Brisket on the bone
We’re now in August 2020. When I revived this blog, I started from photos from April/May 2020.
So in what I now look back on as a few short months, I’ve been learning as fast as I can how to cook a brisket without ruining it. Well it’s safe to say, whilst this one wasn’t perfect it was pretty damn incredible.
So I’d had conversations with the butcher, who I was pretty friendly with, although I had my problems with them (I’m not going to ‘knock’ them or talk about those – but in some ways I’m glad I had those problems because, this being Pre-Harrisons, I didn’t know what I was missing).
Anyway… I’d talked to them about my brisket woes, and I said, I want a really good bit of brisket, with lots of fat coverage, and y’know what? I want it on the bone. Just because.
The first thing you’ll notice, is my tray is only just big enough here. I chuckled at that.
You can see a huge fat covering on this. That’s after 14 hours in the oven, and I’m fairly sure I’d covered it tightly with foil too. (I had it flipped up the other way as per the first photo – you can see the grill marks.
I’d taken it out at this moment becuase I’d already fired up the BBQ, and it was ready.
Oh yeah. That was maybe a bit too hot, but you can see all the charcoal is on one side, and I’d just shoved a load of wood on it which is why it caught fire. As soon as I got the lid on, fire was out and you could just smell sweet, sweet whisky barrels.
Checking on the charcoal here I thought I’d grab a quick pic. And then, after a total of 24 hours cooking, it came off the BBQ:
I remember the gorgeous aroma, and how soft that was. This was the perfect texture. It rested, and was ready to be sliced:
I was insanely pleased with this. It was falling apart, but still had a good bit of texture/bite to it. And the flavour was incredible.
Aw yeah. That’s some good lookin brisket. But, as you’ll see, very little in terms of a ‘smoke ring’. Again I know this is mainly because I was cooking in the oven first, and then smoking, but that was fuelled mostly by necessity than anything else. That kettle BBQ I had was never going to stay consistent overnight and I wanted to get a full 24 hours of cooking.
Brisket, a little veg, some halloumi and coleslaw. This was a really, really tasty meal. And of course, the leftovers?
Apologies for the 3 tonnes of gauc on that, but I do love that combination.
Anyway, to sum up what have I learned so far:
- Fat coverage and the right cut is key. You can often blame yourself for a poor outcome with a brisket (as I did repeatedly, and 90% of it was me) but if the cut of meat isn’t right, you’re not going to get the right result.
- This actually had too much fat on it. It was nice, and the meat was really lush, but it was perhaps on the greasy side, and there was a LOT of fat on that cut, and if I were to do this again with that cut, I’d trim a lot of it off.
- I definitely would smoke first, oven bake after. The meat took on a really good smoke flavour, but I’ve since done a lot the other way around and it really does make a big difference.
Either way – this was some tasty brisket!
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