How to make a Brisket in a Smoker

Rub Recipe

It is important to put salt on the meat about 24-48 before cooking. The Rub needs to be put on around an hour before cooking.

Makes. About half a cup

Preparation time. About 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons chili or ancho powder
• 1 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder

About the black pepper. Lately I’ve been grinding my black pepper and then sifting it. I use the coarse stuff, and put the fine stuff in a pepper shaker.

About the chile powders. I’m looking for complexity with two different flavors and two different levels of heat. Most American chili powders and ancho powders do not have a lot of heat, but good flavor. In fact, ancho is usually in a lot of American chili powders. Go with ancho if you can find it. It has a nice raisiny character. With chipotle or cayenne I’m after a kiss of heat. Chipotle has better flavor though.

Smoking Temperature

You want to smoke the meat to an internal temperature of 190-205.

Note: Many Pit masters swear 203 is the perfect temp.

Remember that at around 150-165 is called the “Stall”. It is at this point that the meat starts to “sweat”. Similar to humans, when we sweat it causes us to cool down. Unfortunately what this means for meat is that the meat will “stall” at a temp for a very long time. You will need to play around with meats to find out how long the stall is in your cooker. You can decrease the time of the stall by using the “Texas Crunch” which Pit masters can use butcher paper or tinfoil to let the rib cook in their own juices. It speed up the stall and keeps meat tender longer. It also helps break down any of the connective tissue.

You will want to inject Beef broth into the brisket and spray the outside with Apple juice/water.

If you use the Texas Crunch you will need to make sure you crisp up the bark “Outside dark layer” after unwrapping it. The “texas crunch” remove the “crunch” from the bark!