Hot and Fast BBQ Brisket

Most people, I believe, overthink cooking a brisket. It’s become known as the ultimate BBQ challenge.

For this recipe, I’ll simplify the process for you and share all of the ideas and methods I’ve learned from cooking briskets in my own backyard, restaurants, and competition circuits.

I’ve discovered that grilling a brisket hot and rapidly may provide excellent results. This procedure will produce very moist brisket in record time.

Backyard, restaurant & competition, what is the difference? 

Before we go into the how-to, I’d want to briefly clarify the root of much difficulty. There are many individuals offering advise, but it is always necessary to pause and consider the context in which they are operating.

There are a few distinctions between preparing brisket at home vs at a restaurant or even a competition.

Firstly, quality is a big difference.

• You cannot always afford the greatest quality accessible at home. I wish I could eat Wagyu brisket with a marble score of 9+ every time I prepare a brisket, but I just cannot. As a result, I only purchase what I can afford.

• Restaurants, on the other hand, would go bankrupt if they offered the expensive briskets. They do not purchase the lowest grade beef, but rather stick to a mid to high-range meat that they can reliably acquire.

• Quality is now important in competitiveness. You’re up against the greatest of the best. You must ensure that the quality of the brisket you use will outperform everyone else’s, therefore you will always obtain the absolute finest brisket available and normally order weeks to months ahead of any competition.

Second, there is the matter of preparedness. More specifically, brisket trimming.

• The more you cut away at home, the less you have to eat. At home, yield is a major consideration.We don’t go out and spend our hard-earned money only to cut off extra brisket to throw away. It’s as easy as that: the more we can cook, the more we can consume.

• Restaurants, like homeowners, want the highest possible return. Although they are normally cooking a large number of briskets at the same time, uniformity is now an issue. By reducing their briskets to a consistent shape, they all cook at a more equal pace, which is vital for a restaurant.They must be able to predict when the next batch of meat will be ready to serve.

• The competition is now being trimmed to the bone. It is not yield that is important here; it is excellence. They are evaluated based on their flavor, texture, and appearance. So the brisket is first divided, which means the flat and point muscles are separated and cut separately. The flat will be used for slices, therefore it will be cut knowing that it shrinks approximately 30% throughout the cooking process and that it has to fit well in a 9 x 9 hand-in box, and the point muscle will be trimmed knowing that it will ultimately be sliced up to ideal small cubes for brisket burned ends.

After that, I’ll go through my preferred technique for making hot and quick style brisket at home.

What you need for Hot and Fast Style Brisket cook

• A smoker, I used a 22 Weber Smokey Mountain
• Lump charcoal
• Smoking wood
• Various spices
• Rub shaker
• I’m using a ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE instant read thermometer.
• Thermometer with fan control I made use of a Fireboard 2 Drive unit.

Trimming your brisket 

I’m assuming you’re cooking a backyard brisket, so the trim will be lighter than it would be for a competition or a restaurant.

I have a separate video and article that go through how to trim a brisket, or you can simply keep reading and I’ll walk you through it step by step.

To begin, you must trim the brisket while it is still cold, so begin trimming as soon as you retrieve it from the fridge. Work quickly yet carefully.

You must remove the tougher fat, which you can feel. The fat that must be removed will be denser than the meat itself. It will not degrade throughout the cooking process, so remove it.

The softer creamier textured fat found throughout the brisket should be cut at the absolute least. Because I have access to abundance of better quality brisket, I usually remove most of it, if not all of it. This has a lot of intramuscular fat, which breaks down while cooking and keeps my briskets moist and tender.

If you’re cooking a brisket with less intramuscular fat, leave a bit extra fat on when trimming.

Always use a sharp knife and remember to remove any excess fat with thin slices. You can always chop off more if necessary, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.

I’m aware that there is a lot of material available regarding leaving some fat cap on, whether at the bottom or the top.

4 of fat. Personally, I do not. I like to season the meat rather than the fat, so it goes. Aaron Franklin suggests departing at 1 p.m.

Finally, if I’m satisfied with the quantity of fat removed, I’ll tidy up the edges by eliminating any thinner edge bits that would dry up after a lengthy simmer.

I also prefer to round off any edges to make the brisket more aerodynamic so that the heat and smoke can circulate more freely throughout the extended cook.

I recommend saving the remaining fat to produce tallow.

Seasoning your brisket

When it comes to flavoring your brisket, there are several alternatives available. From store-bought rubs to brisket rub created from scratch.

Adjust the pepper ratio to 50/50.The Texas style salt and pepper brisket rub is the most popular. Most start at a 50, depending on how spicy you want it.

Personally, I like SPG, or Salt, Pepper, and Garlic. Salt flakes, roughly powdered black pepper, and garlic granules, to be exact.

Brisket can accept bigger particle sizes; in fact, it prefers them over finer granules. My mixture is just equal portions of each, mixed well, and applied from a shaker 12 inches above the meat.

This causes the rub particles to disperse somewhat before reaching the protein, resulting in more equal coverage and less clumping of uneven rub batches on the meat.

Injecting, yes or no? 

Injecting meat to increase moisture is another particular preference for me.

Unless you get the cheapest brisket available, in which case it will need all the assistance it can get.

After years of tasting injected competition briskets, I prefer to taste the natural beef flavor that brisket is renowned for.

If you do decide to inject the brisket, make it as simple as possible. When you cook meat without bones, you lose the natural umami taste that bone broth provides.Allow the true meaty taste to shine through instead of adding much too much flavor in any brisket infusion for an outdoor barbecue.

So for me, its a no to injecting.

Should you separate the flat from the point or not?

This question presupposes some prior knowledge, so let’s go back a step. A whole brisket, also known as a packer brisket, is made up of two distinct muscles:

• The flat area Meat that is leaner and more likely to dry out
• The thicker point muscle tends to be more richer and fattier because it has a lot more collagen and intramuscular fat that breaks down throughout the cooking process.

There is no law that says you can’t separate these two muscles before cooking them. The major reason for doing so is if you want to make burned ends.

Separate the two muscles if this is the case.

If not, it’s better to cook the whole brisket as one piece.

Some individuals like the leaner flat slices of brisket, while others prefer the fatty point end slices, particularly when using a high-end brisket. When paired with the inherent strong meaty taste of the brisket, that fat flavor is overwhelming.

So it is a personal choice once again.

What is the best temp to smoke a brisket at?

The great majority of brisket recipes will instruct you to smoke it at temperatures ranging from 225F to 250F. When paired with a massive packer brisket, these low temperatures may result in cook periods of up to 18 hours.

In recent years, I’ve been experimenting with higher temperatures ranging from 300F to 320F and had wonderful success. Cooking at higher temperatures yields juicy brisket with a deep bark and gorgeous smoke ring.

I’ve found that the hotter the cook, the longer you need to rest or hold the brisket, so plan on a little more time at the end.

Smoking a brisket hot and fast (step by step instructions)

I’ll be cooking on a 22 Weber Smokey Mountain using the minion technique with lump charcoal. Depending on the kind of smoker you use, you may need to follow slightly different instructions.

1. Setting up your smoker

I’ll begin by igniting a three-quarter full chimney starter with lump charcoal, then set it in a well formed in the charcoal ring with unlit charcoal.

I’ll lay a few pieces of cherry and red wine oak wood around the burning charcoal, but not directly on it, to let it to warm up and burn cleanly without producing dense white smoke that will give a harsh flavor to our brisket.

For this cook, I’ve removed the water pan and am using a deflector plate to prevent direct radiant heat from reaching the bottom of the steak. By eliminating the water pan, I’ll be able to reach higher temperatures more easily and won’t have to bother about filling it up with water throughout the cook. To minimize time cleaning up after the cook, I’ll place a drip tray on the deflector plate.

If you’re utilizing the old water pan setup, you have two choices:

• You may definitely start filling the water pan with warm water right away. The warm water allows the smoker to heat up properly without having to battle to warm up the water as well. Just keep an eye on the water levels throughout the cooking process and replenish up as required. Making certain that no water gets on the coals.

• You might also utilize the widely used sand approach. This is when individuals will add sand into the water pan (without water), and the sand will function as a heatsink, allowing for another indirect heat version.

2. Smoking your brisket hot and fast

When the smoker reaches 300 degrees Fahrenheit, I’ll lay the brisket in the center of the cooking grate and insert an internal meat probe into the thickest section of the point. Today, I’m using the Fireboard 2 Drive to monitor the brisket and smoker temperatures.

I’ll let this smoke settle for about 2 hours before checking it. If there are any dry places on the bark, I spray with water at this stage.

You may add any liquid, such as apple cider vinegar, but I’ve found that it has little effect on the final taste.

I’ll boat it in foil until it’s probing like a hot knife into butter, which will take another couple of hours and the interior temperature will be between 195F and 210F. So I’ll start checking at 195 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Resting the brisket

Once the brisket has been probed without resistance all throughout, I’ll wrap it securely in foil, then in a couple old towels, and lay it in a refrigerator for two hours.

This is a critical step, so begin early enough to allow time for the brisket to rest. You should be able to properly keep a briskest in this manner for many hours; however, make sure you understand the food safety theory behind this practice.

This is an excellent opportunity to prepare the remainder of your sides.

After two hours, I’ll slice the brisket and savor one of the greatest smoked meats.

Brisket pairs well with classic sides like smoked mac and cheese or cornbread.

Boat, wrap in foil or butchers paper 

I tend to boat my briskets these days.

I prefer boating my brisket over wrapping it in foil or pink butcher paper because it allows me to maintain the bark I’ve spent hours crafting. I believe that covering the brisket in foil at this time loses part of the wonderful bark owing to the moisture in the foil.

The same is true with butcher paper; although it allows steam to pass through, it nevertheless absorbs a lot of moisture and ends up resting on the bark.

By floating the brisket and keeping the top open for an additional couple of hours, the bark is really settling in, and I’m getting consistently fantastic results.

If I ever want to speed up the cooking time of a brisket, I will cover it with butchers paper. 99% of my briskets are now wrapped in foil.

To spritz or not to sprit

I simply let it ride if the bark isn’t drying out too much. At the conclusion of the cook, everything is covered in foil. In a two-hour hold in a cooler, the steam and moisture in the foil bag can effectively soften any dry pieces.

Other brisket recipes

• Smoked Pellet Grill Brisket
• The Best Burnt Ends of Brisket That Melt In Your Mouth
• Smoked Brisket Chili