Yes, we're going to be making some smoked
brisket, beef stew today in cast iron, on the drum smoker.
There's a couple different parts to this.
The first one is smoking up our beef brisket pieces. In this vacuum sealed bag
I've got some beef brisket flat pieces that I seasoned up last October,
vacuum sealed, froze.
Just thawed it out last night.
Let's get it open.
Oh, man, that smells good already.
I've got the Hunsaker Vortex Drum
Smoker fired up. I've got some post oak chunks on there today.
We're going to be running between two seventy five and three hundred
and we're ready to get these on.
So now I'm going to let those pieces go for
about two hours. We'll probably take a look at them in about an hour.
But I just want to get some good smoke on them
because we're going to be finishing them as a stew and a cast iron Dutch Oven.
That's where they're really going
to finish tenderizing with all the other ingredients.
Now, if you're doing something like this, especially on a drum smoker
where you've got the lid open and dumping oxygen in there
and you're worried about your fire getting too hot.
Just put them on the rack
outside the drum smoker, then lift them and put them in there.
That way you minimize the time that the lid is open
and the amount of oxygen is pouring in, stoking that fire.
So we're going to let these go for a couple hours.
Like I said, about an hour. We'll come back and check it. I'll see you then.
All right, we've been going one hour.
Let's check our brisket flat pieces.
Those are looking really, really good.
Now, these are not going to be tender,
but I just want to do a little tenderness check here.
Feeling good after an hour.
So those are coming along nicely, but I want to give them another hour
to soak in some more of that smoke flavor and then we'll get them on our cast
iron Dutch Oven with our other ingredients and build our smoked brisket beef stew.
So I'll see you back here in about an hour.
All right, we are just short of the two hour mark.
Let's get our brisket pieces off and start making this stew.
As you saw, I lowered the rack to the third position in the Hunsaker.
That will allow plenty of room for our cast iron Dutch Oven.
Let's go ahead and get our ingredients, starting with our brisket pieces.
Next, I'm adding about a pound and a half,
maybe two pounds of some small white potatoes.
A cup of chopped and peeled baby carrots.
Two cloves of garlic that I've cut in half.
A cup of some red pearl onions.
Before I add liquid to this, which is beef broth,
I want to hit it with some seasoning.
And today I'm using my SPSPG rub,
just mixture of salt, pepper, garlic powder and smoked paprika.
And this is just to taste.
I'll put a link to the video where I made this rub.
So you can check that out. That's maybe a tablespoon.
I'm going to start with 32 ounces of beef broth.
Then we'll see if we need to add more.
Give that a stir first.
Well let's add some more we need more liquid in here right now.
That's probably another 16 ounces.
All right, let's get this covered up.
Get it back on the Hunsaker.
We're going to let that go for two hours and then we'll give it a check.
All right, we've been going for two hours in the cast iron.
About an hour ago, I actually raised the great level to position two.
I realized we didn't need to be all the way down to position three.
Position two is deep enough in the vortex smoker.
One of the nice things about it is
there are five levels in the Hunsaker Vortex Smoker.
Really nice to be able to adjust things like that.
It also makes it a little easier
to see down into the cast iron right now when we check this stew.
That is looking good.
Just want to do a potato tenderness check here.
Those are feeling pretty good.
And something I'm going to do now is totally optional.
I want to thicken this up a little bit.
So I'm going to add a slurry which is made up of three tablespoons of cornstarch,
three tablespoons of water.
We want to stir this in here.
That'll just help it thicken up a little bit.
I don't like a super thick stew, like a gravy, but a little bit more than this.
And I'm going to leave that uncovered in there now for about another 30 to 45 minutes.
All right, we've been going another forty five minutes uncovered now.
Let's check our stew.
Oh, yeah. Give this a stir.
Just thickened up a little bit there, as you can see. Not a lot.
And you don't have to do that.
But man, this looks good.
All right. I'm gonna get the lid on that.
Get it inside. Let it cool down for maybe 15 minutes
and then we're going to have a taste.
And so here is a bowl of our smoked brisket beef stew.
Now, I want to say something before I taste this.
And that's about ingredients.
You'll notice this is very basic. Potatoes,
some small onions, carrots, beef and the broth.
You can put whatever you want in your stew.
You can put tomatoes.
You can put mushrooms.
You can put other kinds of onions. You could put barley.
Stew, to me is really about what you want to go into it.
And I'm really a basic person when it comes to beef stew.
This method will work for anything you want to put in there.
The other thing you want to do is taste for seasoning.
Now, I've done this enough.
I know how much seasoning is going to go in there.
And using that SPSPG rub gives it just the right amount there.
And I think I said
I used about a tablespoon, which for this amount of stew is just right.
And remember, this is a smoked brisket beef stew.
You're going to get smoke flavor in this.
You're going to get smoke from the brisket
and you're going to get smoke from
that last little bit when you leave it uncovered .
That's what's so wonderful about this. Smoke loves moisture,
and with that surface of the broth there, it's going to absorb that smoke flavor.
Now, you can change up the type of smoke you want. I had post oak.
You could use hickory.
Pecan would be nice too. Cherry.
Just pick your favorite wood and use that.
But now let's dig in and give this a taste.
Go for potato first, because man, potatoes are just outstanding in stew. Let's go.
Hmm. Creamy. Tender.
That's why I love using these small individual little potatoes in stew
and things like that.
They get so incredibly tender, whether using whites like this
or small red potatoes or multicolored fingerling potatoes,
they just get that perfect tenderness with about two hours in the stew.
And let's go for a carrot. Why not? Hmm.
And I'm going to follow up that carrot with a carrot and an onion.
And now the star of the show, some brisket.
That brisket was seasoned and frozen last fall in the vacuum sealed bag.
Just thawed it out and we're having fantastic brisket almost a year later.
Hmm. If you're going to do that, if you're going to season the brisket
or any sort of beef ahead of time, just pick your favorite rub.
The rub I used for this brisket all those many months ago
was the Chophouse Beef Rub from Mad Moose Barbecue. Just fantastic.
Beef stew like this to me
is the ultimate comfort food.
That is fantastic.