(twangy guitar music)
- Today we're gonna go shopping for a brisket.
We're gonna decide what's a good brisket?
What's a bad brisket?
We're gonna learn how to trim it,
and we're gonna finally make a very secret rub.
You're watching BBQ with Franklin.
Mhm.
This is a brisket.
It comes off the cow.
This is the point, this part's the flat right here.
So this is gonna be the leaner half,
this is gonna be the fattier half.
The way it's situated on a cow
is right through here.
The lean part goes over the rib cage,
the fattier part goes up toward the collar bone,
and that's the fattier part.
Typically, the problem that most people have
is that it's kind of a tough, unsavory cut of meat,
so it really does need to be cooked low and slow.
What we're really looking for,
you can see the marbling right there.
That's a good sign.
That means it's gonna cook down well,
it's gonna have a lot of flavor.
And you're also lookin' for a thick flat right there.
That gives you the idea that maybe this leaner part
is gonna cook at almost the same rate
as the larger part.
All right.
So we're gonna open up this here brisket.
I'm gonna put on a glove so I don't have
any cross-contamination.
I've got my clean hand on my right side
so I can hold the knife and not get any blood
anywhere that I don't want it to go.
The knife that I'm usin' is a narrow curved boning knife.
And this is just a real basic one.
You can get is at any restaurant supply store.
My dad bought me this one for Christmas years ago,
but I've been usin' it forever, and now we've got 40 of 'em.
So anyway, kind of open this thing up.
You always want to be a little careful
not to splatter blood anywhere.
I like to use the clean hand.
Use the knife a lot, just gotta
pull stuff out of the way.
Don't want any splatters.
And then this is what they call
a packer cut brisket.
This is what you'll get at the grocery store.
Still, this is the flat, this is the point.
Lean part, fatty part.
And here in Texas, we split these up when we're cuttin' 'em.
If you don't trim the fat off of it,
it's likely gonna end up too fatty after you cook it,
or if you trim too much off, and then you try to cook it
it's gonna run out of fat, and it's gonna be dry.
So you wanna hit just about the right amount of fat.
For me, it's about a quarter-inch.
It could vary.
It could be different for everybody.
It just depends on your cooker,
and it depends a lot on how how you're cookin' it.
So I kind of start right here.
Be ve-wy ve-wy careful.
Really lookin' to get about a quarter-inch,
and then, this is pretty good.
And briskets are a lot easier to trim up if they're cold.
If you let 'em warm up too much,
if you let it sit on the counter,
then the fat'll get real hard to cut through,
and you'll increase your risk for injury.
So again, dirty hand.
So I've got that right there, I've got about a quarter-inch
to a half-inch.
Gonna turn it around.
This part right here, this is the deckle
that goes underneath right in here.
So I'm gonna kinda cut this down
like that.
And there's a wee bit of a membrane right there
that's not necessarily gonna render out.
Then this whole thing, this is the deckle.
I'm gonna cut that out a smidge,
and if you pull it with your hands,
you can just lightly follow it with a knife.
And then just trim that little guy off.
Big 'ol hunk of fat.
In Kansas City, this is where the burn-ends would come from.
But we're not in Kansas City.
We're in Texas,
and I'm gonna cut that off, because it's gonna burn.
And I only know that from experience.
You could leave that on there and get some great meat,
but it's most likely gonna burn a little bit.
So at this point you're really lookin' for a shape.
This part's really, really, super thin right right there,
so I'm actually gonna trim it just a little bit.
Right there you can see how marbled that is,
and it's a much coarser grain.
As opposed to this down here being the leaner part,
it's much tighter.
So it's kind of rib eye versus sirloin a little bit.
This is where the heat's gonna be comin' from
on the cooker.
So you definitely want to leave plenty of fat there
to kind of protect it.
Lookin' pretty good.
So between the two muscles right here,
the flat and the point right there,
there's a huge layer of fat that goes through there,
and if you flip it over, it'll manifest itself right there,
and we definitely don't want that.
'Cause there is no way that's gonna turn out good.
It's a huge chunk of fat.
It's not gonna render, it's not the kind of fat
that's gonna add any flavor.
It's not a kind of fat that's gonna render out properly.
Not even a kind of fat that you could really use
to make sausage.
So we're just gonna get rid of it.
And trim it off.
That, we don't want to carve any more
into this brisket than that.
It's kind of aerodynamic, it's enough where the smoke
will kind of go over it, the heat'll go over it.
Sort of, that's good enough.
We're gonna leave that.
The other thing is that there's lot of
silver skin on the bottom of this.
If I was only to have one or two briskets,
I definitely would trim this.
If I was doin' a competition, I would also
very much trim this.
And you pretty much trim it 'til you're sick of trimmin'.
You can spend a lot of time or a little time doin' this.
Me, I don't like to spend much time doin' this.
Get kind of as much of the silver skin off as you want to.
If you get tired of trimmin', it's not the end of the world.
If you wanna really spend a lot of time on this,
it's okay, it'll work out fine either way.
A lot of briskets, if you'll look right here,
it's got a huge gash in there.
That came from the processing plant
where this thing came from,
and that's something that isn't necessarily
a good thing, but when we rub it later,
we're gonna have to be real careful
not to get rub in there.
'Cause if we do, then we're gonna have
a pocket of rub once this thing's cooked,
and that's not necessarily a good thing, either.
So...
So, the thing's trimmed up.
We got about a quarter-inch of fat all the way across.
It's looking good.
That's trimmed out.
It's shaped real nicely.
I think we're ready to put some rub on it.
About to share some secrets.
It's petty complicated stuff.
A lot of people have really complex rubs,
a lot of people put chili powder, cumin,
paprika, all kinds of stuff.
The way we roll here in Central Texas
is half salt and half pepper.
Kind of swirl it up a bit.
If you had a shaker, it'd be pretty neat.
And there you go.
So I normally start off, you wanna keep this thing movin'.
The granules of the salt are a lot heavier than the pepper,
so the salt's gonna settle to the bottom.
So you want to kind of keep it goin'.
Always start on the flat side.
Kind of get it in my hand like that,
sprinkle it.
And I'd normally go around the edge.
And this is just because I do a lot of these things,
it's kind of just the habit that I've developed.
But it doesn't really matter,
as long as you're gettin' it on there.
And a lot of people put a whole lot of rub on a brisket.
In my opinion, that it's better to go
a little conservative on how much rub.
You really want the flavor of the meat to shine through.
You know, this is barbecue.
You could put a lot of rub on something
and cook in the oven and get whatever flavor you want,
but it's salt and pepper.
It's super simple.
I feel pretty strongly about that.
Flip it over.
Keep it groovin'.
Shlerbin herbin.
A lot of people also really go in there
and massage the piece of meat, and really,
I think the biggest mistake people make across the board
is putting too much rub n this stuff.
I don't want it to be cakey,
and I don't want it to be overpowering when it's finished.
So that, right there, in my opinion,
is a perfectly rubbed brisket.
So there's kind of two camps on whether or not
you should let meat come up to room temperature,
or you should put it on cold.
A lot of people want to put this stuff on cold
because they think it gives them kind of
a fake smoke ring, but I think you really only need
a fake smoke ring if you're not getting
a real smoke ring.
So being that this is beef, I'm gonna let it
warm up to room temperature for about an hour
before I put it on the hot cooker.
Two reasons for that.
Beef is about the only meat that you can
let warm up to room temperature.
You never wanna do that with poultry or pork
or anything else.
Beef is really the only one that you can do that with.
I do it for steaks, I do it for brisket.
I think it will yield a much more even cook.
So we've got this thing rubbed down,
we've got it warmed up to room temperature.
Cooker's hot, I'm 'a put it on.
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(twangy guitar music)