Another Brisket so soon?!

Posted On 8 July 2022

Looking at the dates this was less than two weeks after the last one. I really wanted to get a perfect brisket, and spoiler: This wasn’t it.

I was still learning, but this was also Pre-Harrisons and I Pre-MEATER still. It was also Pre-Kamado Joe and Pre-Char Griller BBQ. In hindsight, I was making life hard for myself – but in some ways that’s a good thing. I was being forced to work with what I had, and in the end I did get some really impressive results – but… as I say. This wasn’t one of them.

Aha! I took a photo of some of the ingredients. Sweet smoked paprika, mixed herbs, I know there’s garlic in there, a goooooood glug of Kentucky Bourbon, and a splash of Olive Oil.

So I’m sure a Butcher can tell me what was wrong here, but I know looking at that, that doesn’t look right. It doesn’t look like the briskets I work with now, Post-Harrisons, but that might be also how I’ve got it on the baking tray (it almost looks like a bit of meat has been flipped over).

Anyway, on goes the rub, and into the oven it goes:

I suspect I was monitoring the temp to get it to 92/93 celcius, but judging by the subseqent photos I didn’t have enough humidity and/or I cooked it too long in the oven and it just dried out. I actually tend to wrap the brisket after a good period of cooking now – but … spoilers. I’ll come to that later.

You can see that looks pretty dry. I think I then covered it in sauce in the vague hopes that would help (?!) I’ll be honest, I don’t remember and I can’t really second guess myself. Either way that’s dry.

It had only an hour on the BBQ, then came off to be sliced:

I remember being unhappy with this one. It was pretty dry, and quite chewy. We powered through it for dinner:

But the majority of that brisket went into making a Chilli (and an epic Chilli it did make).

Lessons!

1. Don’t dry it out. Muppet. This happened I think simply because as I say, cooking it in the oven, uncovered, for too long.
2. At the point of realising my mistake, I should have just bathed it in sauce, let it rest whilst covered, and repeated that process a few times. I think it would have made a big difference. It shouldn’t have gone onto the BBQ, I had already overdone it and I shouldn’t have added more time.
3. The cut wasn’t right, I think it was also too lean/there wasn’t enough fat going through it.

But as I say, things get better…!!