In Search of the Wabba Wabba
I wanted to chronicle my experience with cooking Brisket on July 4, 2009. First, a few words of prologue, Brisket (with a capital B) scares the hell out of me! That is why I’m writing this post – for future reference. I’ve heard horror stories about how easy it is to f-up brisket, and how it is such a tricky meat. Me and wife decided at the store, “what the heck,” it’s time to give it a go. And at $0.99/lbs for untrimmed brisket we couldn’t loose too much. It was $13.57 for 13.71 lbs untrimmed brisket (July 3, 2009, Kroger special price).
Prepare the meat
I used “Meathead’s” (seriously, that’s his nickname) Big Bad Beef Rub recipe with a few modifications:
3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 tablespoons table salt
1/2 tablespoon cayenne
1/2 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons mustard powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
For the top:
3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 tablespoons table salt
Important Tip: Beef rub is different than pork rub. Pork loves sweetness, but beef does not.
I rubbed the first set of ingredients on the bottom, or meaty side. Then I rubbed the salt and pepper mixture on the top, or fatty side.
We’ll have the Little Penguin Merlot with dinner. The watermelon will be part of a red (watermelon/strawberries), white (RediWhip) and blue (dark cherries) on angel food cake dessert – yum.
After the rub down I wrapped it in plastic wrap and let it set up in the refrigerator overnight.
Prepare the grill
Important Tip: Get the temperature stabilized at about 225 F. It is crucial to keep the temperature low or else the proteins can seize up and squeeze out all the juices. This can happen fast on brisket, so monitor your temperature carefully. Brisket is a lot less forgiving than pork shoulder.
I figured it was going to take 10-12 hours to cook so I woke up at 8:30 AM and got right to work stabilizing the heat. But first, I had a problem. The brisket was too big for my drip pan. Note to self: buy two big, disposable pans when you buy brisket or ribs. So I did what any other quick thinking chef would do, I cut the brisket in half and put the “flat” half in the oven and the “point” half on the grill. The grill heated up to about 225 F on only one burner. I double checked the grill’s thermometer with my handy oven thermometer.
On a side note, the forecast was 101 F and no rain; another scorching day in Texas. I checked on the grill every couple of hours to make sure it stayed at 225 F and that there was liquid in the foil.
Cook the meat
Finally, it was time to cook, check liquid levels and temperature, and cook, and check, and repeat, for 10 hours. Needless to say, I had time to go buy a meat thermometer; actually my wife got a really nice one. It will come in handy especially when you hit the “stall.” That’s when the temperature stays around 140-160 F and takes hours to climb. At about 7 PM – the 10th hour – we were somewhere in the stall. The temperature was 170 F, and everything looked and smelled good.
Some time between 8:00 and 8:30 PM I took both halves off the heat, wrapped them in heavy-duty foil, pored half of bottle of beer in each half, and let them sit in the cooling grill. At 9:00 PM we all sat down to dine on a rather well cooked, dry brisket. It looked good on the outside. The meat near the fat was delicious and soft. My theory is that I should have mopped/basted/injected the meat during the latter part of the stall. I didn’t do that and it dried out.
We still enjoyed the meal. Put some sauce on the dry brisket and it tastes great. The corn was good, the baked potatoes where great, and the red, white, and blue dessert was an explosion of flavor.