Smoking Saturday

One of my favorite things about having the nice weather spring brings, it’s finally smoking season. Sure, during the fall and winter I break out my smoker, but those days are few and far between.

Today I’m smoking up a nice 12 pound brisket I grabbed from my local Costco. This one is a prime brisket – something they’ve had on sale fairly often lately. I took it straight home and trimmed it up to get some of the extra fat off and make it look good while I got the smoker started. I’m using a local bag of charcoal, the bag says local Missouri hardwood lump charcoal. I wish I had a brand, but I can only find it at my local meat market (more from them to come soon).

My primary smoker is an Oklahoma Joe’s Bronco smoker. It’s a pit barrel smoker, and had been the best smoker I’ve owned or used. I grew up with and previously owned offset smokers, so I grew up tending the fire and adjusting airflow. This Bronco has been a champ for me with maintaining temperature with minimal adjustments. I only have two complaints for it: to add fuel to the fire (more charcoal or wood), you have to take off the cooking grate or the hangers (whichever you using to cook) and the heat deflector to get to the charcoal bin at the bottom; and while using the cooking grate for things like brisket or pork shoulder, the cooking surface area leaves a bit to be desired. For that reason, I usually max out my brisket at around 15 pounds, or else I won’t be able to close the lid well without possibly closing on the meat itself. Beyond that, I absolutely love that smoker and have had some of the best barbecue I’ve ever made in there.

But enough about my smoker. After getting the brisket trimmed, it’s time for seasoning. I am “fine tuning” my own brisket/beef rub. I’ll give the proportions down below, but I don’t have exact measurements yet. I tend to cook like Justin Wilson on his Louisiana Cookin’ show, eyeballing what I put in, but it comes out just right. The seasonings that go in are kosher salt, course ground black pepper, Lowry’s seasoning salt, brown sugar, chili powder, paprika, cumin, red pepper flakes, and ground coffee. Believe me when I say, this is some killer brisket rub, and it goes great on any cut of beef. I normally use a yellow mustard binder, but my last brisket I used Worcestershire and I felt it gave a better flavor to the beef. So I rub in the Worcestershire sauce on the brisket, then sprinkle a liberal layer of my rub on the bottom first, then flip and repeat for the top. I cook fat-side up, so that is the top for me. I’ll also take this time and place my meat thermometer in the point and be ready to go when the temperature in the smoker comes up.

I was in a bit of a rush today, so I cooked a little higher temp than normal. I usually smoke the brisket between 225°-240°F, but today I stuck 275°-300°F. Usually it takes 5ish hours for me to get up to 165°F internal, which is where I like to wrap my brisket, today was about 4 hours today because of the higher cooking temp. I wrap my meats using peach butcher paper, and I poke my meat probe through the paper to keep watching the temp and get it up to about 195°F in the point and pull it off, typically another 2-3 hours. Once off the smoker, I set it in a deep baking pan and cover (while still wrapped in the butcher paper) with a layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil and leave it to rest for about 1-2 hours before slicing. I find those layers help keep the temp a little higher for longer and helps break down the collagen in the meat a little further leading to a super moist and tender cut of meat.

With a starting weight of 12 pounds, even with all the trimming, this was more than enough to feed my family of four and a couple friends. Now to find a new recipe for the leftovers…..

For the rub (measurements are approximate, measure with your heart):

  • 1/4 cup Kosher salt
  • 1/4 cup coarse ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup Lowry’s seasoning salt
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. paprika
  • 1 Tbsp. chili powder
  • 2 tsp. ground cumin
  • 2 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp. onion powder
  • 1 K-cup’s worth of ground coffee beans

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *