Texas Style Smoked Brisket

What’s up guys it’s Susie Bulloch from HeyGrillHey.com and if you’re watchingthis video it means we already have
something in commonprobably the most important thing we
both love good barbecue and that’sperfect because here at hey grill hey my
whole goal is to help you make betterbarbecue so you can feed the people you
love and become a backyard barbecue herotoday I’m showing you how to make my
Texas style smoked beef brisket let’s doit now I know a piece of meat this size
can seem pretty intimidating but don’tworry I’m gonna walk you through it in
six easy stepstrim season smoke wrap rest and slice
easy right let’s get started now everypiece of meat is a little bit different
but for a brisket this size about twelveto fourteen pounds you can plan 15 to 16
hours for cooking you’re going to needabout thirty minutes of prep time at
least fifteen hours to smoke and then anhour to rest a long cook like this one
especially with a brisket you gotta plana little bit in advance so what I
typically do is trim and season put iton the smoker late at night right before
we go to bed and then I’m usually readyfor the next step when we wake up first
thing in the morning let’s get startedour ingredients list for this is really
short you need a 12 to 14 pound wholepacker brisket that means you have the
flat and the point it’s gonna look aboutlike this a bunch of your favorite beef
seasoning I’m using my beef seasoningyou can buy in the store or if you’d
like to go homemade you can use equalparts of kosher salt coarse black pepper
and garlic powder so let’s get startedstep 1 we’ve gotta trim so my first step
when I trim a brisket is to remove anyexcess fat and silver skin it doesn’t
have to be perfect but it’s important toremove a lot of this excess fat because
it’s gonna block the seasoning fromhaving access to your meat which will
impact the flavor and the bark at theend looking good so far alright next we
want to get rid of these big pieces ofhard fat they’re not gonna cook down
during the cooking process and they’regonna make our brisket not very
aerodynamic in the smoker you reallywant the smoke to be able to circulate
evenly around your brisket while it’scooking you
any big pieces that are hanging off orcreating sharp corners just want it to
be nice and smooth next we’re just gonnarun our knife along the side of the
brisket just taking off that outsideedge so we get a nice clean line and in
an effort to reduce all those sharpcorners we’re just gonna take each
corner off the bottom of the flatthere’s not much meat on these corners
and they’ll just dry up and turn reallycrispy and crusty on the grill so it’s
okay to get rid of them alright backside of our brisket looks good time to
flip it over and do the top our goalwith the top of the brisket is to get
this fat as even as possible so we wantto trim it down to about 1/4 inch
thickness all the way across the top twothings to help this process go more
quickly and easily is having a reallysharp knife I like a six to seven inch
fillet or boning knife and making sureyour brisket is cold because if this fat
warms up it’s actually a lot harder tocut through and it becomes slippery
another great thing about cold brisketis that it actually takes on smoke a lot
better smoke particles are attracted tocold things so a chilled brisket
hitting the smoker will mean more smokeflavor in your meat this looks really
nice we have a nice even layer of fat onthe top and a nice uniform aerodynamic
shape in our brisket that means readyfor step two it’s time to season itgrab your favorite seasoning I like to
use something with a shaker lid it makesgetting the seasoning on a lot easier
you want to hold your bottle about 10 to12 inches above your meat and just shake
it on there you want a nice even coatingyou can technically over season but
don’t be afraid of being generous thisis a really thick cut and the seasoning
on the outside of our brisket with thiscoarse salt and pepper will help create
a nice crunchy crust on the outsideduring the smoking process once you’re
seasoning is sprinkled evenly across thetop of your brisket use the palm of your
handand just press it on in there you don’t
want any loose seasoning to fall offwhen you flip your brisket over I call
this the Susie sprinkle and slap fill inany areas look like they need a little
more seasoningand then flip it over season the other
side I’ve cooked a lot of differentbriskets using a lot of different styles
and techniques but the one we come backto time and time again is this
texas-style brisket it’s because it’s sosimple and it really delivers on that
down-home backyard brisket flavor it’s aclassic it’s not complicated it’s not
fussyit doesn’t require a ton of extra steps
or injections or marinades or mops butit really delivers on flavor this looks
perfect we’re ready to take it out tothe smoker I’ve got it preheated outside
to 225 degrees Fahrenheit classic Texaswood is oak I’ve mixed mine with a
little bit of cherry ready to go I’mgonna put this brisket in fat cap up
close the lid let this smoke for aboutthe next 8 hours we’re looking for an
internal temperature of 165 degrees inthe thickest part of the point we’re
gonna be wrapping our brisket in butcherpaper this is often called peach butcher
paper or pink butcher paperit’s an unwaxed untreated paper that
allows the moisture to stay in with thebrisket but it also still allows smoke
to go through and penetrate the meatjust roll out two long sheetsand overlap them in the middle now I’ve
got another brisket in here that I’vebeen smoking for eight hours so I can
show you guys what you’re looking forwhen this hits 165 degrees before you
wrap you want to make sure that yourbark is really nice and developed so
when you scratch at it it’s not reallygonna come off it just got some nice
color in there the bark looks perfect Ialso want to check the temperature I
want to make sure that the thickest partof this meat is reading about 165
degrees Fahrenheit and we’re right thereso this is ready to come off onto our
butcher paper and wrap grab your brisketplace it in the center of your two
pieces of butcher paper not quite allthe way to the end fold up this sideand then foldso once you have your brisket mostly
covered you’re gonna fold it over on topof itself and then pull it back to
create a nice tight wrap you don’t wanta lot of air pockets in here and then
continue folding now when we first putour brisket on the smoker we put it on
fat side up this time we want to put itback on fat side down close the lid and
we don’t touch it again until ourbrisket is done we’re looking for an
internal temperature of 202 degreesFahrenheit this is going to take another
six or seven hours we’re about 15 hoursin on our brisket cook it’s time to
check the temperature of our brisketwe’re looking for 202 degrees fahrenheit
in the thickest part of the pointoh there we go our temperatures right at
202 to read Fahrenheit and just asimportant as temperature is the texture
of our brisket you want your thermometerprobe to slide into that meat like it’s
sliding into a stick of softened butterthat’ll mean all of that fat has
rendered and all of those tightconnective tissues has gelatinized you’re
gonna have a really tender soft melt inyour mouth brisket this one’s ready to
come off the smoker now you can pullthis off set it on the counter and let
it rest for 45 minutes to an hour ifyou’re ready to eat right away if your
brisket is done a little bit early pullit off of your smoker and let it rest in
a cooler with a towel this will helpkeep your brisket really moist and it
will let that resting temperature holdfor a little bit longer so it’s ready to
serve when you’re ready to eat we’regonna see this brisket in about an hourwe have trimmed we have season we’ve
smoked we have wrapped we have restedit’s time to talk about slicing this
brisket let’s open it up and see whatwe’ve got
oh it is a juicy onethis brisket looks amazing the bark on
the outside is nice and dark andcaramelized and crispy it smells
beautiful and you’ve got this nicelittle brisket jiggle that means that a
lot of that fat has rendered down andthe muscle tissues are super tender a
brisket is made up of two overlappingmuscle structures and the grain runs in
different directions so it’s importantyou know how to slice this because if
you slice it wrong it’s 20 hours ofsmoke down the drain you’re gonna end up
with really chewy rubber bands insteadof nice tender melt-in-your-mouth meat
so here’s how you do ittake your knife and slice almost
directly down the middle of your brisketthat’s nice that’s the juicy brisket
this brisket is so juicy it has abeautiful smoke ring around the outside
and then you’re going to want to turnthe point of your brisket so our flat
over here is gonna be sliced straightacrossinto slices that are about as thick as a
pencilthese thin slices against the grain in
the flat are gonna be nice and uniformand they’re going to pull apart so
easily just be careful when you’reslicing your hands can get slippery from
all the brisket juice make sure you usea long sharp knife as we get closer to
the point you can see where the grainstarts to change and there’s a fat layer
in between the flat and the point thatstarts to shift a little bit that’s when
you know it’s time to turn your brisketpoint 90 degrees and start slicing that
against the grainI always take off these edge pieces and
just cut them into little nuggets theseare the burnt ends and this is Todd’s
favorite so I always save these nicefatty crusty barky pieces for us to eatwe love making brisket when we have a
bunch of people coming over to our houseit’s always a crowd-pleaser it feeds a
bunch of people and everybody likesbrisket brisket it’s typically a really
tough cut of meat but when you slowsmoke it at a low temperature
it just becomes soft and melting yourmouth almost falls apart did you say
burnt ends for da perfect timingTexas style you got to serve it on
butcher paper what I like to do isarrange pieces of the flat on one side
so the people who like the leaner slicesof brisket can get what they like and
then I bring on those nice fatty piecesof brisket the center and then any
little pockets I have left I fill thesepieces of burnin great I’m ready
yo’ve work I think you get to taste itnow I want this one yeah I saved these
little Berman pieces for you and me Icall these the pitmasters privilege Ohyep
boss the brisket hug right there ohthese are so good that’s seasoning on
the outside gives it the perfect amountof salt black pepper well you can taste
that oak smoke this is the king of allsmoked meats ma’am looks like Texas
smells like Texas tastes like Texas Ithink we got a texas-style brisket babe
I think we did it mmm I hope you smokedthis brisket and take it somewhere
awesome also when you do leave a commentlet us know how this recipe turned out
for youbetter yet snap a photo post it online
use the hashtag #heygrillhey that wayTodd and I can see it and cheer you on on
your way to becoming a backyard barbecuehero see you next time happy brisket