Smoked Brisket

My nephew Dante has been asking me to smoke a Brisket. For weeks, I've been hearing, "Uncle, when are we going to smoke a Brisket?  I want to learn and see the whole smoking operation."  The one thing with this current Covid-19 pandemic is we all have plenty of time on our hands, and from everything I've seen, Brisket requires time.  I told Dante to be at the house anytime after 5AM as I would have the smoker started by then.  I'll be honest, I was surprised to see him show up at the house by 5:30AM.  Like most 18 year olds, my nephew LOVES to sleep, getting up at 3 in the afternoon and I expressed my surprise to see him that early.  He says, "Uncle, I'll get up early for two things, meat and fishing!" So here we are with my first attempt at smoked Brisket.

The Rub:
My brother-in-law Ovi has a work contact by the name of Texas Mike who gave him a rub recipe to try.  I of course modified it slightly and used the following:

• 6 Tsp Sea Salt
• 6 Tsp Fresh Cracked Pepper Medley (I used black, green and red pepper)
• 6 Tsp Paprika
• 2 Tsp Dragon Pepper (You can use cayenne 3 Tsp)
• 1 1/2 Tsp Dried Oregano
• 1 1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 1/2 Tsp Cumin
• 1/2 Tsp Chilli Powder

In a bowl, mix all ingredients together

The Meat:

Picking up a Brisket, was a bit of a challenge during this pandemic.  My buddy Chris owns a meat provision supply company and was unable to find any for me.  My other buddy Rich owns a restaurant and uses a different meat distributor and was also unable to find one.  Went to the local Costco and they were out of Brisket and out of Ribs :(   I finally got lucky at my local Restaurant Depot and grabbed a slab of Prime Brisket.

TRIM THE MEAT:

Do NOT skip this step.  You want to go through and trim off the fat.  You want to leave some of the fat as it will melt and help keep the meat moist.  

Get to Rubbing:

Now that we have the meat trimmed and our rub mixed, let's go ahead and rub up the meat.  Once you have the rub on it, refrigerate the meat for 3 hours or overnight.  (I prefer overnight)

Get to Smoking:

• Soak your wood chips in a bucket of water.  I used Applewood for my smoke flavor
• Get your smoker up to temp 250-275
• Get your meat on

<-- Smoker at Temp.                     Meat on-->

Now it's all about time and patience.  Everything that I read, and everyone I talked to said, you just have to let it cook.  I smoked the brisket and added wood chips about every 45 minutes whenever I saw my smoke stack go down.  I did this for the first 5 hours, then I went ahead with the wrapping also known as the Texas Crutch.  You will hear a million people who swear by wrapping the Brisket and you will hear from a million people who consider it a sin to wrap the Brisket.  I took the sinner's route and wrapped the brisket once the internal temp reached 160-165.

Once it was wrapped, we returned it to the smoker for an additional 3 1/2 hours maintaining our temp around 250-275.  At the 8 1/2 mark, I removed the Brisket from the smoker and let it sit wrapped for 15-20 minutes.  When we finally unwrapped it, we immediately cut off a piece to taste and boy, was it really flavorful. The real flavor came as I got to the thicker part of the Brisket as the flavor of the rub and the moisture of the meat was amazing.  Internal temp of the meat was 205 degrees!