BARBEQUE BRISKET

Oh yeah- Brisket is a tough meat when you start out, but if cooked correctly, is very delicious. I have never barbequed brisket, but when I pot it, it takes about 4 hours to get to the tenderness that I want.

I checked Google..........if you type in "Barbequed brisket" there are a lot of recipes. Since I don't know what you like in terms of taste, and have no experience with barbequeing the stuff, I hesitate to offer a particular recipe. Check out Google. There are plenty of choices there!

Link to Barbequed brisket

google is so matter of fact> Im looking for any help via the experience highway. I watched the cooking channel last week and they had a barbeque contest. The consensus was to gently and slowly cook brisket or other tougher cuts. I was wondering whether itd be a smart thing to warm smoke it even.

Can't say I'm not trying for you. This sounds interesting:

http://www.recipegoldmine.com/grillbeefpork/grillbeef5.html

hmmm, got an error message, Ill try the homepage

That's strange. I didnt! Here's the whole recipe:

Chris Schlesinger is pretty much a master with the 'cue, here are his pointers and words of wisdom regarding brisket:

10-12 pound Beef brisket
2 cups All-south barbecue rub
2 cups Basic all-american bbq sauce

Recipe by: The Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger

1. Rub the brisket thoroughly on all its sides with the barbecue rub, and allow it to come to room temperature.

2. In the pit of a covered grill, build a very small fire on one side as far up against one wall as possible. Place the brisket on the grill on the side opposite from the fire so that none of the brisket is directly over the flame. Put the top on the cooker, pull up a chair, and grab the cooler.

This is where a person learns about the Zen of Barbecue. You gotta keep the fire going, but very quietly. If you've got a thermometer on your covered grill, you want to keep the temperature between 180 and 220 F. Remember, "Slow and low is the way to go." You have to figure out your own personal refueling policy. The one I like is one handful of coals or wood chunks to
every beer.

This goes on for about 8 to 10 hours or however long you can make it, the longer the better. Don't be scared by the darkening of the exterior, the outside of the brisket will be superdark--my personal favorite part.

3. Upon completion, pull the brisket out, trim off any excess fat, and slice it thin. Serve with barbecue sauce on the side--no pro would ever cover properly cooked brisket with sauce, he'd just dab on a touch.

Obviously the key here is a tremendous amount of patience and a day when you want to do nothing but sit around. But the end product is one of those great culinary events that results from spending a lot of time doing something that is relaxing and enjoyable. Make sure you have plenty of tall boys for eating this.


In my estimation, beef brisket just might be why the barbecue process was invented. My research, sketchy as it is, shows that there was a strong German immigrant community in Texas around the turn of the century. It has some of these Germans working in the booming Texas cattle industry, and others working in butcher shops, what with their strong background in butchering and charcuterie. It being common knowledge that butchers are
constantly trying to turn tough or inexpensive cuts of meat into a usable product that brings a higher cost (witness sausages and pates), it has these German butchers faced with the brisket. This cut of beef is particularly unwanted because of the huge percentage of fat that runs not only on the surface, but throughout the cut. Traditional technique would be to braise or pickle this cut to tenderize it, but the brisket also has a lot of beef flavor. In my personal opinion, a vey smart German butcher who was looking for a way to market this cut barbecued it. We're not talking here about the open-pit roasting that was already popular in this area, but rather closed-pit cooking, in which the cooking is done by convection rather than conduction. It is similar to braising in theory, with the smoke replacing the water. It is cooked at very low heat for a long period of time, and the high fat content protects the meat from drying out but also disappears through the 10 - 18 hour cooking process. What you are left with is very tender meat with little or no fat and a tremendous smoky beef flavor. I think the meat and the process were literally invented for each other.

Now, I don't think that you will get any disagreement from the professional in the barbecue industry when I say that brisket is the hardest to master--but, hey, learning is half the fun. And, in the words of Remus Powers, famous barbecue aficianado, "The best barbecue I ever had is the one on the plate in front of me."
These are guidelines for the closed-pit barbecuing of brisket, a basic technique with many variables which is wide open for personal interpretations.

Chris Schlesinger

All-South Barbecue Rub
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Recipe By : The Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger

2 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons chili powder
2 Tablespoons black pepper -- freshly cracked
1 Tablespoon cayenne pepper
4 Tablespoons paprika

(Double this for the brisket, recipe makes 1 cup)

All you do is throw them together and mix them well.

sounds like many more than 1 hour per pound. All I remember about brisket is that corn beef and cabbage is tender but still stringy. does bbq brisket become more tender? im willing to invest the time but it sounds like im gonna be starting at 5AM for a 3 PM party and 4PM eats time. Im thinking of having a hibachi for shrimp so that the people can gnosh before the main event . I may have to rethink the brisket as a main meat (along with pork spare ribs) sounds like a steep learning curve .

1 hour per pound is a pretty good estimate actually. Part of the trick is finding brisket that hasn't been trimmed too lean...probably not a problem where you are, but here, everything is trimmed too lean. Brisket is indeed an investment in time. Now, some marinated beef short ribs can be cooked quite quickly on a hot grill...

my submission to the technology of grilling is a slow cooking ring for a weber charcoal grill. I use a piece of 8'' well casing cut to about 3 '' 'high. I lay this in the center of the grill and put charcoal around the outside as a thin layer. this keeps the center of the grill open and not in the line of fire. Now i need to work on a way to figure when the temp is good. My smoker has a thermometer and I can use that but the smoker has a few drawbacks in that it can go suddenly cool

Was it you, Farmerman, who recommended the Masterbuilt smoker I bought last year?

Jamison and Jamison's "Smoke and Spice" has a recipe that we tried last year. It was mouth-watering. The rub recipe is a little different and it calls for a beer mop, but the process is the same.

They offer tips: "The best barbecued brisket is heavily smoked and significantly shrunk during the cooking process. The only way to succeed completely is with a wood-burning pit or similar homemade smoker. ... Start with a packer-trimmed brisket (8-12 pounds), the whole cut with a thick layer of fat on one side."

If you don't want to spend all day at it, there's an alternate recipe in "Smoke and Spice". They say it works great in a water smoker or on a charcoal grill.

RUB

2 tablespoons hickory-flavoured salt
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 taablespoons ground black pepper

MARINADE

2 tablespoons rub
12 oz. beer
1 chopped onion
1/2 cup cider or white vinegar
1/4 cup oil
2 canned chiptole chiles
2 tablespoons adobo sauce
2 tablespoons liquid smoke

4-pound fully trimmed brisket section (flat cut)

Your favourite barbecue sauce

The night before mix rub ingredients. Prepare marinade. Marinate the brisket overnight.

Before barbecuing drain and discard marinade. Pat brisket down with all but 2 tablespoons of remaining rub. Let sit at room temperature for a while.

Bring the smoker or grill temperature to 200-220 degrees.

Cook brisket for 3 hours. Place meat on foil, sprinkle with remaining rub, close foil tightly. Cook for an additional 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

After removing from grill, let it sit at room temperature. Trim fat and slice against the grain. Serve with barbecue sauce on the side.

mck-it may have been, i recall the topic on abuzz as one of the last civil ones over there. Ive tried the rubs and they tend to be a bit too salty for our tastes, so weve taken to drop the salt a lot and kick up the sugar a bit.

well, in case anybodys there, the brisket has been on since 9AM and its smoking and giving off an aroma that is great. Ive subbed the recipe by not using any liquid smoke. Instead Im using apple wood in the smoker and its just about 230 degrees, so the meat(brisket) will be done by 3 PM. The ribs have been short cut by parboiling and then marinading overnight. Theyll take much less time. I know its cheating but I hate dry ribs

Farmerman, I want to know how things worked out...I cheated myself today, and slow-cooked a brisket with BBQ rub in a 200 degree oven. I miss the smoke, but it was tender and juicy, with a nice crust. I only did a small one, 5 1/2 lbs., but it's okay. I sometimes do ribs the same way, slow cooked in the oven. Sadly, we cannot have a smoker or BBQ as we live in an apartment that doesn't allow them.

The brisket was great. The smoke flavor from the fire and the rub (with less salt) was treeemendous. Its times like that when I miss some beer or wine though.
Funny, we had ribs left but no brisketr, everybody had some and more

Now I want to go to a barbeque cook off to see how its done in a big way

Good to hear...we will have brisket for a few days now...corn and Caesar salad will finish things off for the weekend, I think.