A lot of us take to our smokers each weekend to relieve stress and blow off some steam. There is something about the smell of that smoke that just relaxes you and brings you into a state of peace. We all want to do our best and impress our friends and family each time we present our hours of hard work, but we know even if we mess up, that no one will be too hard on you. Well, we also know that there are certain cooks that this feeling of peace and bliss burns up in the firebox because you can’t mess this one up.
One of the perks of being the bbq person in your family or amongst your friends is that people tend to trust you with important meals. Recently, I was tasked with smoking a brisket for our Christmas Eve meal. It is one thing to cook for my wife and kids, it is another to cook for aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and grandparents who aren’t used to eating your food. Call it pride, but you are the bbq person! You can’t serve a crappy, dry, gross brisket on Christmas, you’ll never live it down!
I went to old reliable for this meal. A chopped brisket recipe that is guaranteed to be moist and delicious. This is the type of recipe that people you don’t cook for very often will be asking again for it next year. I hope you enjoy.
See how I almost ruined Christmas Eve dinner, and the unlikely heroes who saved the day HERE.
Ingredients
- One Packer Brisket (I cooked a prime brisket, but we are chopping this so any grade will still taste great!)
- Coarse black pepper
- Worcestershire Sauce (I love using Bear and Burton’s W Sauce)
- Your favorite beef seasoning (I used a mixture of Meat Church Holy Cow and Meat Church Holy Gospel)
- Beef Stock
- 2 sticks of butter
- One foil pan
Preparing the Brisket
Remove your brisket from its packaging and start to trim the fat. I don’t have a video of trimming a brisket, but there are tons out there if you are a visual person. Typically when trimming a brisket you are trying to leave about 1/4inch of fat. You can trim off everything else. With all of that excess fat, you can keep it to make tallow or sausage. You can also just throw it away if you aren’t ready for that yet.
Once your brisket is trimmed and ready to go, take your Worcestershire Sauce and apply it directly onto the brisket. Spread the sauce all the way around the brisket, it does not need to be a heavy coat, but does need to be enough to cover the whole brisket. This will serve as your binder. A binder helps the seasoning stay attached to the brisket and not fall off during the cook.
After you have set your binder take your coarse black pepper and put a light coating across your brisket. The pepper should not be caked on, but should cover the entire brisket. This will help your brisket build that beautiful bark that we are all going for. After you have set your pepper, come back over the top with your favorite beef seasoning. There are so many out there, you know what you like! If you are brand new to this, my favorites are Meat Church and Finch’s BBQ Beef Rub, I also am currently working on my own beef rub… but it is not quite ready yet!
Once your brisket is all seasoned up and ready to go you will need to let all of it adhere (sit) for about an hour (30 minutes each side is what I like to do).
Fire Up Your Smoker or Pellet Grill
While your brisket is adhering, get your smoker to 225 degrees. If you are using a pellet grill, I like to turn on the super smoke setting just to ensure that the meat really gets that awesome smoky flavor. I like to use a hardwood for this cook. I am weird, if I am cooking this recipe on the offset smoker, I will use post oak. If I am cooking on the Traeger, I will use Hickory. I know, I am weird, but they both taste great!
Time to Cook
Once your brisket has adhered and your smoker is at the correct temperature, you are ready to go! Place your brisket as far from the fire as you can fat side up. There is a lot of debate on what I am about to say next, but I do like to spritz my brisket.
A lot of folks in bbq will say that spritzing a brisket ruins it, I don’t have any science to prove it one way or another, but I know that typically when I don’t spritz my brisket is dry. Take my word with a grain of salt, you do what works best for you! One thing I will say about spritzing a brisket, is it is important to let your bark set before you spritz.
Typically I will let my brisket sit in the smoker and won’t even look at it for the first 4 or 5 hours. My Meater usually reads between 120 degree and 130 degrees before I even peak at it. If the bark looks good, I will go ahead and give it a quick spritz. I like to spritz with a combination of Worcestershire Sauce and Beef Stock. 2 parts beef stock, 1 part Worcestershire sauce. I like this combination because it keeps the same flavor profile that I am looking for and allows that brisket to stay moist.
I will check in on my brisket about every hour or so after the first spritz. You don’t want to overdo spritzing, but if it looks dry, I will give it a few squirts. I do this until the brisket reaches somewhere between 170 degrees and 180 degrees, then it’s time to wrap.
The Wrap
This is where things may look a little different than most brisket recipes you have probably read before. When I know that I am chopping a brisket, when it comes to the wrap phase I like to put my brisket into a foil pan. The reason I like to do this is because I want to absorb all of those juices coming from the brisket that I can redistribute back into the meat later, and to be honest with you, keeping it in a foil pan is honestly just cleaner and easier.
Once my brisket is in the foil pan, I am going to slice my two sticks of butter and place the slices all around the brisket. I like to try and cover the brisket up as much as I can. I usually put my thicker pieces of butter on the point of the brisket. After the butter is on the brisket, I take my beef stock and I pour it into the bottom of the foil pan. Not a ton, probably about an inch and a half. This will allow the brisket to retain it’s moisture while it is wrapped. Once you have completed all of this, cover tightly with foil and place it back on the smoker.
Finishing the Cook
After your brisket is covered, you can bump the temperature to whatever you need to. With all of the liquid that is in that pan, it is not going to dry out. If you are in a rush, crank that heat up to 325 degrees. If you have awhile, keep that thing low and slow. Every brisket is different, and like I have mentioned before, bbq is a feel thing a lot of the times.
What you are going for is your brisket to be probe tender. What that means is if you take a meat thermometer, you should be able to poke that thing and it should slide in like butter. There should be almost zero resistance from the meat. If you’re a temperature person, this is usually somewhere between 203-206 degrees. Once you are there, you are good to pull it off! Great job!
Resting the Brisket
This is something that I did not realize was important for years, but resting the brisket is essential. All of the great bbq restaurants you know keep their briskets in warmers and let them rest hours on hours to ensure that all of the juices are redistributing back into the meat. Unfortunately for us, there are not a lot of us with access to industrial warmers that sit at 140 degrees. There are several different options to rest your brisket though.
- What I personally do is stick it in the over wrapped. My oven has a keep warm setting at 150 degrees and I have left briskets resting in there for 10+ hours before with no issues. Check your oven settings and see how low they go.
- Keep Warm setting on pellet smoker.
- Cooler with warm towels around the meat.
- Cooler with no towels.
- BBQ Guys Meat Blanket (I just got one of these and I am so excited)
- Just let it rest on the counter at ambient temperature. If you do this, please do not let it rest for more than an hour or so as it could lead to sickness.
Chopping the Brisket
Great job! You have let your brisket rest an ample amount of time and it is almost time for you to enjoy this beautiful piece of meat. First things first, all that wonderful juice that has accumulated in the bottom of the pan needs to be saved. If you have a fat separator, pour into that and let it do the work. If you don’t have one of these, I highly recommend one. You can get them super cheap on Amazon. If you don’t have one, that is totally fine! Just pour into a mason jar, Tupperware, a cup, whatever you have! You will use it later so don’t get rid of it!
Now it is time to chop. Go nuts, have fun with it. I’m sure there is a proper way to chop brisket, but honestly, I take my cleaver and just go to town on that thing. It is a great stress reliever. Once your brisket is all chopped up, place it all back in the pan you plan on serving it out of.
Once all the meat is in there, you are going to take all the liquid gold you saved earlier and pour it back over the meat. There is a little bit of a method to this, don’t just dump it all in one place. Spread the love, take a break and mix it around with your hands, make sure every little piece of chopped piece gets some attention from the liquid.
As you are pouring liquid, I also like to go over the top with the original beef seasoning I used and reseason everything. This is not necessary, but I think that it definitely enhances the flavor and takes the chopped brisket to a new level.
Enjoy!
And there you have it! You have finished up an awesome brisket. Great job! This recipe is great for chopped brisket sandwiches, goes awesome on baked potatoes, with eggs for breakfast, or is just great to eat by itself. I hope that this recipe works great for you all and that whatever you use this for is successful.
Grill On!
Kaydon
