The brisket. If there’s one piece of meat that barbecuers talk about a lot but don’t show much about, it’s the brisket. That is not surprising because it is the most difficult pieces of meat to prepare on the BBQ. The brisket is one of those pieces of meat that has been on our BBQ bucket list for years, but we never took the time to make it before. This had to do with the more or less complicated preparation and the loaded name that the meat has in ‘the scene’. Anyway, we took the plunge and prepared a nice brisket. And we’ll be honest right away; the result was not what we hoped. In this blog we take you during our preparation and then we give tips to do better next time!
What is a brisket?
The brisket is a muscle from the chest of the cow. It is a fairly tough piece of meat that you cannot prepare in a short time (grilling is therefore out of the question). Due to the compact structure with quite a bit of fat (depending on the variety of course), it is one of the ultimate pieces of meat to prepare low & slow. It is not for nothing that it is one of the most famous pieces of meat in the American BBQ world.
The brisket consists of 2 parts; the triangular point and the quadrangular flat. FUNFACT: The original burnt ends are made from the point. The point and the flat combined is called a ‘wholepacker’. For our preparation we only used the flat, a piece of about 4.5 kilos (a wholepacker easily weighs 7 kilos!).
What makes a brisket special?
The special thing about the brisket is that it is anything but a forgiving piece of meat. The margin of error is minimal, you really have to continuously monitor the temperature of the BBQ and prepare it in the right steps. Although we are convinced of the correct temperature in the BBQ (thanks to the Weber Smokefire), we probably made small mistakes which resulted in a dry brisket.
How did we prepare our brisket?
We started trimming the meat. There is a considerable layer of fat on top of the flat that you should not leave completely. After removing the fat layer, we seasoned the meat with a beef rub (Beefbooster from Bigboybbqandsmoke.nl). We use a good layer because brisket can take quite a bit according to the experts on the internet. We then put the brisket in the fridge to prepare the BBQ. Now that is not very exciting because we have prepared the brisket on the Weber Smokefire, their newest BBQ. We have set the temperature at 100°C.