Last Saturday: Brisket Day.
After 11 months and at least a dozen smoker sessions -- spare ribs, loin ribs, beef ribs, sausages, chicken, pork, turkey, goose, and plenty of duck, plus one chocolate cheesecake -- the time had come for brisket.
I got a genuine packer cut brisket from The East London Steak Company, delivered to me at 6am on a Friday morning. Over 6 kg -- a proper brisket that would be at home in the US. I trimmed off a good bit of fat, so pre-cooking weight was probably around 5.5 kg or so. The trimmed fat was later rendered, strained and saved.
So on Saturday:
05:49 Smoker on. Yes, a very early start. I'd wheeled the smoker out and had it all setup and ready to go the night before. It's about 80kg of metal, not a big back garden theft worry. Trimmed the cut as mentioned, right down to the surface to expose the lovely beef. No rub to speak of, just a generous amount of salt and a little bit of black pepper.
06:25 Brisket on. Temp at grate was about 88C. My plan was to start at relatively low temp then up it over a few hours to a max of around 110C (230F). The wood was a mix of oak and hickory (pellets, cookshack).
08:20 Upped heat. Two hours in, turned the heat up.
09:20 Temp check. Three hours in, temp at grate is about 100C, brisket internal temp about 40C. I upped the controller another 5C and topped up the hopper with some cheaper pellets -- Lil Devils, a blend consisting of, I think, mostly alder and some oak. These are about half the price of the cookshack pellets. After a few hours, not much smoke is getting into the meat anymore. The smoker I have generates all heat by burning pellets so spending the next
10:45 Temp check. Brisket about 51C internal after nearly 4 1/2 hours. Upped the controller another 5C to yield a cooking temp of around 110C. The slow ramp-up seems like a good tactic. Now waiting for the stall. This is the point at which the brisket gets to around 65C. Surface evaporation can keep it at the same temperature for hours, which can cause panic and heat up-turning. This is to be avoided. Either leave it in the smoke and wait it out, or crutch it. We're going to crutch it.
12:45 The stall. The brisket parked itself at 64.7 for a while. So 6 1/2 hours in, time for the crutch. We cut maybe 14th (by weight) off the end -- the thinnest third, the exposed part of the flat -- for two reasons: (1) we wanted to experiment with not crutching, and (b) the thing wouldn't fit into the pan without cutting that off. So with the thin part of the flat still in the smoker, the rest of it, big hunk of meat, went onto a rack in a deep pan, with water under the rack. The whole thing was closely and tightly covered with a few layers of foil then put into the oven, set at 110C.
16:55 Done! 10.5 hours of cooking, with crutch. Aiming for 95C internal. at 65C all the water abandons ship and you get a big piece of shoe-leather, but then the collagen melts and it becomes tender, moist, and delicious again. Ostensibly. We'll see. This was kept wrapped up and left in the oven, cooled down to warm/hold temp. At the same time the much smaller piece in the smoker was still not quite done, although it was past the stall and getting there -- 88C.
17:30 Done (pt 2). The flat remnant in the smoker now 95C. This was covered and put into the warm oven to rest, crammed in below the bigger piece. Now the smoker was upped to 150C to cook a whole mess of sausages and hot dogs.
18:30 Served! First sliced the all-smoker flat. Really nice smoke ring. Kind of dry. Good flavor, and not tough -- fairly tender, but still kind of dry. Then... the big piece. Oh, man. Unbelievable. Incredible flavor, meltingly tender and moist. Was almost hard to slice it was so tender. The whole of the big piece was great, but especially the point (the point!). Wow.
So yes, it was worth it. We declared victory. Brisket Day was a big success and there will be a brisket #2 in the smoker's future.
P.S. I'm having a hard time remembering what I served with it, aside from more meat. Oh yeah, a big pot of pinto beans. And some crisps. And some tomatoes, sliced or chopped or something. And a homemade thousand-island-ish dressing with loads of fresh horseradish I'd prepared while the brisket was smoking. Rolls and tortillas as well, maybe? I didn't want any wheat to get in the way of the meat, so gave that a miss.
P.P.S. There were almost no leftovers. I was expecting a lot. So much that I was going to slice and freeze the leftovers. There was enough for me later to chop it up, fry it in the rendered beef drippings with cracked black pepper and crushed red pepper (mit scharf!) until the edges were dark brown and crispy, then melted cheddar over the top and horseradish/thousand-island dressing and diced tomatoes underneath. Yes.
P.P.P.S. You'd think with an elapsed cooking/prep time of nearly 13 hours I would have had time to take more photos, but no. Next time?
