What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Feel bad I ripped a guy off in a trade. (1 Viewer)

B

Bobbyn2022

Footballguy
Keeper league I gave up $2 Harvin TyvonAustin $1 and Rivers $4 for Romo $40 and Dez $30....I got way better this year he will be better later. Still feel bad. Should I?

 
Could you list all your players and values and all his please and current standings so I can make a more informed judgement. Thanks

 
Thanks for posting this in the Shark Pool. This is critical to the Forum's continued success of quality threads.

:sarcasm:

 
Not sure about the trade but you should feel bad for the 288 (and counting) people who have viewed this thread.

 
Sorry it took me so long to reply, my son is running a 104 fever so I've been taking care of him, but that's no excuse for not giving your question the full attention it deserves. I've given it a lot of thought and I think you should continue to feel bad for a while.

 
Ignoratio Elenchi said:
Sorry it took me so long to reply, my son is running a 104 fever so I've been taking care of him, but that's no excuse for not giving your question the full attention it deserves. I've given it a lot of thought and I think you should continue to feel bad for a while.
Click to expand...
What kind of excuse is that? You need to provide more detail here... Why should he feel bad? What about his trades should make him feel the worst? The OP needs some reassurance that he got the better part of this deal and your answer doesn't really help him with that. Close the door to your sons room, let him scream and cry it out, maybe put on headphones or something to block the noise out and give the OP the detail he deserves!

 
I bet you feel really bad LOL what kind of post is this? If you really want to say you ripped him off, first I would like to say is this redraft or dynasty? Rivers is matching romo almost toe for toe and tavon/harvin are def not Dez but once harvin comes back he could be pretty dang good... TOP 5 even. I remember last year Harvin was leading scorer until he got hurt.

 
I like the other side of the trade. Mainly because I want to root against you now for posting this.

 
I feel bad if I dont rape someone in a trade. I'll usually start a thread here showing how bad i ripped the idiot off so all the shark poolers can laugh and ridicule the guy. Then I send him a link to the thread as well as bash him on our league message board, just so he knows what a complete moron he is. I want the guy to regret ever being born. Fantasy football isnt a hobby for me, it is my life

 
http://www.cookfoodgood.com/?p=364

BARBECUE BRISKET – AN XI STEP PROGRAMPosted on | September 12, 2010 | 3 Comments Print This Post

Fair notice. This is (cough) somewhat longer than your average recipe.

Barbecue, in its most popular American incarnations, is mostly a child of Southern culture. Barbecued brisket on the other hand, is a part of non-overlapping Texas cuisine.

Competition style brisket – essentially Texan – and what this recipe is all about, is cooked so that it can be sliced into medium-thick slices which are juicy enough for sauce optional. That means a final internal temperature of right around 195*. Meditate on that very narrow, technical window before you start thinking about creativity.

Southern style may mean “pulled” brisket, which is actually shredded. Brisket won’t pull unless cooked to over 200* – 205*. Without a lot of saucing, that means dry, stick-to-your-teeth brisket.

Brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because it’s considered difficult to make. It’s actually a lot more involved and finicky than difficult. Do the right things – none of them very hard – in the right sequence; don’t do the wrong things; and… voila! Good brisket every time.

Of those rights and wrongs, some are just good barbecue practice: Tight, tuned pit; good fire management; NO DAMN PEEKING; use a thermometer.Note: If you’re not using a Maverick RediChek ET-73 Wireless Smoker Thermometer or something very much like it, you’re making life a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Because brisket is such a long cook the importance of a tight (as opposed to drafty), reasonably well tuned (even temperatures throughout the cook chamber) cooker, and a steady temperature are heightened. You can make good brisket in an ECB (el cheapo Brinkman) or un-modified small offset, but it ain’t easy. Good equipment makes more of a difference with brisket than with just about any other cut.

The brisket-specific process is somewhat involved, but really not that difficult as long as you’re willing to devote the time and care it takes to go through the steps. Shop, Trim, Marinate, Inject, Rub, Smoke, Rest, Carve, and Serve.

Maybe not difficult but there’s a lot to learn if you’ve never done it before. So, print this out, grab a cup of coffee, and find yourself a nice chair.

BARBECUED BRISKET

Yield: 8 – 12 servings, depending on size of the actual brisket

Difficulty: Lots of Prep; Lots of Steps; Long cook, requires good fire management.

Ingredients:

• 8 – 12 lb packer cut brisket; USDA Choice, CAB or better.
• 4 tbs (1/4 cup) Worcestershire Sauce, divided
• 1-1/4 cup Red Wine, divided
• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 cup Beef stock or Broth
• 2 tbs Worcestershire
• 6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped
• 4 tbs Butter; or alternatively, substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter.
• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sweet paprika
• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper
• 3 tbs paprika,
• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper
• 1 tbs granulated garlic
• 1 tbs granulated onion
• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder
• 1/2 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Technique:
I. Shop – Takes as long as it takes. May be done up to 2 months in advance:

Purchase a “packer cut” whole brisket, Choice or CAB if possible.

A. What’s a packer cut? And, what’s a “whole brisket?”

A whole brisket is the “primal,” and includes two separate muscles called the flat and the point. The point is leaner, the point is richer. As a general term, “packer cut” refers to how it comes to the butcher from the meat packer – seldom the same person or company. In this case, I’m using the term to let you know you want the brisket still in it’s vacuum packed, plastic bag.

You can make great barbecued brisket using only the point or flat, yes. But everything else being equal, a whole brisket is better than a piece. Pieces smaller than four pounds or so are problematic. They often cook dry and despite your best effort to track internal temp shred rather than slice. So, whole brisket if possible and deal with the leftovers. Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much about leftovers. They won’t be left for long.

A “packer” may mean calling around. Plenty of supermarkets either don’t carry them or make them special order. And if they are special order, many supers will charge you the same price per pound as they would for a trimmed brisket flat (the most expensive part).

B. Choice? CAB? Prime? Wagyu?

Everything else being equal, the better the quality of the raw meat, the better the quality of the cooked meat. You don’t look surprised.

Select, Choice and Prime are the familiar USDA (sometimes called “rolled”) grades. If you don’t have thousands of dollars on the line in a competition, Choice is plenty good.

A lot of meat is “ungraded,” which may only mean that it isn’t graded by the USDA. Some excellent industry standards include CAB (certified Angus beef), BTC (better than Choice) and so on. If you can find “black face,” “wag-yu,” “kobe” or some other designation indicating the Japanese, black-face breed, at an affordable price, you’ve hit the jackpot. Call me with your supplier’s name.

You can certainly make great brisket with Select grade. I’m not saying you can’t. Just not as great. Repeat after me: Better raw meat means better cooked meat. Worth the extra money? It’s your wallet.

I buy BTC black angus from a higher end Korean butcher with a higher end Korean clientele. Brisket is a big deal in Korean cuisine, the butcher has a great supplier, etc., etc. It takes less evaluation on my part, which is a good thing.

C. What to Look For

Congratulations on finding a source. Try to buy between 9 and 11 lbs, with white fat, as marbled and as pliable as possible. Because a packer is covered by fat on one side, and tightly packed in a bag which has some meat juice, it’s often not easy to read the marbling. Pliability counts all the more.

Pliable? That’s right, pliable. Ask your butcher to bring out a few for you to test by picking up the brisket by each end and letting it bend; then holding it with both ends and seeing how easily it bends in the middle. The more flexible the better.

Shape helps determine how evenly the brisket will cook. Ideally, you don’t want it too thin at one end and/or too thick at the other. While 9 – 11 lbs is usually the best range, sometimes you have a choice of excellent larger and smaller briskets. If you’re worried about too small a brisket, figure about 40% waste on a packer, and 12oz per cooked, dinner serving. If 12 ounces seems large, what can I tell you? This stuff is good and people eat a lot of it.

D. Two Months?!

That vacuum packing will allow you to “wet age” the meat. If you’re not familiar with “wet-aging” the boucher’s, technical term for the process is: “Leaving it in the bag in the refrigerator for what a lot of people would consider too long a time.” Wet aging isn’t necessary, but does make a small, positive difference.

II. Trim – Takes about 10 minutes. Don’t do it more than two days before the cook

The fat on top of the brisket is called the cap and is not particularly palatable. You’ve got to substantially or entirely remove it somewhere along the line before service. Since it won’t allow any flavor at all from the marinade or rub to penetrate, you might as well remove it before marinating or rubbing.

If you’re buying from a decent butcher just a couple of days before your cook, have her trim the fat cap to no more than 1/4?, or right down to red meat. A fleck here and there of thinly trimmed cap is perfect.

If you’re reasonably proficient with a knife go ahead and try that yourself. If you’re not, and afraid that you’ll cut too deeply into the meat by trimming, it’s easier to remove the fat entirely than go for a thin trim.

It’s easier still to just leave the fat on and get it after the brisket is cooked. That means you won’t be able to rub the bottom of your meat, but wotthehell, wotthehell. You can’t have everything. And, in the greater scheme of brisket sins, there are much worse.

After trimming or not trimming, turn the brisket over so the lean side is up. Check for large flecks of fat, or pieces of thin, gray-white membrane. Use a small knife to remove them completely.

III. Marinate – About 30 minutes. You can start as far ahead as 36 hours before your intended service:

Marinade Ingredients:
• 4 tbs Red wine
• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a pan just large enough to hold the brisket, make a marinade of 3 tbs each of red wine, Worcestershire sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Slosh the brisket around in the marinade, making sure all surfaces are moistened. Allow the brisket to marinate at least 1/2 an hour at room temperature, or as long as a 24 hours in the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes on the counter, the marinade will mix with the beef juices and partially coagulate into syrup. Syrup is good. Syrup is desirable.

Turn the brisket over occasionally during the marinade period. Reserve the marinade.

IV. Inject – Roughly 45 minutes including preparing and doing the injection:

Injection Ingredients:
• 1 cup beef stock or broth
• (Reserved) Marinade syrup
• 1 cup wine
• 2 tbs Worcestershire
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped
• 4 tbs salted butter, very cold, cut into 4 pieces; or, alternatively substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter

Put the stock in a pan, set it over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce by one third, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile drain the marinade from the brisket.

When the stock is reduced, add the marinade, wine, Worcestershire and garlic. Reduce by one third again.

Strain through a fine sieve, tea strainer or cheesecloth to remove any solids that might clog your injector’s needle, return to heat, bring back to a simmer and remove from heat.

Add the butter 1 tbs at a time, whisking each piece in just as the previous piece has melted from the residual heat. Mixture may thicken as the butter forms an emulsion. At this point the rich mouthfeel is incidental, you’re just trying to hold things together enough to distribute evenly when you inject. If you’re using truffle oil allow the inject to cool a little so as not to cook off the truffle aroma.

Truffle oil is creative and addictive. Your guests won’t know be able to quite put their finger on how beef became crack. But that’s the long on short of it.

On the other hand, if you’re cooking for competition, creativity is not your friend. Be much better, but don’t be much different.

Whatever your ingredients, fill your injecting syringe with the mixture and inject the brisket. Make many small injections, rather than a few large ones. Large injections will puddle rather than disperse. No matter how careful you are when you inject, the injecting fluid will squirt out from the meat in totally unexpected places. Messy but hilarious, you’ve got to take your entertainment where you find it.

Word to the wise: Less clean up, if you clear a large area on your counter and work in a large sheet or roasting pan.

There should be plenty of left over injection, refrigerate and reserve for your wrap liquid and eventual sauce.

V. Rub – Just a couple of minutes to mix, you want it on about thirty before you put the meat in the cooker. You don’t really get much more penetration than you get in half in an hour anyway.

Basic Beef Rub Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sweet paprika
• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper
• 3 tbs paprika,
• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper
• 1 tbs granulated garlic
• 1 tbs granulated onion
• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder
• 1/2 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Mix all thoroughly. Cover the brisket generously with rub. If the fat cap is untrimmed, don’t bother using rub on that side.

Note: Double or even triple the recipe for the rub. It keeps well, is useful on grilled beef and lamb, and quite good on popcorn.

VI. Smoke – Smoking will take between 8 and 20 hours (Oy!) depending mostly on weight and temperature.

Sorry about the vagueness, but times for cooking brisket low and slow are very difficult to predict, even with a known weight. It’s partly the individuality of the meat, partly the wide range of acceptable temperatures, partly the temperature variance that’s inherent in outdoor cooking.

Note: The hotter the temperature, the more predictable the time.

Prepare your smoker to run the steadiest possible temperature, between 225 and 275.

I prefer 275, but your relationship with your smoker is what it is, and it will do what it will do. Don’t make yourself nuts by trying to make it do something that’s too much trouble for you. If you’re using a small offset use water, a water-wine mix, or beer in the water pan. If you’re using a WSM, use sand or some other dry material. If you have one, use a digital probe type thermometer, placed as close to where the meat will go to monitor cooking process.

When the smoker is prepped, place the brisket in the cooking chamber, fat side down. If you have one, insert the probe from a digital thermometer to keep track of internal temperatures.

Smoke over red oak if possible, but nearly any of the usual smoke woods will turn out well.

Do not open cook chamber door for three hours. After three hours, flip the brisket over fat side up. If your cooker runs uneven temps from side to side, rotate the meat as well. Replenish the water pan. Continue replenishing water pan every three hours. If necessary rotate the brisket at those times.

Figure total cook time according to average chamber temperature and weight of brisket. 225 deg – ~2hrs/lb. 275 deg – 1-1/4 hrs/lb or a bit less. Stop adding smoke wood chunks or chips at one half of estimated time or when meat reaches internal temperature of 150, whichever comes first. If you’re burning “sticks” or logs for heat, don’t worry about it. You’re cool.

VII. Wrap – A 5 minute process, no more. 10, tops:

To wrap or not to wrap? It may be the question, but it surely isn’t the rub. We already did the rub. Smartassitude over, some people don’t wrap. If you’re not sure whether or not you should, you should.

Have a large sheet pan ready, with long strips of aluminum foil hanging off both ends. When the brisket hits around 150* internal, or is half through your estimated cooking time, remove it from the smoker, and place it on the foil. Fold the foil, but don’t seal it. . Before sealing packet add a little bit of the injection mix to the pack plus a rough chopped onion. Seal the foil and return the brisket to your ‘cue.

When the brisket hits an internal temperature of 185*, remove the wrap and return the brisket to the smoker, continue cooking until brisket reaches an internal temperature of 195*.

A. The Stall

It’s likely that during the cooking process, somewhere above 150*, continuing until up to 185*, the internal temperature increase will slow or stop. This is called “the stall.” It’s common with whole butts or picnics and almost universal with brisket. It’s normal. Don’t worry about, be patient. Temperatures will rise. Eventually. While you wait, consider the glacier.

It’s easy to lose focus during the stall and try to push the fire harder than it will go, or ascribe the geologic rate of temperature change to the stall and let it go out. Just manage the fire, okay?

It’s also easy to panic and start “mopping” as a way of looking at the meat and hoping that the combined action of your basting brush, eyeballs and anxiety will make things go faster. Knock it off. And, NO PEEKING DAMMIT.

B. After the Stall is Over, Before the Brisket’s Done

Usually, but not always, when the temperature gets a little around 185* it starts increasing more quickly. If it does, you want to keep an eye on it. This is one of many times a remote-read thermometer like the ET-73 is worth its weight in gold.

When brisket reaches 195* (or 191 if it’s still stalling), it’s done remove it from the cooker and rest it.

VIII. Rest – Brisket does best with an extensive rest. We’re talking 2 – 5 hours:

After you’ve got it out of your cooker, wrap it in cling wrap. Yes, cling wrap. Trust me, it’s better than aluminum foil – but aluminum is cool too. Set the meat in an insulated chest, the same type you use for holding things cold. In other words a cooler…for instance, an Igloo.

You want a cooler just large enough to hold the meat. After you’ve got the meat in the cooler, pack it with wadded newspaper to fill the remaining air space. Cover the cooler and make sure the cover is closed. I suggest weight the top or even taping it closed, if it doesn’t have a latch.
Rest for at least 2 hours, the extended rest is part of the cooking process. Don’t shortcut it. The cooler will hold the meat safely for more than 6 hours, but let’s be conservative.

IX. Carve – It takes, tautologically, just as long as it takes. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, dawdle. Remember. The wolf is at the door. Awhoo:

A. Divide and Conquer

Separate the point from the flat. You should be able to easily see the division between the two, and divide them with your knife. The point will have a rough triangular shape, the flat will be more rectangular.

The reason for separation is because their respective grains are perpendicular to one another. To cut both at the same time in their natural relationship would be to cut at least one of them wrong. Can’t have that.

B. Be like Ron Popeil and Cut the Fat

If you have a substantial fat cap, trim it. You can remove it with a spoon if you feel like showing off.

Occasionally there will be a band of fat which divides the flat. If the flat splits into two pieces with a layer of fat between them, separate the pieces and completely remove the fat. Cut one of the flats in half, cutting against the grain.

C. Test for Texture

Carve a slice off the freshly one of the freshly cut faces – still cutting against the grain, about 1/4? thick. Pick it up, preferably with your fingers, and taste it. If it wants to fall apart or is very, very tender you’ll be carving thicker slices. If it’s tough, you’ll be carving thinner slices. 1/4” is usually just right.

D. Always Against the Grain

Always, always cut across the grain. If you’re good with a knife, try a 20 degree bias to get some width.

Carve the point into slices across the grain as well. Plan on carving the slices roughly twice as thick as the slices you took from the flat.

E. Try a Little Tenderness

The point is usually substantially fattier than the flat. At 190 plus, it may be so tender it falls into chunks. If so, you may mix the chunks with hot barbecue sauce and serve on buns as “sloppy joes.” REAL SLOPPY JOES by the way.

Some people cut the point into chunks, re-season them with rub, put them in a pan, and back into the cooker – where, they become “burnt ends.” Got beans?

X. Serve – Same wolf, same door, same awhoo.

Some people prefer the point, some the flat, some a mix.

[Nummy noises]

Serve with your preferred tomato based barbecue sauce. Texas, Memphis, Cajun and Kansas City styles are good. Bordelaise in its classic or barbecue form is beaucoup wonderful. Alas, Carolina style sauces are not good partners to brisket. Save your Confederate money.

Accompaniments can range from standard barbecue to rather high end. Generally, beef prefers savory companions rather than the sweeter ones which go so well with pork.

If you drink: A full and fruity red like a Zin, Syrah or Shiraz is nice. Beer is never misunderstood.

XI. Leftovers – Don’t count on it:

What?

That’s all folks! About time, too.

BDL
Click to expand...
 
I recently got the better end of a trade and then pleasured the other guy's girlfriend in ways she had never imagined. I felt horrible.

 
By the way talking about the trade: I don't think it's nearly as lopsided as you do in a keeper league. In fact I think YOU got raped. I'm assuming its an auction salary cap league...I'd rather have a $2 harvin and a $1 Austin in a keeper salary cap league than a $30 Bryant any day.

Harvin will be back maybe even in week 8 and he should be the focal point of the Seahawks passing game. He will have close to Bryant's upside. Austin has sucked so far but the book is far from closed on him for his career. Big potential there and cheap.

Rivers and romo are interchangeable.

So as I see it you traded away players who can be great starting now and well into the future with excellent salaries for an elite but pricey wr. I would not have made that trade unless I absolutely felt certain that acquiring Bryant was the one last key to me winning a bs and no way you can be even close to certain if that in week 7.

Good luck.

 
We have pinktober to inform about breast cancer. I nominate November as brownvember to raise colon cancer awareness.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ignoratio Elenchi said:
Sorry it took me so long to reply, my son is running a 104 fever so I've been taking care of him, but that's no excuse for not giving your question the full attention it deserves. I've given it a lot of thought and I think you should continue to feel bad for a while.
Click to expand...
You're like a saint. Or Gandhi.

 
mquinnjr said:
http://www.cookfoodgood.com/?p=364

BARBECUE BRISKET – AN XI STEP PROGRAMPosted on | September 12, 2010 | 3 Comments Print This Post

Fair notice. This is (cough) somewhat longer than your average recipe.

Barbecue, in its most popular American incarnations, is mostly a child of Southern culture. Barbecued brisket on the other hand, is a part of non-overlapping Texas cuisine.

Competition style brisket – essentially Texan – and what this recipe is all about, is cooked so that it can be sliced into medium-thick slices which are juicy enough for sauce optional. That means a final internal temperature of right around 195*. Meditate on that very narrow, technical window before you start thinking about creativity.

Southern style may mean “pulled” brisket, which is actually shredded. Brisket won’t pull unless cooked to over 200* – 205*. Without a lot of saucing, that means dry, stick-to-your-teeth brisket.

Brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because it’s considered difficult to make. It’s actually a lot more involved and finicky than difficult. Do the right things – none of them very hard – in the right sequence; don’t do the wrong things; and… voila! Good brisket every time.

Of those rights and wrongs, some are just good barbecue practice: Tight, tuned pit; good fire management; NO DAMN PEEKING; use a thermometer.Note: If you’re not using a Maverick RediChek ET-73 Wireless Smoker Thermometer or something very much like it, you’re making life a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Because brisket is such a long cook the importance of a tight (as opposed to drafty), reasonably well tuned (even temperatures throughout the cook chamber) cooker, and a steady temperature are heightened. You can make good brisket in an ECB (el cheapo Brinkman) or un-modified small offset, but it ain’t easy. Good equipment makes more of a difference with brisket than with just about any other cut.

The brisket-specific process is somewhat involved, but really not that difficult as long as you’re willing to devote the time and care it takes to go through the steps. Shop, Trim, Marinate, Inject, Rub, Smoke, Rest, Carve, and Serve.

Maybe not difficult but there’s a lot to learn if you’ve never done it before. So, print this out, grab a cup of coffee, and find yourself a nice chair.

BARBECUED BRISKET

Yield: 8 – 12 servings, depending on size of the actual brisket

Difficulty: Lots of Prep; Lots of Steps; Long cook, requires good fire management.

Ingredients:

• 8 – 12 lb packer cut brisket; USDA Choice, CAB or better.

• 4 tbs (1/4 cup) Worcestershire Sauce, divided

• 1-1/4 cup Red Wine, divided

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1 cup Beef stock or Broth

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs Butter; or alternatively, substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter.

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Technique:

I. Shop – Takes as long as it takes. May be done up to 2 months in advance:

Purchase a “packer cut” whole brisket, Choice or CAB if possible.

A. What’s a packer cut? And, what’s a “whole brisket?”

A whole brisket is the “primal,” and includes two separate muscles called the flat and the point. The point is leaner, the point is richer. As a general term, “packer cut” refers to how it comes to the butcher from the meat packer – seldom the same person or company. In this case, I’m using the term to let you know you want the brisket still in it’s vacuum packed, plastic bag.

You can make great barbecued brisket using only the point or flat, yes. But everything else being equal, a whole brisket is better than a piece. Pieces smaller than four pounds or so are problematic. They often cook dry and despite your best effort to track internal temp shred rather than slice. So, whole brisket if possible and deal with the leftovers. Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much about leftovers. They won’t be left for long.

A “packer” may mean calling around. Plenty of supermarkets either don’t carry them or make them special order. And if they are special order, many supers will charge you the same price per pound as they would for a trimmed brisket flat (the most expensive part).

B. Choice? CAB? Prime? Wagyu?

Everything else being equal, the better the quality of the raw meat, the better the quality of the cooked meat. You don’t look surprised.

Select, Choice and Prime are the familiar USDA (sometimes called “rolled”) grades. If you don’t have thousands of dollars on the line in a competition, Choice is plenty good.

A lot of meat is “ungraded,” which may only mean that it isn’t graded by the USDA. Some excellent industry standards include CAB (certified Angus beef), BTC (better than Choice) and so on. If you can find “black face,” “wag-yu,” “kobe” or some other designation indicating the Japanese, black-face breed, at an affordable price, you’ve hit the jackpot. Call me with your supplier’s name.

You can certainly make great brisket with Select grade. I’m not saying you can’t. Just not as great. Repeat after me: Better raw meat means better cooked meat. Worth the extra money? It’s your wallet.

I buy BTC black angus from a higher end Korean butcher with a higher end Korean clientele. Brisket is a big deal in Korean cuisine, the butcher has a great supplier, etc., etc. It takes less evaluation on my part, which is a good thing.

C. What to Look For

Congratulations on finding a source. Try to buy between 9 and 11 lbs, with white fat, as marbled and as pliable as possible. Because a packer is covered by fat on one side, and tightly packed in a bag which has some meat juice, it’s often not easy to read the marbling. Pliability counts all the more.

Pliable? That’s right, pliable. Ask your butcher to bring out a few for you to test by picking up the brisket by each end and letting it bend; then holding it with both ends and seeing how easily it bends in the middle. The more flexible the better.

Shape helps determine how evenly the brisket will cook. Ideally, you don’t want it too thin at one end and/or too thick at the other. While 9 – 11 lbs is usually the best range, sometimes you have a choice of excellent larger and smaller briskets. If you’re worried about too small a brisket, figure about 40% waste on a packer, and 12oz per cooked, dinner serving. If 12 ounces seems large, what can I tell you? This stuff is good and people eat a lot of it.

D. Two Months?!

That vacuum packing will allow you to “wet age” the meat. If you’re not familiar with “wet-aging” the boucher’s, technical term for the process is: “Leaving it in the bag in the refrigerator for what a lot of people would consider too long a time.” Wet aging isn’t necessary, but does make a small, positive difference.

II. Trim – Takes about 10 minutes. Don’t do it more than two days before the cook

The fat on top of the brisket is called the cap and is not particularly palatable. You’ve got to substantially or entirely remove it somewhere along the line before service. Since it won’t allow any flavor at all from the marinade or rub to penetrate, you might as well remove it before marinating or rubbing.

If you’re buying from a decent butcher just a couple of days before your cook, have her trim the fat cap to no more than 1/4?, or right down to red meat. A fleck here and there of thinly trimmed cap is perfect.

If you’re reasonably proficient with a knife go ahead and try that yourself. If you’re not, and afraid that you’ll cut too deeply into the meat by trimming, it’s easier to remove the fat entirely than go for a thin trim.

It’s easier still to just leave the fat on and get it after the brisket is cooked. That means you won’t be able to rub the bottom of your meat, but wotthehell, wotthehell. You can’t have everything. And, in the greater scheme of brisket sins, there are much worse.

After trimming or not trimming, turn the brisket over so the lean side is up. Check for large flecks of fat, or pieces of thin, gray-white membrane. Use a small knife to remove them completely.

III. Marinate – About 30 minutes. You can start as far ahead as 36 hours before your intended service:

Marinade Ingredients:

• 4 tbs Red wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a pan just large enough to hold the brisket, make a marinade of 3 tbs each of red wine, Worcestershire sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Slosh the brisket around in the marinade, making sure all surfaces are moistened. Allow the brisket to marinate at least 1/2 an hour at room temperature, or as long as a 24 hours in the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes on the counter, the marinade will mix with the beef juices and partially coagulate into syrup. Syrup is good. Syrup is desirable.

Turn the brisket over occasionally during the marinade period. Reserve the marinade.

IV. Inject – Roughly 45 minutes including preparing and doing the injection:

Injection Ingredients:

• 1 cup beef stock or broth

• (Reserved) Marinade syrup

• 1 cup wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs salted butter, very cold, cut into 4 pieces; or, alternatively substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter

Put the stock in a pan, set it over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce by one third, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile drain the marinade from the brisket.

When the stock is reduced, add the marinade, wine, Worcestershire and garlic. Reduce by one third again.

Strain through a fine sieve, tea strainer or cheesecloth to remove any solids that might clog your injector’s needle, return to heat, bring back to a simmer and remove from heat.

Add the butter 1 tbs at a time, whisking each piece in just as the previous piece has melted from the residual heat. Mixture may thicken as the butter forms an emulsion. At this point the rich mouthfeel is incidental, you’re just trying to hold things together enough to distribute evenly when you inject. If you’re using truffle oil allow the inject to cool a little so as not to cook off the truffle aroma.

Truffle oil is creative and addictive. Your guests won’t know be able to quite put their finger on how beef became crack. But that’s the long on short of it.

On the other hand, if you’re cooking for competition, creativity is not your friend. Be much better, but don’t be much different.

Whatever your ingredients, fill your injecting syringe with the mixture and inject the brisket. Make many small injections, rather than a few large ones. Large injections will puddle rather than disperse. No matter how careful you are when you inject, the injecting fluid will squirt out from the meat in totally unexpected places. Messy but hilarious, you’ve got to take your entertainment where you find it.

Word to the wise: Less clean up, if you clear a large area on your counter and work in a large sheet or roasting pan.

There should be plenty of left over injection, refrigerate and reserve for your wrap liquid and eventual sauce.

V. Rub – Just a couple of minutes to mix, you want it on about thirty before you put the meat in the cooker. You don’t really get much more penetration than you get in half in an hour anyway.

Basic Beef Rub Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Mix all thoroughly. Cover the brisket generously with rub. If the fat cap is untrimmed, don’t bother using rub on that side.

Note: Double or even triple the recipe for the rub. It keeps well, is useful on grilled beef and lamb, and quite good on popcorn.

VI. Smoke – Smoking will take between 8 and 20 hours (Oy!) depending mostly on weight and temperature.

Sorry about the vagueness, but times for cooking brisket low and slow are very difficult to predict, even with a known weight. It’s partly the individuality of the meat, partly the wide range of acceptable temperatures, partly the temperature variance that’s inherent in outdoor cooking.

Note: The hotter the temperature, the more predictable the time.

Prepare your smoker to run the steadiest possible temperature, between 225 and 275.

I prefer 275, but your relationship with your smoker is what it is, and it will do what it will do. Don’t make yourself nuts by trying to make it do something that’s too much trouble for you. If you’re using a small offset use water, a water-wine mix, or beer in the water pan. If you’re using a WSM, use sand or some other dry material. If you have one, use a digital probe type thermometer, placed as close to where the meat will go to monitor cooking process.

When the smoker is prepped, place the brisket in the cooking chamber, fat side down. If you have one, insert the probe from a digital thermometer to keep track of internal temperatures.

Smoke over red oak if possible, but nearly any of the usual smoke woods will turn out well.

Do not open cook chamber door for three hours. After three hours, flip the brisket over fat side up. If your cooker runs uneven temps from side to side, rotate the meat as well. Replenish the water pan. Continue replenishing water pan every three hours. If necessary rotate the brisket at those times.

Figure total cook time according to average chamber temperature and weight of brisket. 225 deg – ~2hrs/lb. 275 deg – 1-1/4 hrs/lb or a bit less. Stop adding smoke wood chunks or chips at one half of estimated time or when meat reaches internal temperature of 150, whichever comes first. If you’re burning “sticks” or logs for heat, don’t worry about it. You’re cool.

VII. Wrap – A 5 minute process, no more. 10, tops:

To wrap or not to wrap? It may be the question, but it surely isn’t the rub. We already did the rub. Smartassitude over, some people don’t wrap. If you’re not sure whether or not you should, you should.

Have a large sheet pan ready, with long strips of aluminum foil hanging off both ends. When the brisket hits around 150* internal, or is half through your estimated cooking time, remove it from the smoker, and place it on the foil. Fold the foil, but don’t seal it. . Before sealing packet add a little bit of the injection mix to the pack plus a rough chopped onion. Seal the foil and return the brisket to your ‘cue.

When the brisket hits an internal temperature of 185*, remove the wrap and return the brisket to the smoker, continue cooking until brisket reaches an internal temperature of 195*.

A. The Stall

It’s likely that during the cooking process, somewhere above 150*, continuing until up to 185*, the internal temperature increase will slow or stop. This is called “the stall.” It’s common with whole butts or picnics and almost universal with brisket. It’s normal. Don’t worry about, be patient. Temperatures will rise. Eventually. While you wait, consider the glacier.

It’s easy to lose focus during the stall and try to push the fire harder than it will go, or ascribe the geologic rate of temperature change to the stall and let it go out. Just manage the fire, okay?

It’s also easy to panic and start “mopping” as a way of looking at the meat and hoping that the combined action of your basting brush, eyeballs and anxiety will make things go faster. Knock it off. And, NO PEEKING DAMMIT.

B. After the Stall is Over, Before the Brisket’s Done

Usually, but not always, when the temperature gets a little around 185* it starts increasing more quickly. If it does, you want to keep an eye on it. This is one of many times a remote-read thermometer like the ET-73 is worth its weight in gold.

When brisket reaches 195* (or 191 if it’s still stalling), it’s done remove it from the cooker and rest it.

VIII. Rest – Brisket does best with an extensive rest. We’re talking 2 – 5 hours:

After you’ve got it out of your cooker, wrap it in cling wrap. Yes, cling wrap. Trust me, it’s better than aluminum foil – but aluminum is cool too. Set the meat in an insulated chest, the same type you use for holding things cold. In other words a cooler…for instance, an Igloo.

You want a cooler just large enough to hold the meat. After you’ve got the meat in the cooler, pack it with wadded newspaper to fill the remaining air space. Cover the cooler and make sure the cover is closed. I suggest weight the top or even taping it closed, if it doesn’t have a latch.

Rest for at least 2 hours, the extended rest is part of the cooking process. Don’t shortcut it. The cooler will hold the meat safely for more than 6 hours, but let’s be conservative.

IX. Carve – It takes, tautologically, just as long as it takes. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, dawdle. Remember. The wolf is at the door. Awhoo:

A. Divide and Conquer

Separate the point from the flat. You should be able to easily see the division between the two, and divide them with your knife. The point will have a rough triangular shape, the flat will be more rectangular.

The reason for separation is because their respective grains are perpendicular to one another. To cut both at the same time in their natural relationship would be to cut at least one of them wrong. Can’t have that.

B. Be like Ron Popeil and Cut the Fat

If you have a substantial fat cap, trim it. You can remove it with a spoon if you feel like showing off.

Occasionally there will be a band of fat which divides the flat. If the flat splits into two pieces with a layer of fat between them, separate the pieces and completely remove the fat. Cut one of the flats in half, cutting against the grain.

C. Test for Texture

Carve a slice off the freshly one of the freshly cut faces – still cutting against the grain, about 1/4? thick. Pick it up, preferably with your fingers, and taste it. If it wants to fall apart or is very, very tender you’ll be carving thicker slices. If it’s tough, you’ll be carving thinner slices. 1/4” is usually just right.

D. Always Against the Grain

Always, always cut across the grain. If you’re good with a knife, try a 20 degree bias to get some width.

Carve the point into slices across the grain as well. Plan on carving the slices roughly twice as thick as the slices you took from the flat.

E. Try a Little Tenderness

The point is usually substantially fattier than the flat. At 190 plus, it may be so tender it falls into chunks. If so, you may mix the chunks with hot barbecue sauce and serve on buns as “sloppy joes.” REAL SLOPPY JOES by the way.

Some people cut the point into chunks, re-season them with rub, put them in a pan, and back into the cooker – where, they become “burnt ends.” Got beans?

X. Serve – Same wolf, same door, same awhoo.

Some people prefer the point, some the flat, some a mix.

[Nummy noises]

Serve with your preferred tomato based barbecue sauce. Texas, Memphis, Cajun and Kansas City styles are good. Bordelaise in its classic or barbecue form is beaucoup wonderful. Alas, Carolina style sauces are not good partners to brisket. Save your Confederate money.

Accompaniments can range from standard barbecue to rather high end. Generally, beef prefers savory companions rather than the sweeter ones which go so well with pork.

If you drink: A full and fruity red like a Zin, Syrah or Shiraz is nice. Beer is never misunderstood.

XI. Leftovers – Don’t count on it:

What?

That’s all folks! About time, too.

BDL
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
This is utter nonsense, a good briskit will turn out excellent with merely the rub, adding injection and marinating will only cheapen the whole experience. I'm also a firm believer in leaving on the fat cap during cooking.

 
ragnarok628 said:
mquinnjr said:
http://www.cookfoodgood.com/?p=364

BARBECUE BRISKET – AN XI STEP PROGRAMPosted on | September 12, 2010 | 3 Comments Print This Post

Fair notice. This is (cough) somewhat longer than your average recipe.

Barbecue, in its most popular American incarnations, is mostly a child of Southern culture. Barbecued brisket on the other hand, is a part of non-overlapping Texas cuisine.

Competition style brisket – essentially Texan – and what this recipe is all about, is cooked so that it can be sliced into medium-thick slices which are juicy enough for sauce optional. That means a final internal temperature of right around 195*. Meditate on that very narrow, technical window before you start thinking about creativity.

Southern style may mean “pulled” brisket, which is actually shredded. Brisket won’t pull unless cooked to over 200* – 205*. Without a lot of saucing, that means dry, stick-to-your-teeth brisket.

Brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because it’s considered difficult to make. It’s actually a lot more involved and finicky than difficult. Do the right things – none of them very hard – in the right sequence; don’t do the wrong things; and… voila! Good brisket every time.

Of those rights and wrongs, some are just good barbecue practice: Tight, tuned pit; good fire management; NO DAMN PEEKING; use a thermometer.Note: If you’re not using a Maverick RediChek ET-73 Wireless Smoker Thermometer or something very much like it, you’re making life a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Because brisket is such a long cook the importance of a tight (as opposed to drafty), reasonably well tuned (even temperatures throughout the cook chamber) cooker, and a steady temperature are heightened. You can make good brisket in an ECB (el cheapo Brinkman) or un-modified small offset, but it ain’t easy. Good equipment makes more of a difference with brisket than with just about any other cut.

The brisket-specific process is somewhat involved, but really not that difficult as long as you’re willing to devote the time and care it takes to go through the steps. Shop, Trim, Marinate, Inject, Rub, Smoke, Rest, Carve, and Serve.

Maybe not difficult but there’s a lot to learn if you’ve never done it before. So, print this out, grab a cup of coffee, and find yourself a nice chair.

BARBECUED BRISKET

Yield: 8 – 12 servings, depending on size of the actual brisket

Difficulty: Lots of Prep; Lots of Steps; Long cook, requires good fire management.

Ingredients:

• 8 – 12 lb packer cut brisket; USDA Choice, CAB or better.

• 4 tbs (1/4 cup) Worcestershire Sauce, divided

• 1-1/4 cup Red Wine, divided

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1 cup Beef stock or Broth

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs Butter; or alternatively, substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter.

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Technique:

I. Shop – Takes as long as it takes. May be done up to 2 months in advance:

Purchase a “packer cut” whole brisket, Choice or CAB if possible.

A. What’s a packer cut? And, what’s a “whole brisket?”

A whole brisket is the “primal,” and includes two separate muscles called the flat and the point. The point is leaner, the point is richer. As a general term, “packer cut” refers to how it comes to the butcher from the meat packer – seldom the same person or company. In this case, I’m using the term to let you know you want the brisket still in it’s vacuum packed, plastic bag.

You can make great barbecued brisket using only the point or flat, yes. But everything else being equal, a whole brisket is better than a piece. Pieces smaller than four pounds or so are problematic. They often cook dry and despite your best effort to track internal temp shred rather than slice. So, whole brisket if possible and deal with the leftovers. Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much about leftovers. They won’t be left for long.

A “packer” may mean calling around. Plenty of supermarkets either don’t carry them or make them special order. And if they are special order, many supers will charge you the same price per pound as they would for a trimmed brisket flat (the most expensive part).

B. Choice? CAB? Prime? Wagyu?

Everything else being equal, the better the quality of the raw meat, the better the quality of the cooked meat. You don’t look surprised.

Select, Choice and Prime are the familiar USDA (sometimes called “rolled”) grades. If you don’t have thousands of dollars on the line in a competition, Choice is plenty good.

A lot of meat is “ungraded,” which may only mean that it isn’t graded by the USDA. Some excellent industry standards include CAB (certified Angus beef), BTC (better than Choice) and so on. If you can find “black face,” “wag-yu,” “kobe” or some other designation indicating the Japanese, black-face breed, at an affordable price, you’ve hit the jackpot. Call me with your supplier’s name.

You can certainly make great brisket with Select grade. I’m not saying you can’t. Just not as great. Repeat after me: Better raw meat means better cooked meat. Worth the extra money? It’s your wallet.

I buy BTC black angus from a higher end Korean butcher with a higher end Korean clientele. Brisket is a big deal in Korean cuisine, the butcher has a great supplier, etc., etc. It takes less evaluation on my part, which is a good thing.

C. What to Look For

Congratulations on finding a source. Try to buy between 9 and 11 lbs, with white fat, as marbled and as pliable as possible. Because a packer is covered by fat on one side, and tightly packed in a bag which has some meat juice, it’s often not easy to read the marbling. Pliability counts all the more.

Pliable? That’s right, pliable. Ask your butcher to bring out a few for you to test by picking up the brisket by each end and letting it bend; then holding it with both ends and seeing how easily it bends in the middle. The more flexible the better.

Shape helps determine how evenly the brisket will cook. Ideally, you don’t want it too thin at one end and/or too thick at the other. While 9 – 11 lbs is usually the best range, sometimes you have a choice of excellent larger and smaller briskets. If you’re worried about too small a brisket, figure about 40% waste on a packer, and 12oz per cooked, dinner serving. If 12 ounces seems large, what can I tell you? This stuff is good and people eat a lot of it.

D. Two Months?!

That vacuum packing will allow you to “wet age” the meat. If you’re not familiar with “wet-aging” the boucher’s, technical term for the process is: “Leaving it in the bag in the refrigerator for what a lot of people would consider too long a time.” Wet aging isn’t necessary, but does make a small, positive difference.

II. Trim – Takes about 10 minutes. Don’t do it more than two days before the cook

The fat on top of the brisket is called the cap and is not particularly palatable. You’ve got to substantially or entirely remove it somewhere along the line before service. Since it won’t allow any flavor at all from the marinade or rub to penetrate, you might as well remove it before marinating or rubbing.

If you’re buying from a decent butcher just a couple of days before your cook, have her trim the fat cap to no more than 1/4?, or right down to red meat. A fleck here and there of thinly trimmed cap is perfect.

If you’re reasonably proficient with a knife go ahead and try that yourself. If you’re not, and afraid that you’ll cut too deeply into the meat by trimming, it’s easier to remove the fat entirely than go for a thin trim.

It’s easier still to just leave the fat on and get it after the brisket is cooked. That means you won’t be able to rub the bottom of your meat, but wotthehell, wotthehell. You can’t have everything. And, in the greater scheme of brisket sins, there are much worse.

After trimming or not trimming, turn the brisket over so the lean side is up. Check for large flecks of fat, or pieces of thin, gray-white membrane. Use a small knife to remove them completely.

III. Marinate – About 30 minutes. You can start as far ahead as 36 hours before your intended service:

Marinade Ingredients:

• 4 tbs Red wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a pan just large enough to hold the brisket, make a marinade of 3 tbs each of red wine, Worcestershire sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Slosh the brisket around in the marinade, making sure all surfaces are moistened. Allow the brisket to marinate at least 1/2 an hour at room temperature, or as long as a 24 hours in the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes on the counter, the marinade will mix with the beef juices and partially coagulate into syrup. Syrup is good. Syrup is desirable.

Turn the brisket over occasionally during the marinade period. Reserve the marinade.

IV. Inject – Roughly 45 minutes including preparing and doing the injection:

Injection Ingredients:

• 1 cup beef stock or broth

• (Reserved) Marinade syrup

• 1 cup wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs salted butter, very cold, cut into 4 pieces; or, alternatively substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter

Put the stock in a pan, set it over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce by one third, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile drain the marinade from the brisket.

When the stock is reduced, add the marinade, wine, Worcestershire and garlic. Reduce by one third again.

Strain through a fine sieve, tea strainer or cheesecloth to remove any solids that might clog your injector’s needle, return to heat, bring back to a simmer and remove from heat.

Add the butter 1 tbs at a time, whisking each piece in just as the previous piece has melted from the residual heat. Mixture may thicken as the butter forms an emulsion. At this point the rich mouthfeel is incidental, you’re just trying to hold things together enough to distribute evenly when you inject. If you’re using truffle oil allow the inject to cool a little so as not to cook off the truffle aroma.

Truffle oil is creative and addictive. Your guests won’t know be able to quite put their finger on how beef became crack. But that’s the long on short of it.

On the other hand, if you’re cooking for competition, creativity is not your friend. Be much better, but don’t be much different.

Whatever your ingredients, fill your injecting syringe with the mixture and inject the brisket. Make many small injections, rather than a few large ones. Large injections will puddle rather than disperse. No matter how careful you are when you inject, the injecting fluid will squirt out from the meat in totally unexpected places. Messy but hilarious, you’ve got to take your entertainment where you find it.

Word to the wise: Less clean up, if you clear a large area on your counter and work in a large sheet or roasting pan.

There should be plenty of left over injection, refrigerate and reserve for your wrap liquid and eventual sauce.

V. Rub – Just a couple of minutes to mix, you want it on about thirty before you put the meat in the cooker. You don’t really get much more penetration than you get in half in an hour anyway.

Basic Beef Rub Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Mix all thoroughly. Cover the brisket generously with rub. If the fat cap is untrimmed, don’t bother using rub on that side.

Note: Double or even triple the recipe for the rub. It keeps well, is useful on grilled beef and lamb, and quite good on popcorn.

VI. Smoke – Smoking will take between 8 and 20 hours (Oy!) depending mostly on weight and temperature.

Sorry about the vagueness, but times for cooking brisket low and slow are very difficult to predict, even with a known weight. It’s partly the individuality of the meat, partly the wide range of acceptable temperatures, partly the temperature variance that’s inherent in outdoor cooking.

Note: The hotter the temperature, the more predictable the time.

Prepare your smoker to run the steadiest possible temperature, between 225 and 275.

I prefer 275, but your relationship with your smoker is what it is, and it will do what it will do. Don’t make yourself nuts by trying to make it do something that’s too much trouble for you. If you’re using a small offset use water, a water-wine mix, or beer in the water pan. If you’re using a WSM, use sand or some other dry material. If you have one, use a digital probe type thermometer, placed as close to where the meat will go to monitor cooking process.

When the smoker is prepped, place the brisket in the cooking chamber, fat side down. If you have one, insert the probe from a digital thermometer to keep track of internal temperatures.

Smoke over red oak if possible, but nearly any of the usual smoke woods will turn out well.

Do not open cook chamber door for three hours. After three hours, flip the brisket over fat side up. If your cooker runs uneven temps from side to side, rotate the meat as well. Replenish the water pan. Continue replenishing water pan every three hours. If necessary rotate the brisket at those times.

Figure total cook time according to average chamber temperature and weight of brisket. 225 deg – ~2hrs/lb. 275 deg – 1-1/4 hrs/lb or a bit less. Stop adding smoke wood chunks or chips at one half of estimated time or when meat reaches internal temperature of 150, whichever comes first. If you’re burning “sticks” or logs for heat, don’t worry about it. You’re cool.

VII. Wrap – A 5 minute process, no more. 10, tops:

To wrap or not to wrap? It may be the question, but it surely isn’t the rub. We already did the rub. Smartassitude over, some people don’t wrap. If you’re not sure whether or not you should, you should.

Have a large sheet pan ready, with long strips of aluminum foil hanging off both ends. When the brisket hits around 150* internal, or is half through your estimated cooking time, remove it from the smoker, and place it on the foil. Fold the foil, but don’t seal it. . Before sealing packet add a little bit of the injection mix to the pack plus a rough chopped onion. Seal the foil and return the brisket to your ‘cue.

When the brisket hits an internal temperature of 185*, remove the wrap and return the brisket to the smoker, continue cooking until brisket reaches an internal temperature of 195*.

A. The Stall

It’s likely that during the cooking process, somewhere above 150*, continuing until up to 185*, the internal temperature increase will slow or stop. This is called “the stall.” It’s common with whole butts or picnics and almost universal with brisket. It’s normal. Don’t worry about, be patient. Temperatures will rise. Eventually. While you wait, consider the glacier.

It’s easy to lose focus during the stall and try to push the fire harder than it will go, or ascribe the geologic rate of temperature change to the stall and let it go out. Just manage the fire, okay?

It’s also easy to panic and start “mopping” as a way of looking at the meat and hoping that the combined action of your basting brush, eyeballs and anxiety will make things go faster. Knock it off. And, NO PEEKING DAMMIT.

B. After the Stall is Over, Before the Brisket’s Done

Usually, but not always, when the temperature gets a little around 185* it starts increasing more quickly. If it does, you want to keep an eye on it. This is one of many times a remote-read thermometer like the ET-73 is worth its weight in gold.

When brisket reaches 195* (or 191 if it’s still stalling), it’s done remove it from the cooker and rest it.

VIII. Rest – Brisket does best with an extensive rest. We’re talking 2 – 5 hours:

After you’ve got it out of your cooker, wrap it in cling wrap. Yes, cling wrap. Trust me, it’s better than aluminum foil – but aluminum is cool too. Set the meat in an insulated chest, the same type you use for holding things cold. In other words a cooler…for instance, an Igloo.

You want a cooler just large enough to hold the meat. After you’ve got the meat in the cooler, pack it with wadded newspaper to fill the remaining air space. Cover the cooler and make sure the cover is closed. I suggest weight the top or even taping it closed, if it doesn’t have a latch.

Rest for at least 2 hours, the extended rest is part of the cooking process. Don’t shortcut it. The cooler will hold the meat safely for more than 6 hours, but let’s be conservative.

IX. Carve – It takes, tautologically, just as long as it takes. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, dawdle. Remember. The wolf is at the door. Awhoo:

A. Divide and Conquer

Separate the point from the flat. You should be able to easily see the division between the two, and divide them with your knife. The point will have a rough triangular shape, the flat will be more rectangular.

The reason for separation is because their respective grains are perpendicular to one another. To cut both at the same time in their natural relationship would be to cut at least one of them wrong. Can’t have that.

B. Be like Ron Popeil and Cut the Fat

If you have a substantial fat cap, trim it. You can remove it with a spoon if you feel like showing off.

Occasionally there will be a band of fat which divides the flat. If the flat splits into two pieces with a layer of fat between them, separate the pieces and completely remove the fat. Cut one of the flats in half, cutting against the grain.

C. Test for Texture

Carve a slice off the freshly one of the freshly cut faces – still cutting against the grain, about 1/4? thick. Pick it up, preferably with your fingers, and taste it. If it wants to fall apart or is very, very tender you’ll be carving thicker slices. If it’s tough, you’ll be carving thinner slices. 1/4” is usually just right.

D. Always Against the Grain

Always, always cut across the grain. If you’re good with a knife, try a 20 degree bias to get some width.

Carve the point into slices across the grain as well. Plan on carving the slices roughly twice as thick as the slices you took from the flat.

E. Try a Little Tenderness

The point is usually substantially fattier than the flat. At 190 plus, it may be so tender it falls into chunks. If so, you may mix the chunks with hot barbecue sauce and serve on buns as “sloppy joes.” REAL SLOPPY JOES by the way.

Some people cut the point into chunks, re-season them with rub, put them in a pan, and back into the cooker – where, they become “burnt ends.” Got beans?

X. Serve – Same wolf, same door, same awhoo.

Some people prefer the point, some the flat, some a mix.

[Nummy noises]

Serve with your preferred tomato based barbecue sauce. Texas, Memphis, Cajun and Kansas City styles are good. Bordelaise in its classic or barbecue form is beaucoup wonderful. Alas, Carolina style sauces are not good partners to brisket. Save your Confederate money.

Accompaniments can range from standard barbecue to rather high end. Generally, beef prefers savory companions rather than the sweeter ones which go so well with pork.

If you drink: A full and fruity red like a Zin, Syrah or Shiraz is nice. Beer is never misunderstood.

XI. Leftovers – Don’t count on it:

What?

That’s all folks! About time, too.

BDL
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
This is utter nonsense, a good briskit will turn out excellent with merely the rub, adding injection and marinating will only cheapen the whole experience. I'm also a firm believer in leaving on the fat cap during cooking.
Click to expand...
:goodposting:

 
Bobbyn2022 said:
Maybe my post was stupid but 90 percent of the responses that were trying to be funny failed.
Click to expand...
No it was 100%. You got ripped off by the other guy. You traded $7 of salary for $70 and a very marginal increase in player value. One of the worst I've seen.

 
ragnarok628 said:
mquinnjr said:
http://www.cookfoodgood.com/?p=364

BARBECUE BRISKET – AN XI STEP PROGRAMPosted on | September 12, 2010 | 3 Comments Print This Post

Fair notice. This is (cough) somewhat longer than your average recipe.

Barbecue, in its most popular American incarnations, is mostly a child of Southern culture. Barbecued brisket on the other hand, is a part of non-overlapping Texas cuisine.

Competition style brisket – essentially Texan – and what this recipe is all about, is cooked so that it can be sliced into medium-thick slices which are juicy enough for sauce optional. That means a final internal temperature of right around 195*. Meditate on that very narrow, technical window before you start thinking about creativity.

Southern style may mean “pulled” brisket, which is actually shredded. Brisket won’t pull unless cooked to over 200* – 205*. Without a lot of saucing, that means dry, stick-to-your-teeth brisket.

Brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because it’s considered difficult to make. It’s actually a lot more involved and finicky than difficult. Do the right things – none of them very hard – in the right sequence; don’t do the wrong things; and… voila! Good brisket every time.

Of those rights and wrongs, some are just good barbecue practice: Tight, tuned pit; good fire management; NO DAMN PEEKING; use a thermometer.Note: If you’re not using a Maverick RediChek ET-73 Wireless Smoker Thermometer or something very much like it, you’re making life a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Because brisket is such a long cook the importance of a tight (as opposed to drafty), reasonably well tuned (even temperatures throughout the cook chamber) cooker, and a steady temperature are heightened. You can make good brisket in an ECB (el cheapo Brinkman) or un-modified small offset, but it ain’t easy. Good equipment makes more of a difference with brisket than with just about any other cut.

The brisket-specific process is somewhat involved, but really not that difficult as long as you’re willing to devote the time and care it takes to go through the steps. Shop, Trim, Marinate, Inject, Rub, Smoke, Rest, Carve, and Serve.

Maybe not difficult but there’s a lot to learn if you’ve never done it before. So, print this out, grab a cup of coffee, and find yourself a nice chair.

BARBECUED BRISKET

Yield: 8 – 12 servings, depending on size of the actual brisket

Difficulty: Lots of Prep; Lots of Steps; Long cook, requires good fire management.

Ingredients:

• 8 – 12 lb packer cut brisket; USDA Choice, CAB or better.

• 4 tbs (1/4 cup) Worcestershire Sauce, divided

• 1-1/4 cup Red Wine, divided

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1 cup Beef stock or Broth

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs Butter; or alternatively, substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter.

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Technique:

I. Shop – Takes as long as it takes. May be done up to 2 months in advance:

Purchase a “packer cut” whole brisket, Choice or CAB if possible.

A. What’s a packer cut? And, what’s a “whole brisket?”

A whole brisket is the “primal,” and includes two separate muscles called the flat and the point. The point is leaner, the point is richer. As a general term, “packer cut” refers to how it comes to the butcher from the meat packer – seldom the same person or company. In this case, I’m using the term to let you know you want the brisket still in it’s vacuum packed, plastic bag.

You can make great barbecued brisket using only the point or flat, yes. But everything else being equal, a whole brisket is better than a piece. Pieces smaller than four pounds or so are problematic. They often cook dry and despite your best effort to track internal temp shred rather than slice. So, whole brisket if possible and deal with the leftovers. Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much about leftovers. They won’t be left for long.

A “packer” may mean calling around. Plenty of supermarkets either don’t carry them or make them special order. And if they are special order, many supers will charge you the same price per pound as they would for a trimmed brisket flat (the most expensive part).

B. Choice? CAB? Prime? Wagyu?

Everything else being equal, the better the quality of the raw meat, the better the quality of the cooked meat. You don’t look surprised.

Select, Choice and Prime are the familiar USDA (sometimes called “rolled”) grades. If you don’t have thousands of dollars on the line in a competition, Choice is plenty good.

A lot of meat is “ungraded,” which may only mean that it isn’t graded by the USDA. Some excellent industry standards include CAB (certified Angus beef), BTC (better than Choice) and so on. If you can find “black face,” “wag-yu,” “kobe” or some other designation indicating the Japanese, black-face breed, at an affordable price, you’ve hit the jackpot. Call me with your supplier’s name.

You can certainly make great brisket with Select grade. I’m not saying you can’t. Just not as great. Repeat after me: Better raw meat means better cooked meat. Worth the extra money? It’s your wallet.

I buy BTC black angus from a higher end Korean butcher with a higher end Korean clientele. Brisket is a big deal in Korean cuisine, the butcher has a great supplier, etc., etc. It takes less evaluation on my part, which is a good thing.

C. What to Look For

Congratulations on finding a source. Try to buy between 9 and 11 lbs, with white fat, as marbled and as pliable as possible. Because a packer is covered by fat on one side, and tightly packed in a bag which has some meat juice, it’s often not easy to read the marbling. Pliability counts all the more.

Pliable? That’s right, pliable. Ask your butcher to bring out a few for you to test by picking up the brisket by each end and letting it bend; then holding it with both ends and seeing how easily it bends in the middle. The more flexible the better.

Shape helps determine how evenly the brisket will cook. Ideally, you don’t want it too thin at one end and/or too thick at the other. While 9 – 11 lbs is usually the best range, sometimes you have a choice of excellent larger and smaller briskets. If you’re worried about too small a brisket, figure about 40% waste on a packer, and 12oz per cooked, dinner serving. If 12 ounces seems large, what can I tell you? This stuff is good and people eat a lot of it.

D. Two Months?!

That vacuum packing will allow you to “wet age” the meat. If you’re not familiar with “wet-aging” the boucher’s, technical term for the process is: “Leaving it in the bag in the refrigerator for what a lot of people would consider too long a time.” Wet aging isn’t necessary, but does make a small, positive difference.

II. Trim – Takes about 10 minutes. Don’t do it more than two days before the cook

The fat on top of the brisket is called the cap and is not particularly palatable. You’ve got to substantially or entirely remove it somewhere along the line before service. Since it won’t allow any flavor at all from the marinade or rub to penetrate, you might as well remove it before marinating or rubbing.

If you’re buying from a decent butcher just a couple of days before your cook, have her trim the fat cap to no more than 1/4?, or right down to red meat. A fleck here and there of thinly trimmed cap is perfect.

If you’re reasonably proficient with a knife go ahead and try that yourself. If you’re not, and afraid that you’ll cut too deeply into the meat by trimming, it’s easier to remove the fat entirely than go for a thin trim.

It’s easier still to just leave the fat on and get it after the brisket is cooked. That means you won’t be able to rub the bottom of your meat, but wotthehell, wotthehell. You can’t have everything. And, in the greater scheme of brisket sins, there are much worse.

After trimming or not trimming, turn the brisket over so the lean side is up. Check for large flecks of fat, or pieces of thin, gray-white membrane. Use a small knife to remove them completely.

III. Marinate – About 30 minutes. You can start as far ahead as 36 hours before your intended service:

Marinade Ingredients:

• 4 tbs Red wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a pan just large enough to hold the brisket, make a marinade of 3 tbs each of red wine, Worcestershire sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Slosh the brisket around in the marinade, making sure all surfaces are moistened. Allow the brisket to marinate at least 1/2 an hour at room temperature, or as long as a 24 hours in the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes on the counter, the marinade will mix with the beef juices and partially coagulate into syrup. Syrup is good. Syrup is desirable.

Turn the brisket over occasionally during the marinade period. Reserve the marinade.

IV. Inject – Roughly 45 minutes including preparing and doing the injection:

Injection Ingredients:

• 1 cup beef stock or broth

• (Reserved) Marinade syrup

• 1 cup wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs salted butter, very cold, cut into 4 pieces; or, alternatively substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter

Put the stock in a pan, set it over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce by one third, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile drain the marinade from the brisket.

When the stock is reduced, add the marinade, wine, Worcestershire and garlic. Reduce by one third again.

Strain through a fine sieve, tea strainer or cheesecloth to remove any solids that might clog your injector’s needle, return to heat, bring back to a simmer and remove from heat.

Add the butter 1 tbs at a time, whisking each piece in just as the previous piece has melted from the residual heat. Mixture may thicken as the butter forms an emulsion. At this point the rich mouthfeel is incidental, you’re just trying to hold things together enough to distribute evenly when you inject. If you’re using truffle oil allow the inject to cool a little so as not to cook off the truffle aroma.

Truffle oil is creative and addictive. Your guests won’t know be able to quite put their finger on how beef became crack. But that’s the long on short of it.

On the other hand, if you’re cooking for competition, creativity is not your friend. Be much better, but don’t be much different.

Whatever your ingredients, fill your injecting syringe with the mixture and inject the brisket. Make many small injections, rather than a few large ones. Large injections will puddle rather than disperse. No matter how careful you are when you inject, the injecting fluid will squirt out from the meat in totally unexpected places. Messy but hilarious, you’ve got to take your entertainment where you find it.

Word to the wise: Less clean up, if you clear a large area on your counter and work in a large sheet or roasting pan.

There should be plenty of left over injection, refrigerate and reserve for your wrap liquid and eventual sauce.

V. Rub – Just a couple of minutes to mix, you want it on about thirty before you put the meat in the cooker. You don’t really get much more penetration than you get in half in an hour anyway.

Basic Beef Rub Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Mix all thoroughly. Cover the brisket generously with rub. If the fat cap is untrimmed, don’t bother using rub on that side.

Note: Double or even triple the recipe for the rub. It keeps well, is useful on grilled beef and lamb, and quite good on popcorn.

VI. Smoke – Smoking will take between 8 and 20 hours (Oy!) depending mostly on weight and temperature.

Sorry about the vagueness, but times for cooking brisket low and slow are very difficult to predict, even with a known weight. It’s partly the individuality of the meat, partly the wide range of acceptable temperatures, partly the temperature variance that’s inherent in outdoor cooking.

Note: The hotter the temperature, the more predictable the time.

Prepare your smoker to run the steadiest possible temperature, between 225 and 275.

I prefer 275, but your relationship with your smoker is what it is, and it will do what it will do. Don’t make yourself nuts by trying to make it do something that’s too much trouble for you. If you’re using a small offset use water, a water-wine mix, or beer in the water pan. If you’re using a WSM, use sand or some other dry material. If you have one, use a digital probe type thermometer, placed as close to where the meat will go to monitor cooking process.

When the smoker is prepped, place the brisket in the cooking chamber, fat side down. If you have one, insert the probe from a digital thermometer to keep track of internal temperatures.

Smoke over red oak if possible, but nearly any of the usual smoke woods will turn out well.

Do not open cook chamber door for three hours. After three hours, flip the brisket over fat side up. If your cooker runs uneven temps from side to side, rotate the meat as well. Replenish the water pan. Continue replenishing water pan every three hours. If necessary rotate the brisket at those times.

Figure total cook time according to average chamber temperature and weight of brisket. 225 deg – ~2hrs/lb. 275 deg – 1-1/4 hrs/lb or a bit less. Stop adding smoke wood chunks or chips at one half of estimated time or when meat reaches internal temperature of 150, whichever comes first. If you’re burning “sticks” or logs for heat, don’t worry about it. You’re cool.

VII. Wrap – A 5 minute process, no more. 10, tops:

To wrap or not to wrap? It may be the question, but it surely isn’t the rub. We already did the rub. Smartassitude over, some people don’t wrap. If you’re not sure whether or not you should, you should.

Have a large sheet pan ready, with long strips of aluminum foil hanging off both ends. When the brisket hits around 150* internal, or is half through your estimated cooking time, remove it from the smoker, and place it on the foil. Fold the foil, but don’t seal it. . Before sealing packet add a little bit of the injection mix to the pack plus a rough chopped onion. Seal the foil and return the brisket to your ‘cue.

When the brisket hits an internal temperature of 185*, remove the wrap and return the brisket to the smoker, continue cooking until brisket reaches an internal temperature of 195*.

A. The Stall

It’s likely that during the cooking process, somewhere above 150*, continuing until up to 185*, the internal temperature increase will slow or stop. This is called “the stall.” It’s common with whole butts or picnics and almost universal with brisket. It’s normal. Don’t worry about, be patient. Temperatures will rise. Eventually. While you wait, consider the glacier.

It’s easy to lose focus during the stall and try to push the fire harder than it will go, or ascribe the geologic rate of temperature change to the stall and let it go out. Just manage the fire, okay?

It’s also easy to panic and start “mopping” as a way of looking at the meat and hoping that the combined action of your basting brush, eyeballs and anxiety will make things go faster. Knock it off. And, NO PEEKING DAMMIT.

B. After the Stall is Over, Before the Brisket’s Done

Usually, but not always, when the temperature gets a little around 185* it starts increasing more quickly. If it does, you want to keep an eye on it. This is one of many times a remote-read thermometer like the ET-73 is worth its weight in gold.

When brisket reaches 195* (or 191 if it’s still stalling), it’s done remove it from the cooker and rest it.

VIII. Rest – Brisket does best with an extensive rest. We’re talking 2 – 5 hours:

After you’ve got it out of your cooker, wrap it in cling wrap. Yes, cling wrap. Trust me, it’s better than aluminum foil – but aluminum is cool too. Set the meat in an insulated chest, the same type you use for holding things cold. In other words a cooler…for instance, an Igloo.

You want a cooler just large enough to hold the meat. After you’ve got the meat in the cooler, pack it with wadded newspaper to fill the remaining air space. Cover the cooler and make sure the cover is closed. I suggest weight the top or even taping it closed, if it doesn’t have a latch.

Rest for at least 2 hours, the extended rest is part of the cooking process. Don’t shortcut it. The cooler will hold the meat safely for more than 6 hours, but let’s be conservative.

IX. Carve – It takes, tautologically, just as long as it takes. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, dawdle. Remember. The wolf is at the door. Awhoo:

A. Divide and Conquer

Separate the point from the flat. You should be able to easily see the division between the two, and divide them with your knife. The point will have a rough triangular shape, the flat will be more rectangular.

The reason for separation is because their respective grains are perpendicular to one another. To cut both at the same time in their natural relationship would be to cut at least one of them wrong. Can’t have that.

B. Be like Ron Popeil and Cut the Fat

If you have a substantial fat cap, trim it. You can remove it with a spoon if you feel like showing off.

Occasionally there will be a band of fat which divides the flat. If the flat splits into two pieces with a layer of fat between them, separate the pieces and completely remove the fat. Cut one of the flats in half, cutting against the grain.

C. Test for Texture

Carve a slice off the freshly one of the freshly cut faces – still cutting against the grain, about 1/4? thick. Pick it up, preferably with your fingers, and taste it. If it wants to fall apart or is very, very tender you’ll be carving thicker slices. If it’s tough, you’ll be carving thinner slices. 1/4” is usually just right.

D. Always Against the Grain

Always, always cut across the grain. If you’re good with a knife, try a 20 degree bias to get some width.

Carve the point into slices across the grain as well. Plan on carving the slices roughly twice as thick as the slices you took from the flat.

E. Try a Little Tenderness

The point is usually substantially fattier than the flat. At 190 plus, it may be so tender it falls into chunks. If so, you may mix the chunks with hot barbecue sauce and serve on buns as “sloppy joes.” REAL SLOPPY JOES by the way.

Some people cut the point into chunks, re-season them with rub, put them in a pan, and back into the cooker – where, they become “burnt ends.” Got beans?

X. Serve – Same wolf, same door, same awhoo.

Some people prefer the point, some the flat, some a mix.

[Nummy noises]

Serve with your preferred tomato based barbecue sauce. Texas, Memphis, Cajun and Kansas City styles are good. Bordelaise in its classic or barbecue form is beaucoup wonderful. Alas, Carolina style sauces are not good partners to brisket. Save your Confederate money.

Accompaniments can range from standard barbecue to rather high end. Generally, beef prefers savory companions rather than the sweeter ones which go so well with pork.

If you drink: A full and fruity red like a Zin, Syrah or Shiraz is nice. Beer is never misunderstood.

XI. Leftovers – Don’t count on it:

What?

That’s all folks! About time, too.

BDL
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
This is utter nonsense, a good briskit will turn out excellent with merely the rub, adding injection and marinating will only cheapen the whole experience. I'm also a firm believer in leaving on the fat cap during cooking.
Click to expand...
:goodposting:

Here's a much better/easier recipe:

Step 1: Put the brisket in a crock pot and set it to Low.

Step 2: Pour in your favorite marinade. I like Claude's.

Step 3: Wait 9 hours.

Done.

 
LittlePhatty said:
ragnarok628 said:
mquinnjr said:
http://www.cookfoodgood.com/?p=364

BARBECUE BRISKET – AN XI STEP PROGRAMPosted on | September 12, 2010 | 3 Comments Print This Post

Fair notice. This is (cough) somewhat longer than your average recipe.

Barbecue, in its most popular American incarnations, is mostly a child of Southern culture. Barbecued brisket on the other hand, is a part of non-overlapping Texas cuisine.

Competition style brisket – essentially Texan – and what this recipe is all about, is cooked so that it can be sliced into medium-thick slices which are juicy enough for sauce optional. That means a final internal temperature of right around 195*. Meditate on that very narrow, technical window before you start thinking about creativity.

Southern style may mean “pulled” brisket, which is actually shredded. Brisket won’t pull unless cooked to over 200* – 205*. Without a lot of saucing, that means dry, stick-to-your-teeth brisket.

Brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because it’s considered difficult to make. It’s actually a lot more involved and finicky than difficult. Do the right things – none of them very hard – in the right sequence; don’t do the wrong things; and… voila! Good brisket every time.

Of those rights and wrongs, some are just good barbecue practice: Tight, tuned pit; good fire management; NO DAMN PEEKING; use a thermometer.Note: If you’re not using a Maverick RediChek ET-73 Wireless Smoker Thermometer or something very much like it, you’re making life a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Because brisket is such a long cook the importance of a tight (as opposed to drafty), reasonably well tuned (even temperatures throughout the cook chamber) cooker, and a steady temperature are heightened. You can make good brisket in an ECB (el cheapo Brinkman) or un-modified small offset, but it ain’t easy. Good equipment makes more of a difference with brisket than with just about any other cut.

The brisket-specific process is somewhat involved, but really not that difficult as long as you’re willing to devote the time and care it takes to go through the steps. Shop, Trim, Marinate, Inject, Rub, Smoke, Rest, Carve, and Serve.

Maybe not difficult but there’s a lot to learn if you’ve never done it before. So, print this out, grab a cup of coffee, and find yourself a nice chair.

BARBECUED BRISKET

Yield: 8 – 12 servings, depending on size of the actual brisket

Difficulty: Lots of Prep; Lots of Steps; Long cook, requires good fire management.

Ingredients:

• 8 – 12 lb packer cut brisket; USDA Choice, CAB or better.

• 4 tbs (1/4 cup) Worcestershire Sauce, divided

• 1-1/4 cup Red Wine, divided

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1 cup Beef stock or Broth

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs Butter; or alternatively, substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter.

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Technique:

I. Shop – Takes as long as it takes. May be done up to 2 months in advance:

Purchase a “packer cut” whole brisket, Choice or CAB if possible.

A. What’s a packer cut? And, what’s a “whole brisket?”

A whole brisket is the “primal,” and includes two separate muscles called the flat and the point. The point is leaner, the point is richer. As a general term, “packer cut” refers to how it comes to the butcher from the meat packer – seldom the same person or company. In this case, I’m using the term to let you know you want the brisket still in it’s vacuum packed, plastic bag.

You can make great barbecued brisket using only the point or flat, yes. But everything else being equal, a whole brisket is better than a piece. Pieces smaller than four pounds or so are problematic. They often cook dry and despite your best effort to track internal temp shred rather than slice. So, whole brisket if possible and deal with the leftovers. Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much about leftovers. They won’t be left for long.

A “packer” may mean calling around. Plenty of supermarkets either don’t carry them or make them special order. And if they are special order, many supers will charge you the same price per pound as they would for a trimmed brisket flat (the most expensive part).

B. Choice? CAB? Prime? Wagyu?

Everything else being equal, the better the quality of the raw meat, the better the quality of the cooked meat. You don’t look surprised.

Select, Choice and Prime are the familiar USDA (sometimes called “rolled”) grades. If you don’t have thousands of dollars on the line in a competition, Choice is plenty good.

A lot of meat is “ungraded,” which may only mean that it isn’t graded by the USDA. Some excellent industry standards include CAB (certified Angus beef), BTC (better than Choice) and so on. If you can find “black face,” “wag-yu,” “kobe” or some other designation indicating the Japanese, black-face breed, at an affordable price, you’ve hit the jackpot. Call me with your supplier’s name.

You can certainly make great brisket with Select grade. I’m not saying you can’t. Just not as great. Repeat after me: Better raw meat means better cooked meat. Worth the extra money? It’s your wallet.

I buy BTC black angus from a higher end Korean butcher with a higher end Korean clientele. Brisket is a big deal in Korean cuisine, the butcher has a great supplier, etc., etc. It takes less evaluation on my part, which is a good thing.

C. What to Look For

Congratulations on finding a source. Try to buy between 9 and 11 lbs, with white fat, as marbled and as pliable as possible. Because a packer is covered by fat on one side, and tightly packed in a bag which has some meat juice, it’s often not easy to read the marbling. Pliability counts all the more.

Pliable? That’s right, pliable. Ask your butcher to bring out a few for you to test by picking up the brisket by each end and letting it bend; then holding it with both ends and seeing how easily it bends in the middle. The more flexible the better.

Shape helps determine how evenly the brisket will cook. Ideally, you don’t want it too thin at one end and/or too thick at the other. While 9 – 11 lbs is usually the best range, sometimes you have a choice of excellent larger and smaller briskets. If you’re worried about too small a brisket, figure about 40% waste on a packer, and 12oz per cooked, dinner serving. If 12 ounces seems large, what can I tell you? This stuff is good and people eat a lot of it.

D. Two Months?!

That vacuum packing will allow you to “wet age” the meat. If you’re not familiar with “wet-aging” the boucher’s, technical term for the process is: “Leaving it in the bag in the refrigerator for what a lot of people would consider too long a time.” Wet aging isn’t necessary, but does make a small, positive difference.

II. Trim – Takes about 10 minutes. Don’t do it more than two days before the cook

The fat on top of the brisket is called the cap and is not particularly palatable. You’ve got to substantially or entirely remove it somewhere along the line before service. Since it won’t allow any flavor at all from the marinade or rub to penetrate, you might as well remove it before marinating or rubbing.

If you’re buying from a decent butcher just a couple of days before your cook, have her trim the fat cap to no more than 1/4?, or right down to red meat. A fleck here and there of thinly trimmed cap is perfect.

If you’re reasonably proficient with a knife go ahead and try that yourself. If you’re not, and afraid that you’ll cut too deeply into the meat by trimming, it’s easier to remove the fat entirely than go for a thin trim.

It’s easier still to just leave the fat on and get it after the brisket is cooked. That means you won’t be able to rub the bottom of your meat, but wotthehell, wotthehell. You can’t have everything. And, in the greater scheme of brisket sins, there are much worse.

After trimming or not trimming, turn the brisket over so the lean side is up. Check for large flecks of fat, or pieces of thin, gray-white membrane. Use a small knife to remove them completely.

III. Marinate – About 30 minutes. You can start as far ahead as 36 hours before your intended service:

Marinade Ingredients:

• 4 tbs Red wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a pan just large enough to hold the brisket, make a marinade of 3 tbs each of red wine, Worcestershire sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Slosh the brisket around in the marinade, making sure all surfaces are moistened. Allow the brisket to marinate at least 1/2 an hour at room temperature, or as long as a 24 hours in the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes on the counter, the marinade will mix with the beef juices and partially coagulate into syrup. Syrup is good. Syrup is desirable.

Turn the brisket over occasionally during the marinade period. Reserve the marinade.

IV. Inject – Roughly 45 minutes including preparing and doing the injection:

Injection Ingredients:

• 1 cup beef stock or broth

• (Reserved) Marinade syrup

• 1 cup wine

• 2 tbs Worcestershire

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, but not chopped

• 4 tbs salted butter, very cold, cut into 4 pieces; or, alternatively substitute Truffle Oil for some or all of the butter

Put the stock in a pan, set it over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce by one third, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile drain the marinade from the brisket.

When the stock is reduced, add the marinade, wine, Worcestershire and garlic. Reduce by one third again.

Strain through a fine sieve, tea strainer or cheesecloth to remove any solids that might clog your injector’s needle, return to heat, bring back to a simmer and remove from heat.

Add the butter 1 tbs at a time, whisking each piece in just as the previous piece has melted from the residual heat. Mixture may thicken as the butter forms an emulsion. At this point the rich mouthfeel is incidental, you’re just trying to hold things together enough to distribute evenly when you inject. If you’re using truffle oil allow the inject to cool a little so as not to cook off the truffle aroma.

Truffle oil is creative and addictive. Your guests won’t know be able to quite put their finger on how beef became crack. But that’s the long on short of it.

On the other hand, if you’re cooking for competition, creativity is not your friend. Be much better, but don’t be much different.

Whatever your ingredients, fill your injecting syringe with the mixture and inject the brisket. Make many small injections, rather than a few large ones. Large injections will puddle rather than disperse. No matter how careful you are when you inject, the injecting fluid will squirt out from the meat in totally unexpected places. Messy but hilarious, you’ve got to take your entertainment where you find it.

Word to the wise: Less clean up, if you clear a large area on your counter and work in a large sheet or roasting pan.

There should be plenty of left over injection, refrigerate and reserve for your wrap liquid and eventual sauce.

V. Rub – Just a couple of minutes to mix, you want it on about thirty before you put the meat in the cooker. You don’t really get much more penetration than you get in half in an hour anyway.

Basic Beef Rub Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Diamond kosher salt

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika

• 3 tbs coarsely fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tbs paprika,

• 2 tbs mild chili powder, or 2 tbs ground chipotle chili, or 1 tbs chile de arbol or cayenne pepper

• 1 tbs granulated garlic

• 1 tbs granulated onion

• 2 tsp dry Colman’s or other hot mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp dried sage

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Mix all thoroughly. Cover the brisket generously with rub. If the fat cap is untrimmed, don’t bother using rub on that side.

Note: Double or even triple the recipe for the rub. It keeps well, is useful on grilled beef and lamb, and quite good on popcorn.

VI. Smoke – Smoking will take between 8 and 20 hours (Oy!) depending mostly on weight and temperature.

Sorry about the vagueness, but times for cooking brisket low and slow are very difficult to predict, even with a known weight. It’s partly the individuality of the meat, partly the wide range of acceptable temperatures, partly the temperature variance that’s inherent in outdoor cooking.

Note: The hotter the temperature, the more predictable the time.

Prepare your smoker to run the steadiest possible temperature, between 225 and 275.

I prefer 275, but your relationship with your smoker is what it is, and it will do what it will do. Don’t make yourself nuts by trying to make it do something that’s too much trouble for you. If you’re using a small offset use water, a water-wine mix, or beer in the water pan. If you’re using a WSM, use sand or some other dry material. If you have one, use a digital probe type thermometer, placed as close to where the meat will go to monitor cooking process.

When the smoker is prepped, place the brisket in the cooking chamber, fat side down. If you have one, insert the probe from a digital thermometer to keep track of internal temperatures.

Smoke over red oak if possible, but nearly any of the usual smoke woods will turn out well.

Do not open cook chamber door for three hours. After three hours, flip the brisket over fat side up. If your cooker runs uneven temps from side to side, rotate the meat as well. Replenish the water pan. Continue replenishing water pan every three hours. If necessary rotate the brisket at those times.

Figure total cook time according to average chamber temperature and weight of brisket. 225 deg – ~2hrs/lb. 275 deg – 1-1/4 hrs/lb or a bit less. Stop adding smoke wood chunks or chips at one half of estimated time or when meat reaches internal temperature of 150, whichever comes first. If you’re burning “sticks” or logs for heat, don’t worry about it. You’re cool.

VII. Wrap – A 5 minute process, no more. 10, tops:

To wrap or not to wrap? It may be the question, but it surely isn’t the rub. We already did the rub. Smartassitude over, some people don’t wrap. If you’re not sure whether or not you should, you should.

Have a large sheet pan ready, with long strips of aluminum foil hanging off both ends. When the brisket hits around 150* internal, or is half through your estimated cooking time, remove it from the smoker, and place it on the foil. Fold the foil, but don’t seal it. . Before sealing packet add a little bit of the injection mix to the pack plus a rough chopped onion. Seal the foil and return the brisket to your ‘cue.

When the brisket hits an internal temperature of 185*, remove the wrap and return the brisket to the smoker, continue cooking until brisket reaches an internal temperature of 195*.

A. The Stall

It’s likely that during the cooking process, somewhere above 150*, continuing until up to 185*, the internal temperature increase will slow or stop. This is called “the stall.” It’s common with whole butts or picnics and almost universal with brisket. It’s normal. Don’t worry about, be patient. Temperatures will rise. Eventually. While you wait, consider the glacier.

It’s easy to lose focus during the stall and try to push the fire harder than it will go, or ascribe the geologic rate of temperature change to the stall and let it go out. Just manage the fire, okay?

It’s also easy to panic and start “mopping” as a way of looking at the meat and hoping that the combined action of your basting brush, eyeballs and anxiety will make things go faster. Knock it off. And, NO PEEKING DAMMIT.

B. After the Stall is Over, Before the Brisket’s Done

Usually, but not always, when the temperature gets a little around 185* it starts increasing more quickly. If it does, you want to keep an eye on it. This is one of many times a remote-read thermometer like the ET-73 is worth its weight in gold.

When brisket reaches 195* (or 191 if it’s still stalling), it’s done remove it from the cooker and rest it.

VIII. Rest – Brisket does best with an extensive rest. We’re talking 2 – 5 hours:

After you’ve got it out of your cooker, wrap it in cling wrap. Yes, cling wrap. Trust me, it’s better than aluminum foil – but aluminum is cool too. Set the meat in an insulated chest, the same type you use for holding things cold. In other words a cooler…for instance, an Igloo.

You want a cooler just large enough to hold the meat. After you’ve got the meat in the cooler, pack it with wadded newspaper to fill the remaining air space. Cover the cooler and make sure the cover is closed. I suggest weight the top or even taping it closed, if it doesn’t have a latch.

Rest for at least 2 hours, the extended rest is part of the cooking process. Don’t shortcut it. The cooler will hold the meat safely for more than 6 hours, but let’s be conservative.

IX. Carve – It takes, tautologically, just as long as it takes. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, dawdle. Remember. The wolf is at the door. Awhoo:

A. Divide and Conquer

Separate the point from the flat. You should be able to easily see the division between the two, and divide them with your knife. The point will have a rough triangular shape, the flat will be more rectangular.

The reason for separation is because their respective grains are perpendicular to one another. To cut both at the same time in their natural relationship would be to cut at least one of them wrong. Can’t have that.

B. Be like Ron Popeil and Cut the Fat

If you have a substantial fat cap, trim it. You can remove it with a spoon if you feel like showing off.

Occasionally there will be a band of fat which divides the flat. If the flat splits into two pieces with a layer of fat between them, separate the pieces and completely remove the fat. Cut one of the flats in half, cutting against the grain.

C. Test for Texture

Carve a slice off the freshly one of the freshly cut faces – still cutting against the grain, about 1/4? thick. Pick it up, preferably with your fingers, and taste it. If it wants to fall apart or is very, very tender you’ll be carving thicker slices. If it’s tough, you’ll be carving thinner slices. 1/4” is usually just right.

D. Always Against the Grain

Always, always cut across the grain. If you’re good with a knife, try a 20 degree bias to get some width.

Carve the point into slices across the grain as well. Plan on carving the slices roughly twice as thick as the slices you took from the flat.

E. Try a Little Tenderness

The point is usually substantially fattier than the flat. At 190 plus, it may be so tender it falls into chunks. If so, you may mix the chunks with hot barbecue sauce and serve on buns as “sloppy joes.” REAL SLOPPY JOES by the way.

Some people cut the point into chunks, re-season them with rub, put them in a pan, and back into the cooker – where, they become “burnt ends.” Got beans?

X. Serve – Same wolf, same door, same awhoo.

Some people prefer the point, some the flat, some a mix.

[Nummy noises]

Serve with your preferred tomato based barbecue sauce. Texas, Memphis, Cajun and Kansas City styles are good. Bordelaise in its classic or barbecue form is beaucoup wonderful. Alas, Carolina style sauces are not good partners to brisket. Save your Confederate money.

Accompaniments can range from standard barbecue to rather high end. Generally, beef prefers savory companions rather than the sweeter ones which go so well with pork.

If you drink: A full and fruity red like a Zin, Syrah or Shiraz is nice. Beer is never misunderstood.

XI. Leftovers – Don’t count on it:

What?

That’s all folks! About time, too.

BDL
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
This is utter nonsense, a good briskit will turn out excellent with merely the rub, adding injection and marinating will only cheapen the whole experience. I'm also a firm believer in leaving on the fat cap during cooking.
Click to expand...
:goodposting:

Here's a much better/easier recipe:

Step 1: Put the brisket in a crock pot and set it to Low.

Step 2: Pour in your favorite marinade. I like Claude's.

Step 3: Wait 9 hours.

Done.
Click to expand...
This absolutely kills in dynasty.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

greenmountaingoat
Ainias Smith-WR- Draft eligible Texas A&M
Replies
7
Views
224
Ilov80s
Ilov80s
Gatorman
I drafted a good team that I hate last night...
Replies
27
Views
880
Truebluey
Truebluey
GoBears84
Ultimate Strength of Schedule for Defense - A shot at making it useful
Replies
5
Views
577
Chaka
Chaka

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Top