Cooking a brisket for thanksgiving. Someone is already baking a turkey. About 15 people. I was thinking a 10lb brisket. I have a local butcher shop that has CAB brisket. I just got a masterbuilt electric smoker ( this is my 3rd smoker had charcoal and gas. Wanted to try electric) I'm gonna be seaching for some recepies. Thought of using applewood chips. Its a water smoker which I have always used and I usually pour red wine onions. And apples in the water pan. Just wondering if anyone had some ideas.
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What rub do you use? Any dry brining? -
I have a friend who has a Masterbuilt electric smoker purchased at Sam's Club. He has not been happy with his brisket cooks, saying that they were too dry. I sort of condensed down Meathead's excellent instructions on his Barbecued Texas Brisket recipe because my friend would not have the patience to read it. He likes a very simple nuts/bolts sort of approach so I did my best to give him what he wanted. Here's what I recommended for a 6 lb brisket that he had (based on my brisket cooks on a Pit Barrel Cooker):
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8:30 am inject the brisket with about 3/4 cup (1 ounce broth per pound meat) of low sodium beef broth. Insert the needle parallel to the grain of the beef. Inject 1 inch apart.
9am-1pm put cold meat in smoker at 235 smoker temp at 9am and then let the smoker settle down to 225 degrees. The cold meat drops the temp so I start a bit hotter. Cold meat absorbs the smoke better.
1pm give it 2-4 hours to smoke and get a good bark on. Brisket temp should be a minimum of 150 degrees before wrapping. Wrap in 2 layers heavy duty aluminum foil with about a cup of beer. Usually it takes 2 to 4 hours to get to 150 degrees and it will stall there for a while.
1:30-4pm pm back in smoker at 225 degrees (or 225 degree oven works too) until internal temp of the meat reached 199 to 203 degrees.
4pm take off smoker (or out of 225 degree oven) when brisket temp is 199-203 degrees and inserting the thermometer probe in it feels like sliding into butter.
4-6pm: let rest in oven at 170 degrees oven temp. It can rest for anywhere from 1 to 4 hours or more, so don't sweat this step. Just let it rest until the rest of the meal is ready.
Unwrap, slice and serve.
So figure about 7 to 9 hours including the couple of hours that you rest the meat after you take it off the smoker. Our smokers are different, so your mileage may vary--this is just a ballpark idea.
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He followed these suggestions and found out that the brisket came up to 150 deg F in 2 hours, so he wrapped it then and finished the rest of the cook as noted. The brisket was up to 203 degF 4 hours before suppertime, so he left it wrapped in his 160 degF warming drawer until then.
He said it was the most tender, juicy brisket he has ever made. (He had never used the Texas Crutch method before) He raved about it, and apparently his guests did as well. He said the only thing was that it wasn't as smokey tasting as he would have liked, so next time he's going to let it go an hour or two longer at 150 to 160 deg F internal meat temp before wrapping to get more flavor.
Also, he dry-brined the brisket with Emeril's rub/seasoning (lots of salt in that seasoning!) and wrapped it in plastic wrap. He stored it in the fridge for 3 days before cooking.
He didn't have any low-sodium beef broth so he used a boullion cube dissolved in water. Boullion cubes have a lot of salt content too.
He reported that the meat was not too salty, which was good to hear.
I would have recommended dry brining with salt overnight and rubbing with Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub (salt free) with a little oil before putting in the smoker, but he already had the meat prepped when he asked me about how I did my briskets.
Anyway, he loved his results, and that's always a wonderful thing to happen at the end of the cook. He's eager now to try another brisket.
I'm still hoping to get him to read Meathead's Barbecued Texas Brisket information before he does another brisket cook.
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