Badass Brisket

Badass Brisket

Oh my god, my dad and I just made the most fantastic brisket ever!

Ingredients

• One untrimmed brisket
• Yellow "French's" mustard
• Brown Sugar
• Agave nectar
• Dry Rub
• 4 cups Pecan Wood Chips, soaked in Apple Juice
• Roll of heavy duty aluminum foil

The first thing you notice about an untrimmed brisket is that it a ton of fat on it. Don't be afraid of the fat as we will be trimming a lot of it off; but the fat that we leave on is useful to make the meat moist and delicious as it slow cooks in our smoker. You can always cut off excess fat when you eat the brisket, but for now we need some of it for the magic to happen.

Trim your brisket
This takes a fair amount of time but the end-goal is to remove all of the fat on the top side of the brisket and thin down the fat cap down to about 1/4" in depth.
Here is a pretty useful video about how to trim a brisket

Rub your brisket
Once you are all trimmed, put your brisket on a cookie sheet and liberally coat it with yellow mustard.
Next, dust it with your dry rub everywhere you can see meat (there's not much point in dry rubbing the fat cap).  You don't need to press down on the dry rub or you will end up using too much and the meat can be overly salty.  Here is my dry rub recipe.

Next, coat both sides with brown sugar.  It's OK to press this down as otherwise it will fall off.  I ended up using about three or four cups of brown sugar to coat our brisket.

Smoke your brisket
After your done with the rubbing, go start up your smoker and set it to 230°. The amount of time it takes to get up to temperature will help to marinate the brisket a bit and those flavorings have some time to soak in a bit (for even better results, you could let it marinate overnight).
Once the smoker gets up to temperature, put the brisket on the top shelf of your smoker with the fat cap up (this is important so that the fat renders down into the meat from above).

Put as many of the wet wood chips as your tray can accept (mine takes about two cups). Be sure to fill up your water tray (or add a vessel with water in it in your smoker). This evaporation of water also helps to keep the meat nice and moist.
Now we are going to smoke our meat until it reaches an internal temperature of about 145°. This will take a varying amount of time, depending on the thickness of the meat. It is pretty useful to use a remote thermometer that will tell you the meat's internal temperature without having to open the smoker to use a manual probe inasmuch as every time you open the door you lose all of the smoke and heat in the smoker. Insert the probe into the thickest part of the meat (obviously).

Keep an eye on your smoke. If it stops, go add some more wood chips. We went through about four cups

When the internal temperature reaches 120%, it's probably time to start heating your oven for the last step. Set your oven to 250°

Wrap and Coat in Agave
When the internal temperature reaches 145%, the brisket is at a point where smoke will no longer permeate it.
Pull off two big sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil. Squirt a liberal amount of agave nectar onto the aluminum foil where you will be setting your brisket. Pull the brisket out and lay it onto the agave nectar layer, fat cap down. Now, squirt a liberal amount of agave nectar all over the brisket. I used about 1/2 of a squirt bottle on ours. Dust it with a bit more dry rub, although using a bit less than the initial application.

Slow cook your brisket in the oven
Close up the foil tightly and put the brisket into the oven for about three hours.

Let it Rest, Slice and Enjoy
You can test the state of your brisket after about two hours. Depending on the thickness, this last step can take from between two and four hours. You want the meat to basically fall apart when you pinch some.
Once done, open up the foil, leaving the meat sitting in what should be a bunch of juice/gravy that you will retain.
When you cut the brisket, be sure to cut across the grain or the slices will not hold up.
For leftovers, store the brisket with the juices surrounding it in a glass container. It's even better the next day.
Enjoy!

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