Smoked Brisket

Prep time:

20 minutes minutes

Cook time:

12-13 hours (+1 hour for rest) minutes

Difficulty level:

Intermediate

Master our step-by-step smoked brisket recipe. Your brisket will be tender, juicy, and full of flavor. Each slice will melt in your mouth, having your guests licking their fingers.

Ingredients

A whole, untrimmed “packer” brisket (13-16lbs)
Kosher Salt
Coarse ground black pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Olive Oil
Heavy-duty foil or “pink” butcher paper

Instructions

Fire up the Hasty-Bake Charcoal Grill to 225 to 240ºF
Begin trimming the brisket using an extremely sharp knife. Feel for any fat deposits that seem hard and carefully remove them. Hard fat does not render while smoking and will leave your end product too greasy.
Once the hard fat is removed, flip the brisket over and trim the fat cap down to ¼” thickness all around. While you want to leave some fat to keep the surface moist, we want to make sure the rub gets good contact with the meat.
Once trimmed, slather the brisket lightly with olive oil, which helps the rub to stick to the meat. Season thoroughly with a blend of 40% salt, 40% pepper, 10% garlic powder, and 10% onion powder. Apply the rub evenly across all sides of the brisket.
Place brisket on your Hasty-Bake grill fat side down, turning the thickest part of the meat (called the “point”) TOWARDS your heat source. This uses the “point” to insulate the thinner parts of the brisket from the fire. Place a pan of water inside your grill to keep the humidity high throughout the cook. This helps keep the meat surface moist, which will ensure smoke sticks to the brisket.
Maintain a steady flow of clean smoke and a temperature of 240 degrees for 5-6 hours until the bark is well-developed and has turned a dark mahogany-brown color. The internal temperature of the brisket should be roughly 165 degrees at this point.
Remove the brisket from the cooker and wrap tightly in butcher paper or heavy-duty foil. Return meat to the cooker.
Continue smoking for another 5-6 hours, checking internal temperature occasionally. Once brisket reaches an internal temperature of 203 degrees, remove it from the grill and open the paper/foil loosely to allow some of the heat to escape and the bark to firm up. After 10 minutes, close the wrapping back up, wrap the whole brisket in a towel and place it in a dry cooler for 1 hour. This allows the meat juices to redistribute throughout the brisket, ensuring it stays warm and juicy.
Cut brisket slices to the thickness of a pencil (around ¼”) against the grain, starting at the thinnest part of the brisket. Once you reach the thickest part of the brisket, rotate the meat 90 degrees, and continue cutting. A whole brisket is made up of two muscles – the point (the fatty side) and the flat (the lean side). The grain of the meat changes halfway through, where the muscles meet. Rotating the brisket will ensure you are still cutting against the grain.
Enjoy!

Recipe type: Smoke
By: Jennifer

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Mike Beaver

3 years ago

Please clarify. You state put a water pan in cooke. Where precisely are you placing the water pan? In the fire box next to coals? On cooking grate next to meat? If you place it on heat deflector, I assume water will boil out. Secondly, are you using a heat deflector, or not? Thank you.

Jon

3 years ago

Reply to Mike Beaver

I use a water pan on the right side of the grill above the fire with the heat shield. Has worked well for me for 24 years. You will need to refill the water pan.

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Smoked Brisket

Ingredients

Instructions

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