To cook beef brisquets, it is first necessary to understand some thing about the cut of beef that will be cooked. A beef brisket are a large cut of meat that contains high amount of collagen and fat. Due to the fact that the cut of beef contain collagen and fat, it is necessary to cook the beef brisket slowly.
If the cook cooks the beef brisket to highly temperatures or for too short of a period of time, the beef will become tough and dry. The cooking process begin with a beef brisket that is cold in temperature. The beef brisket should be brought to a temperature of approximately 40 degree Fahrenheit before cooking begins.
How to Cook Beef Brisket
The cook should trim the beef brisquets fat cap to a thickness of approximately one-quarter of an inch. After trimming the fat cap, the beef brisket should be rub with a dry rub. A dry rub typically consist of salt and coarse black pepper, although other ingredient like garlic powder and paprika can be include in the dry rub.
The beef brisket should be allowed to sit with the dry rub for one hour to allow the dry rub to adhere to the beef brisket. To cook the beef brisket, the cook should place the brisket into a smoker. The smoker should be set to a low temperature, and the cook should place the beef brisket with the fat side of the beef facing upward towards the heat of the smoker.
As the beef brisket cooks, the sugar in the dry rub will caramelize to produce a crust on the beef brisket, called bark. The bark will form differently according to the type of wood in which the beef brisket are smoked. For instance, beef brisket that is smoked over hickory wood will have a strong flavor to the bark, while beef brisket that is smoked over apple wood will have a milder, fruit-flavored bark.
Thin blue smoke should be produced by the smoker, as thick white smoke indicate that the smoker is not burn efficiently. As the beef brisket cooks, the temperature of the brisket will increase. During this phase of cooking, the beef brisket may reach a temperature known as the stall.
A stall occur when the beef brisket reaches a temperature of between 150 and 170 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, the moisture from the beef brisket will evaporate, cooling the brisket and cause its temperature to not increase any longer. To continue cooking the brisket past this stall temperature, the cook can wrap the brisket in pink butcher paper.
Pink butcher paper should be used rather than aluminum foil to allow the bark to retain it’s texture. Butcher paper allow the brisket to breathe. The internal temperature of the brisket should be monitor during cooking.
A probe can be used to measure the tenderness of the brisket. The temperature should reach 190 degrees Fahrenheit; however, the tenderness of the brisket is more important than the temperature of the beef brisket. The beef brisket is done when the probe can readily slide into the thickest portion of the brisket.
A beef brisket typically has two portion: a flat and a point. The flat portion of the brisket is lean, while the point portion of the brisket contain more fat. Due to the fat content of the point portion of the brisket, it can be cooked to more higher temperatures than the flat portion.
After the beef brisket has cooked, it must rest. The cook should place the cooked brisket into a cooler lined with towels. Resting allow the juices that have collect in the center of the brisket to re-distribute throughout the brisket.
If the brisket is sliced while it is still hot, these juices will exit the brisket, resulting in dry beef brisket. When the beef brisket is ready to be serve, the flat portion of the brisket should be sliced against the grain to make it easy to chew.