While cooking brisket doesn't require you to become a chef, there's plenty that can
go wrong if you've never done it before — like accidentally coming home with corned beef. Are
you intimidated by this primal cut? No worries. Keep watching to get all our helpful tips.
Although brisket is the name of one of the eight primal cuts of beef,
it is sold in several different ways. While all of the cuts of brisket are delicious,
some are better suited for certain tasks than others.
If you buy an untrimmed or "packer" brisket, you'll receive the whole brisket. But you can
also purchase the two individual muscles that make up the brisket: the flat and the point.
The first cut of brisket is called the flat cut,
or the leaner portion of the brisket. Although this piece still has a large fat cap on the top,
it contains significantly less marbling within the meat. The second cut, or the point,
is connected to the flat cut by a very thick piece of fat known as the deckle. Many people
say the point is more flavorful, but it really just contains more fat than the flat cut.
"I need 12 pounds of prime angus with a medium deckle,
ideally slaughtered in the Spring, no later than mid-June."
The right cut of brisket depends on what you intend to do with it. If you're curing corned
beef or pastrami, the flat cut is better because it's easier to slice. The point,
on the other hand, is juicier and richer, so it's best for smoked brisket or braised stew dishes.
If you're hoping to wow your guests with a smoked brisket at your next backyard barbecue,
make sure you don't accidentally come home with corned beef.
They look very similar, but they're not the same thing.
Corned beef is made by taking a cut of brisket — usually the flat cut — and soaking it in a
heavily salted brine to infuse tenderness into the meat. That brine also adds a salty, spicy,
and sour flavor to the beef. While you can smoke corned beef, and it will definitely
taste delicious, it creates a product that's more similar to pastrami than barbecue.
Instead, be sure to check the label on the package before you leave the grocery store.
If you're unsure, ask the butcher for advice. But any added ingredients like salt, sodium nitrite,
or flavorings are a sure give-away that you're probably buying ready-to-cook corned beef.
It's difficult to gauge how much food you need when cooking for a crowd, and brisket doesn't
make it easy. Briskets — especially packer briskets that contain the point — have a
heavy fat cap. That fat breaks down to keep the brisket moist as it cooks, but it's not edible.
All things considered, between the inedible fat and the water loss the brisket experiences
as it cooks, a brisket will yield only 65 to 76 percent of its original weight. That means a raw,
five-pound brisket turns into an edible portion of 3.25 to 3.8 pounds.
The Kitchn recommends purchasing a half-pound of raw brisket per person
as a good rule of thumb. So that five-pound brisket will feed about ten people.
It's never a bad idea to add an extra pound or two, though, just in case your guests are
super hungry. And if you end up with too much, you can always slice and freeze the leftovers.
The first step in any braised dish – after, uh, massaging it with seasoning – is usually
searing or browning the meat to add flavor and color to the dish. Brisket is no exception.
The only problem here is that the brisket is a gigantic hunk of meat.
Instead of flipping a one-pound steak or turning small, bite-sized pieces,
you're being asked to pick up a roast that could be over
five pounds. It sounds intimidating, but trust us — it's definitely worth doing.
Bon Appetit suggests browning the brisket for at least ten minutes per side. The amount of time
adds a beautiful browned character to the meat, which enhances the flavor later. Getting each side
fully caramelized takes time, so set aside these twenty minutes to start your brisket off right.
"George, what you have in your hand is the exact step-by-step instructions on how to make
my brisket."
Brisket is not a last-minute dinner plan, and it's definitely not an easy weeknight
dinner. If you're smoking it on a 225 degree Fahrenheit smoker,
it can take as much as an hour and fifteen minutes per pound.
Even if you increase the heat and cook it in a 275-degree oven, you'll still need to plan
for an hour per pound. You're looking at five to six hours total for a five-pound brisket,
so you'll want to plan ahead. The good news is that brisket tastes
better the next day, and it gets more tender as it sits. After your brisket is finished cooking,
let it cool down to room temperature. Then, place the brisket — and any sauces
it cooked in — in a glass casserole dish and cover it tightly with plastic wrap.
The next day, slice the meat and put it back in the casserole dish.
Cover it with foil and bake it in a 350-degree oven for about an hour,
until it's heated through. Remove and just look at all those juices!
If you're running short on time, you might be tempted to crank up the heat of the grill,
smoker, or oven. But blasting the brisket is a sure-fire way to end up with a tough,
chewy hunk of meat. As we mentioned earlier, brisket is a tough muscle. It gets a lot of
use during the cow's life, so this very strong muscle is filled with a lot of connective tissue.
The good news is those long muscle fibers will break down into something called collagen,
which softens and melts when cooked correctly. The bad news is, that process won't happen quickly.
According to Steve Raichlen's "Barbecue Bible," you need low temperatures,
like 215 to 225 degrees Fahrenheit, and long cooking times to melt that collagen,
along with the other tough connective tissue in the brisket.
Some pitmasters increase their temps to 285 to 325 degrees, but you can't go much
hotter than that. Higher temperatures will cause the meat to seize up and get tough.
If we had to pick one secret for cooking a perfect brisket, it would be this one:
The grill or a smoker is the ideal way to infuse smoky flavor into your brisket,
but cooking brisket uncovered is a great way to let all the moisture escape.
Luckily, you can enjoy a smoky brisket that's also juicy and moist — if you follow the rules.
Brisket is a very large cut of meat and when it reaches the 160 degrees Fahrenheit mark,
the meat stops increasing in temperature. Greg Blonder, Ph.D., explains that the meat
is basically sweating, releasing enough moisture that it keeps the meat cool while it cooks.
This moment is the perfect opportunity to take your exposed brisket off the smoker and
wrap it in aluminum foil or butcher paper. That allows the meat to absorb smoke for the first
few hours of its cook time while keeping the moisture in for the remaining hours.
The same principle applies to oven-roasted brisket.
That evaporative cooling still happens at 160 degrees, so you'll want to keep
the brisket covered for the entire cook time to keep the steam inside the pot.
We know, you just spent hours cooking brisket and you don't want to wait any longer. Can't you just
slice it and be done with it? Yes, you absolutely can, but it would be a mistake. According to the
Kitchn , moisture moves out of the muscle fibers and towards the surface of the meat as it cooks.
When you're finished cooking, any moisture that didn't evaporate is still there,
but it's still hanging around the surface. If you sliced the brisket without resting it,
all that moisture — aka, juicy flavor — would seep out onto the cutting board.
Give it time, though, and the moisture will redistribute throughout the meat.
Unlike smaller pieces of meat, a 15-minute rest isn't enough here.
Brisket is a large cut of meat, so it requires more time to redistribute the juices.
A recipe adapted from Franklin Barbecue — a famous BBQ restaurant in Austin,
Texas — suggests resting brisket for an hour. NPR's The Salt makes a similar suggestion,
recommending that cooked brisket rest in an empty cooler, swaddled in towels,
for a couple of hours. So, you're going to have to remain patient for an extra hour or two.
If you did everything right — bought the right brisket,
seared it and cooked it at low temperatures for hours, checked the temperature,
and let it rest — you could still mess up a perfect brisket when slicing it. It's all about
something called the grain, and the correct way to slice a brisket is against the grain.
Brisket is full of muscle fibers, which run parallel to each other. If you cut with the
fibers — or, with the grain — each slice will contain long strands of fiber. That will make
the meat seem chewy and tough, even if it's cooked perfectly. Instead, if you cut against the fibers,
making perpendicular slices, the slices will contain shortened fibers.
These fibers are easier to chew, making the meat more tender.
It's sometimes hard to find the grain in tender steaks, but it's pretty obvious on
a tough cut like brisket. Take a close look at the cooked meat and look for long lines.
When you identify them, position your knife in a "T" with the fibers to slice against the grain.
"This is what's known as a dime-bag of brisket. Just a little taste."
"Yeah, and this one's free, right?"
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Mashed videos about your favorite foods are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.