Brisket

I’ve been wanting to make brisket ever since some friends brought a brisket they made on their Trager. It was pretty awesome and I wanted to see if I could make something that good smoking on my Weber.

My Weber smoking kind of reminds me of my beer brewing before I’d had much craft beer. I enjoyed what I was making, but wasn’t really sure if it was “good”. Unlike beer though, I’ve obviously had a good bit of smoked meat in my life. In any case, I wanted to have a change to do an apples-to-apples comparison (or brisket-to-brisket, as the case may be).

After making our way to the local butcher in hopes of filling out my “meat wishlist” (brisket, prague powder for bacon, and chicken back and pig trotters for Ramen), I finally got a huge slab of brisket. I was amazed to end up cutting off 2.5 lbs. of fat after I trimmed it. Luckily, I found I could render it and I made it into about a pint of tallow. I can’t find the article I used for the process, but it was pretty simple. I just kept my heavy dutch oven on my stoves smallest burner all afternoon, stirring every hour or so and then straining it through cheese cloth.

I figured AmazingRibs.com was a pretty good place to get my first recipe, so I made the aptly named “Smoked Beef Brisket Recipe“. I ended up doing it the same day I made the Ramen and cooked some Chashu Pork. I didn’t feel like staying up all night with it and I didn’t feel comfortable keeping a hot grill in my backyard unattended, so I got up at ~6:00 AM on Sunday. The brisket was on the hot, smokey grill by 6:45. I actually had to write up a Google document with my schedule so I could make sure I got everything done on time.

Impressions

It was pretty good. I especially liked the burnt ends for the next couple days. The meat itself wasn’t as succulent as I would have liked, it was a little dry and I think it could have benefited from staying on the grill longer to render more fat.

A couple weeks later and about half of it’s still sitting in a vacuum-sealed bag in my freezer. Maybe it will be a nice surprise one of these days.

Follow up

Thinking that I didn’t leave the brisket on the grill long enough to break down all the connective tissue, I took it out of the freezer and put it in a sous vide bath at 160 for 15 hours. Afterward, I can’t say that it was more moist or anything. It was reasonably moist, but I think the flavor was the main missing piece, it was just a little lacking. I think it will be good to slice up for ramen, though (cheap ramen, that is, with some homemade kimchi and egg).

Modifications for Next Time

Next time I won’t have another big project going on at the same time. Rather than being a lot of fun to have two neat meals going at the same time, it was tiring. Let the meat tell me when it’s done. I ended up taking it off when it was convenient for dinner (~2 hours beforehand so it could sit in the cooler) rather than waiting until “it goes wubba wubba and wiggles like jelly.” It was up to 203 F, but it was still a little firm.