Brisket recipe / cooking notes

Most of this process derives specifically from the following Chef Steps recipe:

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-brisket

With the exception of the brine, it seems like most of the recipe items (glaze, rub, etc.) make far more of the component than you need.  So far, 1/4 of the recommended amount seems to be just fine for a single brisket, with the exception of the brining step, which should be calculated based on your water volume. For that, I have a large foodservice bucket.  I'll put the still-factory-sealed brisket in the bucket, fill it up with water, and then work from there. On the chefsteps site it will let you re-scale the ingredients up top, and those measurements will flow down through the page. For this, it's only really necessary to know that 1 liter of water = 1 kg. So since my bucket is gradated in both quarts and liters, I can very quickly get a weight for my water, and base the brine ingredient weights from that.

I follow the recipe pretty faithfully. I trim the fat cap down to about 1/4", as well as trying to eliminate as much as possible of the large, hard deposits between the flat and the point.

Here's a good youtube video about Aaron Franklin trimming a brisket:

I use the Mercer Culinary 6" boning knife for trimming. Comes super sharp.

https://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Culinary-Millennia-Curved-Boning/dp/B005P0OPY2?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_9974519011


I brine in a big cambro 18 quart container, then dump the brine out and cook in the same one.

I'll put the whole thing in a foodsaver expandable bag for the water cook step. All of it goes into a big cambro plastic food/drink container, for one brisket. I typically seal it 3 times per side, just to make sure leaks don't happen during the 24 hours of cooking.

For two or more, or briskets larger than 11-12 pounds, I'll put it in my fancy cooler setup. It's one of these guys, with a 2 3/8" hole cut in the top with a 2 3/8" hole saw. I use the 900w Anova sous vide appliance.

 This cooler is about twice the volume that the anova is supposed to handle, so I fill it up from the bathtub hot water to begin with.  After working things around, this seems to be fine - the brisket is going to take a nice long time to come up to temperature, so it's not 100% necessary to have the water at 155 to begin. I'll just get it heating up while I take the brisket out of the brine to glaze and bag it.

Also, instead of finishing in an oven, I'll put it in the smoker @275 for 2-3 hours, looking for an internal temperature of about 205.  I use oak lump charcoal in a large size big green egg, adding some pecan chunks which have been soaked in water for 20+ minutes for additional flavor.

 I'll put a foil pan with an inch or so of water in it below the brisket to help maintain a moist environment as well as to keep the temperatures stable.


I generally use either the chef steps rub or the old fashioned Texas coarse black pepper and coarse kosher salt. For this "dalmatian" seasoning, you want a 50/50 pepper/salt ratio by volume. This is basically the one thing that I prepare in the process that isn't done by weight on my little digital scale.

This is my current carving knife: https://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Culinary-Millennia-10-Inch-Bread/dp/B000PS1HS6?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_9974519011

So I just finished this book:


I read the bulk of it during the plane rides to and from DFW and the Dynamic Church 2008 conference. The authors made an appearance on NPR's science Friday a couple months ago, and I happened to catch a big chunk of their segment during an In-N-Out run.

There are so many concepts discussed in the book which resonate with me. Mostly, they resonate as the things that God is trying to lead us away from with many of the instructions in the bible.

For example, the book relates how, once you have performed a favor for someone you view as an enemy, your brain seeks to square away the dissonant notion that you are helping someone you perceive to be bad. Therefore, with the action already taken, one's mind lessens the disparity by improving that persons image. When Jesus exhorts us to pray for our enemies, he is accomplishing at least two things: a) someone is being prayed for, and b) in praying for this person, we are moving them from a category of 'they,' e.g. bad people who aren't esteemed enough by us to deserve our prayer, into a circle of those whom we value, and probably from there into a circle of those whom we can no longer view as completely separate from us.

There are all kinds of similar issues throughout the book. I don't usually make notes or fold corners while I go, but this book is going to end up a bit dog-eared once everyone is done reading it.

Check it out.