how to make a TEXAS STYLE SMOKED BEEF BRISKET

[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]mother’s a huge fan of barbecue I likeall barbecue but my favorite barbecuehas to be brisket which is why today isa special day because I’ve made brisketbefore but I’ve never smoked a wholepacker brisket before and that is whatwe’re gonna do today I’ve seen theclasses that Aaron Franklin has onlineI’m gonna take a lot of inspiration fromhis method he’s a very smart way ofdoing it I’m not gonna say this is thebest way but he seems to be an authorityon brisket and I like his approach it’ssimple it makes sense to me and sothat’s what we’re gonna do today so I’mhappy to be making this videocollaboration with beef it’s what’s fordinner on behalf of the beef checkoff wework together to plan a video around thebeauty of beef and that amazing flavorthat is created when you smoked beefwith fire and what there’s some meatsthat are just made to be smoked and abrisket is one of them it’s a big toughcut of meat it has two muscles on it aflat and a point both of them cookdifferently when you think brisket youthink burnt ends those come from thepoint and the flat is where you getthose nice strips from in the Northeastyou can’t really get whole Packerbriskets which is what they’re calledthey usually just cut the point off andsell the flat so I have to order thebrisket I’m about to use today onlineand had it shipped to me it basicallycomes down to trimming it a specific wayand thenmaintaining good clean smoke ramping uptemperatures and really having a planfor it when do you want to serve themeat and then work backwards and make aplan what temp do you want to be atcertain times when you want to wrap whendo you think the stalls gonna hit all ofthese things are going to matter[Music]the main difference in how I’m gonna doit is I’m not going to use a offsetsmoker one with like the big drum andthen a little area where you can makefire out and the air flows through itand out the other side I’m gonna use thegrill that I have which is the slow andsear quemado I’ve cooked briskets manytimes but I’ve never smoked it this wayI’ve never had a point and a flat on abrisket it’s gonna cook totallydifferent than it ever has and it’sgonna be that much better because youneed all the fat in the point which iswhere you get delicious burnt ends andall this great inter muscular fat allthat’s gonna keep the flat from dryingout so I’ve never trimmed the brisketI’ve never smokedthis type of brisket before so this isvery much a learning experience for uniand it’s very possible I may screw somethings up but I have a plan and I’mpretty confident in it I’m prettyconfident in my ability to create aclean smoke to manage the fire and Ithink those are the big things that Ihave to worry about so I’m gonna followthese steps and we’re gonna see whathappens let’s just get right intotrimming this guy first thing you’regonna need very sharp knife make sureyou have a honing steel this is a boningknife a fillet knife it’s got some bendto it and that’s gonna give us someflexibility in this thing we also havethe brisket in the refrigerator it’scold it’s about 8:30 I have the grillalready set up outside so when I want tolight the fires I know it’s gonna takeabout an hour for it to heat up and thenI’m gonna try and get this brisket onthe grill at around 11:00 11:30 ideallyI’m gonna cook it for 12 hours I’m notgonna need to stoke a fire like you’d doall night on an off set using thequemado it’s a little bit moreuser-friendly so let’s get goinga whole packer brisket you got the pointthat lays on top of the flat and thenthe flat that comes around here so yousaw I got to sort of mussels the grainsrun in different directions what I feellike I’ve learned is that what makesAaron Franklin’s barbecue so good isthat he’s trimming off all of the bitsthat don’t work so that when the thingis cooked every bite is perfecteverybody has a little bit of bark theperfect amount of fat salt so reallythat’s how we’re gonna think abouttrimming this and we might trim a lotoff but my brother wants all of the trimto make for burgers and sauces and stufflike that so I don’t really feel thatbad so let’s get this guy open I want toopen it up that side so that you don’tkind of ruin the meat and you want tokeep all of this juice sort of containedin the bag and then you want to throw itaway immediately so you see this it’skind of like a grayish sort of area onthe brisket that’s sort of where the cowis split and it’s sort of treated bygetting seared I guess cooked so whenthat cooks down that’s just gonna flakeoff and it’s just gonna make for a badslice what we’re gonna do is we’re gonnatake this and we’re gonna slice off anew edge on both sides and that’s justgonna clean it up it’s gonna shape itand it’s also going to allow us to seehow much fat there is on the meat and wecan trim that fat down to a quarter aninch which is what we want it’s sort ofthe perfect amount of fat to lastthrough the cook and keep everythingmoist without there being a huge chunkof fat on the slice when you’re donecooking it so this is the underside ofthe brisket you’ve got this piece that’shanging out here which will probablysort of shape off a little bit becausethat’s gonna burn you’ve got thesedeckle fatsyou’ve got seem fat that’s gonna runthrough here at these different types offats and you can feel them they’re superhard so we’re gonna like remove all ofthese things we want to cut this newedgegoing to start here there’s this littleseam right here and this piece of meatthat isn’t really I believe part of thebrisket because there’s a seam of fatthat runs through it so that’s just partof another muscle that they cut and thatseam runs all the way down till abouthere and you can feel it and then itstarts even out so what I think I wantto do is start to cut this little pieceoff see how this fat underneath itthat’s not part of the brisket so I’mjust gonna make a little mark there andthen I’m gonna follow that all the waydown and then you get this nicebeautiful inside little window into thebrisket right here you have that pointwhich is where all that burnt ends comefrom and then over here you have theflat and then all this fat that’s toomuch fat we can trim all of that downand now that we cut into it we can sortof see what all of that looks like we’lldo the same on the other side just sogonna make a mark there and this haslike this weird piece here just gonnatake that offthat’s just gonna hang out there I thinkthat’s just gonna burn again that’s somefor my brother you don’t have to sort oftake that off but it’s what I wanted todo and then I’m just going to create anew edge here how am i doing now this issort of a weird thing that I wasn’texpecting I felt like this usually sitson the top more this little piece that’shanging over here I don’t like that ithangs but I don’t think I have much of achoice so I want to sort of create a newskin on top cleaned up the edges I wantto get all this grisly stuff out of hereI think I need to keep this fat on heremaybe I can clean it up a little bit butI can sort of see down the middle thatthere’s a little bit of a thinness thatI want to keep so right here right wherethis starts to go in I want to cut allof this out and then slowly start totrimon this way you want curved edges so wewant to sort of take our knife get downthere and then just start to kind of getto a quarter of an inch helps to sort ofpick it up a little bit they don’t wantto cut too much off maybe I want to cutthis it out a little bit more you justwant to kind of bend it sometimes to getunderneath some areas and I know I sortof want to start here and then trim downoh no I don’t want to do that took alittle bit too much so I’m just gonnacut it back off a little bit okay so[Music]here’s my big mistaketook way too much off and it’s right inthe middle where I really wanted toprotect it but that’s a perfect lessonlearned it’s not going to be the end ofthe world but hopefully some of this fatis going to keep that protected butthat’s what you want to avoid you wantsort of this this stuff here this nicefat that’s pillowy and soft to go allthe way across it’s a little bit of abald spot it’s gonna be okay I’m justgonna finish up being a little bit morecareful I’m not trying to do it in thereverse way that I should be[Music]now I got to get this deckle out so I’msort of gonna do the same thing there’sall this kind of fat that you can kindof clean up over here and just sort ofcut this guy out that’s just a hard fatthat’s not gonna render really well sonow I just want to start to trim trimaround see like anything like that Iwant to sort of make sure I don’t havestuff like that and then I round off thecorners now I’m gonna do the same thinga little bit on this side now I want tosort of get rid of this end we’re justgonna sort of cut this is the first biteand there’s a little gristle right thereso you don’t want that there so you’rejust gonna cut it out push it out I’mreally scared to go any furtherI made some mistakes here with the baldpatch but you know we’re just gonnacover that up with some pepper and saltand it’s not gonna be too bad this Ifeel like maybe I took a little bit toomuch of the deckle out because some ofthis stuff is that’s soft that’s gonnarender so that’s a potential pitfall alittle bit worried about this overhangI’m hoping that’s going to hold up andnot dry out too much usually I feel likethat’s kind of sitting more on top ofthe brisket so I’m just sort of justfiguring my way through like this lookedlike there was a ton of fat over herebut in reality there wasn’t so I’m nottoo worried about the trim being perfectI don’t sell this to customers but youdon’t really want bald patches you sortof want quarter of an inch all the wayacross the top go for that if you don’thit it so what and this is just gonnaput a binder you can use a mustard I’mgonna use oil I sort of always use oilseasoning basically this is just koshersalt and it’s called 16 mesh or cafegrind black pepperI didn’t grind this myself I went outand bought some whole 100% Tellicherryblack peppers but gret free ground to acertain size that size is supposed tomatch the size of kosher salt so thatone is not heavier than the other andyou can get an even dispersion and Ijust have this empty bottle to get someregular holes in it nothing too fancyI’m not going to do this because I’vealready filled this up for a previouscook but you take fifty-fifty buttonfind a portion you can draw outlines sothat they’re even and then just fill uphalfway with black pepper fill uphalfway with the salt and then you’vegot your seasoning sort of use your handand with like a sort of shaking side toside make sure you shake it up nice soit’s nice and even and then just go backand forth sort of like a car wash oh nodisaster number one here’s what I didn’tdo shake that off okay I’m gonna holdthis and I want to do that again I’mgonna take my hand and I’m gonna pour iton the hand and then Pat seam down here[Music]I’m just gonna take some of this stuffthat fell out and I’m just gonna Patthat along here now quick flip all rightthere we have it trimmed seasonedbrisket I feel way more prepared now todo it again and that’s sort of what thisis aboutI’m gonna learn from the mistakes seewhat happens see how it cuts up at theend and there you go but it’s about 9:30now at about 10 o’clock I want to lightmy fire so earlier today I just wentoutside I set my grill up ahead of timeso all I have to do when I’m ready is tojust light it up get rolling I just sortof put some apple wood chunks down atthe bottom of the slow and sear which ispart of micah motto build it up halfwaywith some lump charcoal when I’m readyto get this guy on I’m just gonna lightup the wax cubes let that preheat forabout an hour while this comes totemperature and then we’re gonna getthis guy going so it’s 10 p.m.like I said it’s gonna take about anhour for this thing to get up totemperaturethe first temperature I want to startoff at is around 2:45 to 255 basicallywant to start cooking this thing alittle bit gently cuz the big fear inthe beginning of the cook is drying outany of the edges if you dry out theedges in the beginning maybe by cookingtoo hot or too fast then it probablywon’t make this 12 hour cook right so wewant to start low around like 245 250and cook it there for about the firstthree to four or five hour then we’regonna slowly ramp it up maybe up to like260 and then when we’re getting up tothe stall then you want to kind of rampit up to about like 280 just to helppush it through the stall a little bitI made my life easy I got everythingready to go earlier now I’m just gonnalet that preheat that’s gonna take about15 or 20 minutes now my one concern isit’s about 95 degrees right now andhumid and tomorrow it’s about to be ahundred degreesI’m concerned that and under theseconditions that might take faster so Idon’t really know how I want to attackthat basically we’re gonna cook thisuntil the bark gets reallyKrusty as soon as the bark gets hard andyou can feel the meat sort of tense upthen sort of a good time for us to sortof rap so this is pretty carefree for usI want to get the brisket on the grillaround 11:00 11:30 so I jammed up thesloan-c air with some lump charcoal madesure that there’s enough that’s gonnaget me through at least like five sixhours of this cook next I need to addhot water to the water reservoir that’sgonna create steam it’s gonna helpcontrol and stabilize the temperaturesand it’s also gonna help smoke adhere tothat meat and since we use these coarseground pepper and salt that’s gonnacreate this like texture on the meatthat is gonna aid in this bark formationbecause that smoke needs a little bit ofa rough surface to adhere to develop thereservoir got my thermometer one part ofthis thermometer is gonna stay hereanother remote thermometer is gonna besitting next to my bed the entire nightI’m gonna set alarms throughout thenight so that I could check the temps soI’ve got one monitoring the indirectside that is gonna basically monitor theback end so I know what the coolest partof the grill which is gonna be all theway over here is still set up I’m gonnahave the thicker part of the brisketbasing the heat and I’m gonna cook itlike that we’re gonna wait till thisgets up to 245 degrees and the smoke isclear then we’re gonna throw the brisketon now remember clean smoke is thatsweet smelling smoke especially withapple you get those are really sweetkind of aromas this is just starting tosettle down into clean smoke it wasstill a little bit accurate it’s sort oflike burns your nostrils doesn’t smellgood you’re starting to get there howmuch thinner it is it was so smokybefore but now it’s sort of like it’salmost invisible you can still see itthat’s clean smoke we’re ready to getthis guy onto the grillnow when you open this you don’t want toopen it up real crazy you want to let alittle bit of this air come through youdon’t want any rush of air and thenslowly open it now we want to get thison as soon as possiblenow I’m just gonna wait for that to getback up to temperature wait for it tostabilize at around 2:45 to 250 is therange I’d like to keep it for the firstthree or four hour I’ve got this guyit’s gonna be upstairs with me in bedright now it’s 1103 and then I’ll set analarm every two hours the check on thetemps spritz it I want to make surethose edges stay nice and moist if I seethe temp dropping it’s an indication Ineed more fuel so come down and I’ll addmore fuel and what I have here is just alittle spray bottle filled with applecider vinegar it’s not gonna flavor itat all but it’s going to help keep somespots moist the idea is not to reallyjust drain the whole thing it’s to sprayalong the edges anything you see dryingout you want to spritz it so it’s about11:30 this time I can kind of go rest[Music]it’s almost 2 o’clock so it’s almostthree hours been sort of slowlyfluctuating but making its way up to 60so I didn’t want to mess with it I justlet it gohowever it once but I started it offslow so I think I’m gonna be okay now Iwant to go in there and make sure thatI’ve been spritzing a little bit I’mgonna hit the edges in a sort of aside-to-side motionI’m just gonna wait fit smoke sort ofsettle back down a little bit thatalways sort of happens when you open andclose it that’s why it’s not so great todo that it’ll settle back down in aboutfive or ten minutes I’m gonna get itback up to temperature and then I’mgonna try to get some actual sleep whenI check it next at around 3:30 ish andmay want to start to open up the vents alittle bit start to get the temperatureup to about 265 270 so we’re gonna openup vents to get them a little hotter andwe’ll close them if we want to geta little cooler about 5:30 in themorning let’s go to peak now is gonnawant be when I want to start to get upthere to around 280 ish the meet it’stime to firm up it’s time to approachthe stall and at that point it’s gonnalook like it’s gonna stop cooking it’sgonna stop increasing in temperatureit’s gonna firm up and seize up and whatthat just is is the meat is sweatinginternally it’s called evaporativecooling it’s sort of cooling itself downlike we do when we sweat that’sessentially what the stall is so we’regonna raise the temperature to kind ofpush it through and keep the momentumgoing for this last stage of thisunwrapped cupyeah it’s 7:00 7:30 was that 11 I’m atthe 8 and a half hour mark right hereyou could start to see fat inside eventheir muscular fat is starting to renderthat’s what we want now we want to wrapit I’ve got two sheets of butcher paperyou can use aluminum foil for this Ihave butcher paper it’s what I kind ofwanted to use today it’s double layeredso that in the center you have doublethe wrap I’m gonna throw it right onhere what I want to do you’re just gonnafold over and I’m gonna pull in tightfor the wrap that underneath there andthen fold the paperand again these fold this last piece inunderneath and there you have it Iforgot to give it one last spritz in thebag I think there’s enough fat that it’sgonna be okay so let’s just get it backonto the grill now at the eight o’clockI’m probably gonna cook it for anotherhour and a half and and see where we’reat we’re gonna probe it with athermometerwe’re mainly gonna probe for tendernessand just see what the temps are at we’relooking for anywhere above 203 205 inthat range that’s usually gonna meanit’s nice and buttery tender it’s beenabout 11 and a half hours 11 hours we’vebeen kind of bouncing in and out ofsleep sleep in every hour a little30-minute nap here a little hour napthere that’s the reality of cookingsomething like this so I just want toprobe for tenderness I want to see wherewe’re atlike I suspected the excessive heat sortof helped cook this thing about a halfhour sooner than I expectedthat goes to show maybe it’s coldermaybe it’s gonna take longer for you andthe other time of year you really haveto pay attention to that now it’s so hotout that if I’m just gonna let this sitout it’s gonna keep carryover cook it’ssort of like a cambro outside right nowI’m just gonna leave it wrap not gonnathrow it into a cooler or anything justgonna let it chill for about an hour anhour and a half but everything sort ofrelaxed this is maybe the most importantpart of barbecuing is letting that restI can’t tell you how many times I’vetried to cook something like this on abarbecue all day waited without anypatience to the moment it was donedidn’t let it rest and it just wassubpar letting this thing rest is goingto make it insanely delicious so that’swhat we’re gonna do now get my coffeeI’m gonna shower up my get this daygoing and try and wake up a little bitand we’re gonna eat some brisket this isthebeauty of a long cook like that you getto enjoy something amazing afterwardsit’s about one o’clock this thing’s beenresting for a couple hours there youhave it I don’t know how we did itsmells beautiful almost like chocolateynow all I’m concerned about is if thatseemed fat that in between the point andthe flat is fully rendered and the topfat is rendered nicely so let’s see whatwe got looks like it’s juicy nice barkthis may have dried out a little bit butlet’s see serrated bread knife this isgonna be the first cut right so thegrain is running like this on the flatso I want to cut like this and I’m goingto cut tall about here and then I’mgonna start to cut this way on the pointand the flat because the muscle runsdifferently there and the way that hecuts is almost like a pool cue not likeI normally cut so he’s guiding his theknife with his finger so let’s just doit we’re looking for like a pencilthickness slices and I’m starting atthis angle and I’m still gonna make myway across like that[Music]now so this is the center of the flatand that’s sort of a good indication ofyou doing your job well does it justpull apart your fats rendered nicely nowthis is like the money shot see this Iwould have liked this to just be alittle bit more rendered it’s gonna befine it’s perfectly tender but just tobe a little bit more rendered would beto my liking but it’s super juicybeautiful so I’m just gonna do the samething and then also work my way at anangle a little bit as well so you canget more bark on each bite so this piecehas a little bit more of this fatunderneath so we’re gonna take it to acertain point then I like to cut the theflat off of this part and then makelittle like burnt end pieces with thispoint[Music]there you have itTexas barbecue brisket so what you seealong this outer Ridge here is calledthe smoke ring that’s a good indicationthat you had some good smoke at itadhered to the meat and that’s thatflavor that you get when you eat it thatdelicious sweet smoked flavor stayedrelatively moist during the cookingprocess a lot of that could beattributed to that mop that we spray iton it that apple cider vinegar mop itjust helps some of these edges fromreally drying out in the cooking processbut there’s something about beef andsmoke that makes this ridiculous flavorand it’s highlighted in brisket wesmoked it with that Applewood and thatApplewood gives it this really sweetsmoky flavor not too strong but it’sjust sort of what I like I’m from NewYork we grow apples here Applewood seemsto make sense the flat stayed nice andmoist as you can see when it’s nice andtender I don’t see as tender as it isdoesn’t seem like it fully rendered inthe middle like it could have probablyused another 20 or 30 minutes whathappened was I set my alarm for 3:30 andI think I slept through it until 5:30when I woke up temps were at 200 so Ihad to run downstairs add more coal andsomething in that process probably couldhave affected this ability to fullyrender all that fat it’s rendered andit’s delicious and it’s pull aparttender but it’s not fully rendered andthat’s the most difficult part iscooking this juicy and tender especiallyin this mid part while fully renderingout all the point muscle and this seamfat that runs between the point and theflat there are some really good burnendsI like the tenderness all around and I’mpretty happy with how the fat did rendermost places I call it a success and ifyou can bang out a brisket that’s sortof like this you don’t need to go toTexas you could bring the best of Texasanywhere you are[Music]perfection is hard to achieve andbarbecue can only hope to get somethingthat you’re happy with and thenincrementally have improve on that eachtime I want to think beef it’s what’sfor dinner for sponsoring this video Ithink it’s time for me to get some restso that’s all I have today hope youenjoyed this one I’ll see you next timeuntil then take care of yourself and gofeed yourself