it to be alittle bit daunting is doing a beefbrisket now a beef brisket that’sbasically the chest portion of cow a lotof you’ve had beef brisket and don’teven know it when you get corned beefcorned beef and cabbage you know we justhad st. Patrick’s Day and lifted a pintof Guinness or whatever you like to havethose things that’s a same type ofbrisket they’ve just put it in adifferent type of brine and then whenyou cook it you’re typically cooking itwith like a pickling recipe and so it’sable to go in and change the flavorsomewhat now what we’re gonna do iswe’re actually going to take thisbrisket this is one that I get fromCostco now you can get them fromwherever you’d like our particular localCostco does a pretty nice job of gettinggood briskets in and when you’re lookingfor it you’re looking for a few thingsyou’re looking for if you’re getting thewhole brisket it’s gonna have thisthicker end up in the front this has alot of fat in it we’re gonna carve someof that out and then it has a smallerpart of the brisket a lot of people getjust that you can go to the store andjust find this narrower part of thebrisket and cook that up if you’re notlooking to do a huge brisket I happen tolike the larger ones I like cutting outthe marbling of the fat my dogs lovethat yes you could render it out foryourself but we get enough of thatanyway so what we’re gonna do is cut thefat off and actually I’m going to showyou how to put a rub and we’re gonna putit on a smoker and we’re gonna smokethis thing for probably at least 12 to15 hours depending on how its cookingand how cold it is with the wind blowingI use a trigger pellet smoker now itlooks mine looks actually like a just aregular grill but it’s actually a smokerand it has a hopper on the sides a bigbox that you put pellets in and they canbe different types of wood we’re gonnause a signature blend that they have hasthree different type of woods and we’lltalk about that later I’ll show you howto prepare this meat and then as we goalong try to be able to get you tounderstand some of the nuances of doingthis now I’ve been told that I needed toshow a little bit more smiling and stuffas I cook because I’m normally kind of alight guy but when you talk into acamera lens and nobody behind it to makejokes with it’s kind of tough so I’mgonna do my best to give you some smilesand some stories as I go along and maybeI’ll get better at this if not too badbut at least you’ll learn how to do somecooking so we’re starting out with thisbrisket when you get to be my age youstart to figure in half use glassesevery now and then this is coming out tobe about a twenty pound brisket so thisis about 20 pound brisket it’s not thebiggest I’ve ever done but it’s it’s onthe larger size a lot of briskets thatpeople get they’re probably in the more1012 pound range but that’s more of thathalf size brisket so what we’re going todo is we’re going to start off by we’regoing to take this plastic wrapper thatthey give us off of this thing now I dorecommend cleaning your countertops Itry to have a tray under most of this tocatch any of the juices but again onceyou’re done just make sure you cleaneverything up some people will do thison newspaperhowever they liked it it it’s up to themall right so as you can see we havequite a lot of marbling going on here alot of fat going through it now abrisket being it’s that chest piece isvery very tough okay so you have to cookthis low and slow okay so that meanswhen we put it on the smoker we’re notputting it on a high heat we’re notdoing it like in an oven at 350 and bythe way you could cook this in an ovenjust make sure you’re doing it on a verylow temperature we’re gonna set up ourtrigger which does have thermal thermalstatic control to 225 degrees soanywhere in that 200 to 240 degree rangeis a good slow temperature with thatsmoke hitting it all the time you wantto get that they call it a bark it’s thecoloring and the the texture on the skinafter it’s had a lot of smoke and heatapplied to it what will happen with thisit’s a cyst all of this meat all of theparts within the meat that are you knowthe fibers they need to break downotherwise it’s a really chewy piece ofmeat so you’ve had piece of meat beforetastes like shoe leather or it’s reallyreally hard to cut and even if you’vegotten a really nice steak sometimesthey’re just difficult to cut sometimeshow will they cut the steak but oftenit’s time because they cooked it so fastit didn’t have any time for thosetissues to break down so you know whenyou have a muscle you’ve been workingthat muscle it has to break down youknow when you want to get it to mate andmake it something that you’re gonna wantto eat so what we’re gonna do is we aregoing to take and cut off excess fat nowyou don’t need to cut off all the fatbut when you’re doing this and becareful because you don’t want to cutyourself what we’re going to do is we’regoing to be going in here and looking atthe marbling now you can see even withthis this is a very very sharp chef’sknifeI also recommend using a sharp knifesome people use their own kitchen knivesbut as you can see with this you can seewe have a little bit of meat on here butmost of this is solid fat and my dogsare gonna love this little piece but Idon’t recommend using a dull knife ifyou have a knife at home you can alwaysget them sharp and you can buysharpeners at the store they work okayif you’re really using a good knife likea chef’s knife these are lists offthey’re not cheapnow that’s neither here nor there mygrandmother worked with old pots andpans that were dented and she had knivesthat were just junk knives but shealways kept them razor sharp so whetheryou use a whetstone whether you use asharpener you get the electricsharpeners whether you take it to aservice you get a sharpen but you wantit sharp so you don’t have to reallywork hard at cutting things and I willtell you from experience that when youget these things sharpened if you don’tremember you just got them sharpened youshould slow down before you startcooking or cutting with them because youcan cut right through your finger rightthrough the bone I have done some timeswhere I’ve gotten them back my wife hastaken them to a service and she got themdone and I forgot she had them done andI’d be doing some Shifa nodding ofvegetables and that’s basically a fancyway to say that I was doing very veryfine cuts of vegetables where you takethe vichy when you sitting therechopping like this and making very thinonions or whatever and I found that Itook a part of my nail and had to throwit all out because you can’t eat nails Iguess you could but most people wouldn’twant to do that so with that being saidalways be careful what you’re doing withknives but it’s best to work with asharp knife at least as far as I’mconcerned now a couple things hereyou’ll notice there’s some marbling herein the center I may take a little bit ofthat out but honestly if there’s aquarter-inch eighth inch of fat on therethat’s just going to give it flavor butyou can seethat center part I’ve taken a lot of fatout there haven’t taken it all out andthere’s marbling even going down intohere that’ll cook nice and it’ll breakdown over time and we come to the otherside see that big wedge of fat rightthere now you’re saying well bill I’mhere you well bill if you have all thisfat why don’t you just get the smallerpiece and not have to deal with thatwell I happen to like to trim mine Ihappen to like to get it to the pointwhere I think it’s going to be the rightamount of marbling sometimes you make amistake and you’ll find out you havethis big glob of fat that you weren’tplanning on but for the most part itmakes it something that’s a lot bettertaste and my again my dogs do love thatI do this and I think they would be veryangry at me if I started getting stuffthat I didn’t have to trim up and givethem food at the end so you don’t wantto have a bunch of angry puppies at yourhouse this is actually coming out a lotless fat than I thought but check just alittle bit under hereokay I found a vein here and again allwe’re doing trying to get within I lookquarter into the of the meet so we don’tjust have a big pocket of fat when yougo to a restaurant that serves brisketyou usually have two different types ofbrisket that you’re buying you’re buyingeither lean or just regular brisket whenyou’re getting lean you’re getting thesection that didn’t have this fat in itthat’s what my wife actually likes toeat in that right Deb you like the leanshe likes the lean so she likes the wayI do this because it makes a majority ofthe brisket fairly lean y’all speakamongst yourselves while I’m cuttingthis but off of a 20 a couple poundbrisket I expect to get a couple poundsof fat if you’re cutting it right so youcan see right here really not too muchin the way of hitting meat which is goodwell we’ve taken that pocket out alittle bit right there but I don’treally care that much now this is theone thing that I’ll tell you in workingin restaurants I’ve worked in NorthCarolina barbecue restaurants in thepast and one of the most tedious thingthey have to do is trimming up the fatoff of these things so when you go to arestaurant you wonder why it cost you somuch money it’s because they’ve paidsomebody to do what I’m doing in frontof you today and it’s it’s just timeconsuming so if a company is doing a lotof brisket if they’re really trimming itup like this it’s taking them quite abit of time compared to just taking alike a pork butt or whatever andthrowing it on the smoker without hardlyany type of work so we’ve now gottenthis pretty well trimmed up I’ll wash myhands first and I’m going to put a rubon itnow we’ll say is very important anytimeyou’re working with food making sure youhave clean environment make sure thatyou do keep clean you don’t spreadanything around right now with all stuffwe’re dealing with you’re learning abouthow to protect yourself and keepeverything good but we’ve been doingthat in the food industry for decadesyou know we’re talking about foodbornetype of illnesses and such so you wantto keep things good temperatures youwant to keep things in good places andthen once you’re done you want to cleancounters with appropriate cleansers andstuff so that you don’t have to worryabout that the next time you’re touchinga counter now I have made my own rubsbefore a rub is basically a bunch ofspices that you throw togetheroftentimes it’s got cumin it’s it’s kindof got a real earthy flavor to itthey’ll use cayenne peppers all sorts ofchilies sometimes you’ll use brown sugarin a rub pepper black pepper salt a lotof salt garlic all those kind of thingsyou can make your own rub there’s also aton of rubs that you can buy at thestore or you can buy online so it justdepends on what you’re looking for nowwhen we’re looking at dealing with a rubI actually like to use the Montrealsteak seasoning they don’t pay meanything to say that but I think it’sgot a nice blend of stuff in it it’s gotsalt it’s got black pepper red peppergarlic onion and a few bits of paprikain it so I think it makes a very nicerub and all I’m gonna do is I’m gonnaput this on and it may seem a bitheavy-handed but what we’re trying to dois we’re trying to get this in and getthis into the tissueand this is a lot of meat so you knowall said and done we’re looking atprobably close to we’re probably lookingat close to about 17 pounds of meat herenow granted it’s gonna cook down untilyou’ll probably have somewhere aroundfourteen pounds of meat when you’re donebut 14 pounds meats a lot of meat sodon’t worry about being a little bitheavy-handed and if you’re making yourown or if you’ve never done this beforeyou know you can go light on it thefirst time and then add two but you seeI’ve even put it in this cavity that wecut remember we took the fat out herebecause it’s all going to cook now thenice thing about doing this is this meatit could sit overnight in therefrigerator let it dry out a little bitbefore you put it on or you can put iton just as is and that’s what we’regonna do in just a bitI don’t want to do any that to my my fatI’m just gonna cook it down for the dogsso they don’t need it seasoned so backto where we were oh yessmile there you I’ll smile so we’ve gota about a 20 pound brisket we’ve cut outall the excess fat off of it we’ve takenand done a rub on this meat we’re gonnaput it in a smoker sitting just raw onthe grill and we’re going to have itsitting there for about I would saybetween 12 and 14 hours before we checkit typically I run mine overnightbecause my trigger will actually keep itat 225 with a thermometer probe and thenwhat we’re going to do is we’re going tocheck a temperature in the morning I’llrecord that for you put that into thevideo as wellwe want it to get to about a hundred andsixty degrees temperature and then we’regonna take that meat and we’re going towrap it in aluminum foil now you can doit butchers paper you can leave it alonejust leave it on the rack or you can dolike I doaluminum foil and what we’re going to dois let it finish roasting in that 225heat for about another 3-4 hours oruntil it hits about 200 degrees 195 to205 is what we’re looking for becausewhen it hits that we know that thetissue is broken down enough we knowthat it should have cooked long enoughbecause that’s low is slow remember andwe should have a good bark a goodcoloring all this meat and then when Ibring it inside will let it rest for20-30 minutes and then I’ll cut someopen and let you see what it looks likeunfortunately just like with my breadrecipe you can’t smell it but it willsmell fabulous in here I can tell youthat so at this point I’m going to cutand go get the trigger ready we’ll takesome video out there and then we’ll putit on there and that will be all fortonight and then tomorrow morning willwe join it when I have to wrap it andthen by about noon probably or 10o’clock we’ll take it off the smokercompletely done and ready for you to seeso hope you’re enjoying this I wouldlike you to put comments down share thisto anybody you’d like to see it the morepeople see me the better I’m very happyto share how I cook people have beenasking me to do this for years who havefinally got an opportunity I’m tryingout some new things I’m using a newnikon z6 which has an auto functionautofocus function I’m doing a lavaliermic for the first time it’s a wirelessmic so I hope this is coming out neverdone it before and so a lot of firstsbut hope you’re enjoying cooking withBill and we’ll be back with you in justa few minutesokay so what we’re going to do is getthis trigger ready to smoke I’ll keepmine covered I even have an umbrellabehind it that I can use in case we havesome bad weather I’ll put it up so itjust keeps them from getting rained onbasically it looks like a grill insidehas a slanted deck to catch the juicesgo down into a tray it goes down into acatch bucket at the bottom don’t have alot of that coming on over in this sidewe have a hopper and this is where weputthis is where we put pellets I’m usingour signature blend then we’ve gothickory maple and sherry now I’ve got alittle bit of apple already in so atthis point my dogs always like to comeout and eat these little pelletsprobably not the best form but it isjust wood okayso put some of the signature pellets inthere it’ll last me overnight unlesssomething happens where the cult’s don’tfall in that’s happened once or twicebut for the most part it’s a good dealand what I’m going to do is I’m going togo ahead and start the smoker up nowwhen you do that it recommends that youlet it smoke for about 5-10 minuteswhat’s that’s doing is that’s burningoff the initial amount of of thewoodchips there the initial burn beforeit gets up to smoking and heat actuallydoesn’t have a great flavor so what youwant to do is let it get that initialsmoke going and then we’ll be able toput the meat on so I’ll leave the lid upor I’ll let it start to smoke here injust a few minutesokay so we had that first burn off yousaw that big white kind of smoke comingoff a British smooth once that’s burnedoff we were able to start putting yourmeat on so we’re gonna go ahead and putthe meat in the center you want to putthe fatty side up so you let that fatrender down through the meat as it cooksokay now I’m just going to take allthese nice pieces of fat and just kindof spread them around for the puppiesnow if you like fat and you want to eatit that’s fine too just make sure youcook it enough that you know it’s allwe’re all done because I have somereally thick pieces like this they’regonna take longer than the real thinpieces now I’m not putting a thermometeron this yet even though I have atemperature probe for it because myintent is to wait until the morning todo that because I know there’s nothinggoing to happen between now and when weget ready to look at it in the morningit’s gonna be at 225 as far as the heatand it’s going to constantly be smokingand so no problem with that but but whenyou get into the morning we’re going towant to check it with an instant-read ata couple places just to see how it’sdoing if it’s not quite 160 I’ll putprobes in it at that time just to let itget them to 160 that’s the magic numberthat we’re gonna wrap it I’ll leave theprobes in it until it’s done at that 195205 temperature okay so triggers reallygood you can do it on just any kind ofsmoker that you have you could go do iton a big green egg if you have those orif you have the ones that are out ofHawaii I think they’re called theKomodos you can do into your oven if youreally want to do something in your ovenso you can just sit there and put it ina roasting pan 225 degrees but you’regonna leave your oven on all night orall day long to do that same slow cookso the time factors could be about thesame it’s whether you wanted insidecooking that whole time or whether youwant it outside now I personally like tosmoke it so using a smoker is the bestway in my opinion but if you have a woodsmoker do it just with the regularchunks of wood when I was in a NorthCarolina barbecue restaurant we just hada giant pit we put wood underneath andthat’syou cooked it you just had to watch yourtemperature so when we come back in themorningI’ll show you what it looks like it 160or at least I’ll show you when I wrap itand then after it’s cooked we’ll open itup and have a wonderful brisket I hopeyou’ve been able to hear me well usingthis microphone hopefully you’re notpicking up too much of the ambient noisethat’s around me there’s no we have awater feature behind me to some gurglingwater and we have dogs that have beenbarking but hopefully you’re gettingsomething out of this and we’ll go fromthere so I’ll see you in the morning geta good sleep okay good morning right nowit’s about 6:30 in the morningpopplers about half way little more thanhalfway done so excuse my appearancejust wake it up to do this I’m gonna goback to bed but have to check it out sothere’s the brisketlooks fabulousthat’s a nice looking brisketnowI don’t go to you right nowis I’m gonna take ainstant-read thermometerokay so but everywhere I’ve testedit’s about 160 hundred and 70 degrees sowe’re gonna wrap this thing up so withthat saidI’ve got a big thing here now talkedabout it by bakingI like to use protection on my handsthese little oven gloves got a washingto happen they’re really good for beingable to lift up hot thingsokay so we have brought the brisket inbut letting it rest for about 20-30minutes there abouts again some peoplewill just wrap this up in a towel put itin a cooler let it just cool down on itsown one of the things you want to dowith any meat that you’re cookingwhether they’re doing it on a stove whatare you doing on a grill we’re doing asmoker is you want to let it rest afteryou’ve cooked it so if you cook a steakfor example you want to give it at leastfive minutes or so because you want allthe juices all the blood and stuff torun back into the meat fibers and thatway you have a juicy steak all the waythrough the same thing is with a brisketit’s got a lot of juice that went downinto this pan what it is much of it tosoak back into the fibers as possible sothat you have a very juicy piece ofbrisket now I was going to try to liftthis brisket out and be able to put iton a sheet for you to see but it’s sofalling apart tender that it’s justgoing to break into a bunch of pieces sowhat I’m going to do is I’m going to cuta piece of this for you just to show youwhat it looks like now again dependingon how much fat you cut offso have you see this I’ll get a littlecloser if you see that see that pinkthat’s the bark and that pink is all ofthe smoke that’s gotten into the meatover time so if you smoked it properlyyou’re gonna have a whole lot of a pinkrim around it and they gives it thatbark on the outside now if you’ll noticethis thing cuts with complete ease thereis I’m hardly having to push down onthis knife it’s falling apart see howyou can pull it just pulls apart likethat okay I wish you could smell thisthe whole house just smells so good mywife walked down first thing Deb said isthat is just fabulous so when you dothis again it’s gonna make a lot ofbrisket 20 pound raw cut about two twoand a half pounds of fat off and then wesmoked it your Paulie end up with about15 pounds when you’re done so we cutthat into three five pound sections wevacuum packet put away so we can eat itlaterjust to give you an examplethat’s the fat that we cut off that’sprobably a couple pounds of fat again wesmoked it just like the other meat cutit up into tiny little cubes give it toour dogs some people just like to eat itI’m enjoying this brisket I’m going tokeep eating but I hope you’ve enjoyedthe videojust remember get a good cut if youdon’t have a butcher find some peoplethat have been you know buying meatsfrom wherever just like for me I boughtmine at Costco found from a few otherpeople that did smoking that Costco herein Leesburg Virginia has some reallynice grade briskets I’ve been doingthese now for what about a year and ahalf Deb I’m like that and each time andget a little bit better but you can’treally go wrong unless you just try tocook it too fast so you want thatability for this stuff just to pullapart your hands almost you want it tohave a good bark on it so to do thatit’s going to take a decent number hourssmoking right now it’s about ten o’clockin the morning here so when we startedwe started at about seven o’clock soseven to seven was a 12-hour three moreso we’re at fifteen hours so somewherebetween 14 1/2 15 but again the time isnot as crucial as a final temperaturebut you do want to have at least thatlong burst of time at the beginning tobreak down all this tissue so whenyou’re doing it look at having a longterm cook you could start it in themorning have it done you know sometimelate in the day I used to start at 7:00the morning be done at 10:00 at nightand put it in the fridge for the nextday I’ve actually found since I trust mytrigger that I can run it all night longI just put it on the trigger if it’sgonna rain I put the umbrella above ityou know have to but I like to protectthe electronics and then just let it runall night longso again cooking with Bill if you got abetter name for this segment tell mewhat you’d like to have it but I guess Ican say Bon Appetit but hey this isbrisket so justjoy