How to Choose and Prepare Brisket! The Ultimate Guide!

Brisket! The king of the BBQ and smoking world! The piece of meat that always gets brought out on special occasions. The meat that gets people drooling just from the sheer thought of it! But, also a piece of meat that can easily be ruined. Today we are going to show you how to decide what’s a good brisket and how to prepare brisket. We will also learn how to trim it and finally make a rub.

When the brisket comes off the cow it has two parts. The first part is the flat and the second part is the point. The point has more fat and the flat has more meat. the lean part goes over the ribcage the fatty apart goes up towards the collarbone. Typically the problem that most people have is that it’s kind of a tough unsavory cut of meat so it really does need to be cooked low and slow. What we’re really looking for is some strong marbling, That means it’s gonna cook down well and it’s gonna have a lot of flavors. you’re also looking for a thick flat so that it cooks at the same speed as the point.

It’s Time to Trim the Brisket

The next thing to do is open up the brisket. Put on a glove so you don’t have any cross-contamination. If you are right-handed use your right hand to hold the knife. You should use a narrow curved boning knife. You always want to be a little careful not to splatter blood anywhere. Now you should start to trim the fat from the brisket. If you don’t trim any fat off of it it’s likely going to end up too fatty after you cook it, or if you trim too much off and then you try to cook it it’s going to end up being dry. You want to have just about the right amount

I like to leave the fat about a quarter of an inch thick. It could vary, it could be different for everybody, it just depends on your cooker. It also depends a lot on how hot you’re cooking it. Briskets are a lot easier to trim up if they’re cold. If you let them warm up too much then the fat will get really hard to cut through and you’ll increase your risk of injury.

You want to prepare brisket so that it look aerodynamics where the smoke will kind of go over it and the heat will go into it. When you reach this stage and you are happy that there are not excessive pieces of fat then you are ready for the next stage.

Rub Time!

Now you are ready to apply a rub to the brisket. A lot of people have really complex rubs. A lot of people put chili powder, cumin, paprika and all kinds of stuff.

The way people roll in Central Texas it’s half salt and half pepper, kind of swirl it up a bit if you have a shaker it is pretty handy. The granules of the salt are a lot heavier than the pepper so the salts going to settle to the bottom so you want to kind of keep it going. I always start on the flat side and then go around the edge. Some people use a lot of rub, I tend to be a bit conservative as I want the meat to really shine through.

There’s kind of two camps on whether or not you should let me come up to room temperature or you should put it on cold. A lot of people like to put the stuff on cold because they think it gives some kind of a fake smoke ring. I think you only really need a fake smoke ring if you’re not getting a real smoke ring. Being that this is beef I normally let it warm up to room temperature for about an hour before I put it on the hot cooker. Two reasons for that. Beef is about the only meat that you could let warm up to room temperature, you’d never want to do that with poultry or pork. I also believe that it will yield a much more even cook. Now you know how to prepare brisket you are ready for the fun bit.

Have you already prepared your brisket and want to make the best brisket pie you can imagine? Check out this recipe here