There has been a lot posted on what to use to inject in a brisket. I'm thinking I may try beef broth next time I smoke a brisket. However I haven't decided what broth to use is. I'm not making beef broth, so that leaves store bought. Currently I use Penzy's beef broth paste. Just add water and stir until dissolved. It's the best tasting I have found, but I haven't tried everything out there.
So the question is what do you use for beef broth?
If your going to inject, use low sodium beef broth that comes in the cartons or steel cans. With regular stock, you can run into "Double Jeopardy" with the salt content found in most beef broths.
If you are buying Prime, you don't need to inject at all. I have found the only thing that really makes a difference is injections that are commercially made. They are often filled with MSG and phosphates to increase the impact of the flavors in the injection. I haven't cooked a Select or Choice brisket before so I am not sure if beef broth makes much of a difference there or not.
Honestly, i have found that it makes a mess and doesn't really add much in the way of flavor or moisture content. But, again, with the lower grades I may be totally wrong.
I remember watching an episode of BBQ Pit Masters Grand Champion (or whatever they called it). One team divided their meat (can't remember what it was either) into two pieces and injected each chunk with a very different flavored liquid (one was Cajun, can't remember the other). The judges complained that the pieces didn't actually have a flavor difference.
Anyway (aside from demonstrating how crappy my memory is) I drew the conclusion that injections are likely a waste.
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I remember watching an episode of BBQ Pit Masters Grand Champion (or whatever they called it). One team divided their meat (can't remember what it was either) into two pieces and injected each chunk with a very different flavored liquid (one was Cajun, can't remember the other). The judges complained that the pieces didn't actually have a flavor difference.
Anyway (aside from demonstrating how crappy my memory is) I drew the conclusion that injections are likely a waste.
I've never injected brisket because I picture hours and hours of the meat sweating and cooking and pushing a good amount of the injection out. There's always liquid in the foil on my non-injected brisket, so it stands to reason liquid pushes out and therefore extra liquid will too. I have the same conclusion as you. Then I heard Johnny Trigg once say the same thing- he's never injected a piece of meat.
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I use Butcher BBQ's Prime Brisket injection. It has a lot of salt in it though, so I dry brine the surface lightly. As Spinaker says, I don't inject prime brisket, but I certainly inject Choice. I've never cooked a Select, but would inject it as well. I try to take my briskets to 180 or so before wrapping and prefer to take them all the way unwrapped. When I wrap, I have very little liquid in the foil at the end of the cook, with or without injecting.
I see injecting as a sort of insurance policy, since every brisket has its own peculiarities. I put the brisket in a large 2 gallon ziploc and inject the meat through the opening. I inject from the side of the cut along the grainline in long paths. That keeps things pretty neat. Here's a rough schematic of my injection paths:
As far as Penzy's beef concentrate goes, RonB , check the salt content as mentioned previously. I have something similar, I think, Better than Beef and Better than Chicken concentrates and their salt content is astronomical, even when diluted.
Kathryn
Last edited by fzxdoc; November 16, 2016, 07:32 AM.
Thanx all. The only packer briskets available here are select and choice. I'm hoping our son can bring a prime brisket when he visits over Christmas. Primes from Costco in Austin are $5 less per lb than the choice available locally.
fzxdoc - I have the Butcher injection in my Amazon wish list...
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