How to Cook Smoked Brisket _ Traeger Staples

Hey guys , I'm Matt Pittman of Meat Church .

I'm here today to show you how to make a brisket on your trigger .

So I'm very central Texas inspired .

And so that's really the method that I'm gonna show you guys today .

What we're starting out with here is a , is a full packer brisket .

A brisket is comprised of two muscles .

You've got the flat and you've got the point .

So basically they overlap each other like this , not right on top of each other , but a little bit offset .

So the first thing we wanna do is we want to trim this brisket , we're probably gonna take about £2 out of it .

And so when you look at a brisket , look on the meat side here , there's some really hard fat right here at the top .

We want to go ahead and take that off to start .

No hard fat is gonna render in your cook .

So I'm going to eliminate that .

At first , there's a lot of personal preference in a brisket .

But what I'm gonna do is I'm going to just kind of effectively shave this out , but I'm just making a nice cut , not digging deep into the meat just to kind of remove this fat portion here .

The next thing I wanna do is I this this old kind of gray meat on the side .

I want to get rid of that .

So I'm gonna do probably about a quarter inch just around the edge just to trim this up to get rid of all that .

Ok .

So that's nice and cleaned up on the side .

So now let's look at the top so you can decide how much of this other fat you want to take off here , this soft fat will render .

So , you know , for cooking in your backyard , you don't necessarily have to remove it any of the stuff that's really loose .

I'll pick up and kind of filet it away , but where it's a little thicker here , I'll go ahead and uh I'll go ahead and take that off .

So , on the fat side , if you look at this entire brisket , what you'll see is it looks like there's fat in covering the entire side back here .

And so what you like to do is kind of take that down to about a quarter of an inch , maybe a half inch at the absolute most it's personal preference .

So effectively , you want to shave that off .

I think that's pretty good for uh for my standards and then one more piece .

So this side here is just a little bit thick .

So in between the flat and the point there's quite a bit of fat in here .

Um , I want to take that out so that I can season it .

So I'm gonna take my sharp knife again and I'm basically gonna just cut kind of one big section of this off , kind of cut it out , just a hair and then I'm gonna take the whole thing off because there's just so much fat .

Ok .

So this is looking really nice and trimmed and now it's time to season it .

So there's a lot of ways you can season your brisket .

Central Texas barbecue is coarse , cracked pepper and big kosher salt , 50 50 mixture .

A lot of guys add a little bit more to it .

So that's why I like to bring them holy cow rub , which is heavy salt and pepper and a little bit of garlic touch of paprika .

And so I'm primarily going to season just with this rub and I'm going to start on the meat side and I like to season pretty high .

So if you're seasoning up high , then you're going to get a nice even application .

Now , I don't use any binders on my protein before I apply seasoning .

So what's a binder ?

A binder could be in olive oil .

Some people use things like mustard shar sauce .

I can apply the seasoning and just kind of pat it a couple of times and I'll be good to go .

So in my mind , no real need to do anything else .

Um I also want to make sure I get the sides .

OK .

So that's a pretty , pretty healthy application .

What I like to do is is uh is layer a little bit .

So I'm gonna bring in my Holy Gospel rub which , which is a rub that is primarily holy cow , but has a little bit of our gospel all purpose added .

And so I'm gonna go light with this .

So I went pretty average with the first one .

This was just gonna be a nice coating across the top .

Not too much .

And I'm going to pack that in .

So ideally , we would let this sit 2030 minutes max and we're gonna flip it over and repeat the process .

Ok ?

So this brisket sweat out for about 30 minutes .

So if you look at it , it's nice and kind of appears wet on the top .

And like I said , that's where the seasoning has pulled some kind of moisture out .

Basically , that means this rub has completely adhered to the brisket and we're ready to cook it .

But let's talk about cooking this .

We're gonna cook it 2 75 fat up and it's basically gonna be a two part cook .

We're gonna cook this thing probably about six hours or so unwrapped in the grill and then we're gonna wrap it and we're gonna finish the cook .

So , and we're gonna talk about this as we cook it .

But what you're gonna be looking for is an internal temperature and that's gonna be your cue to wrap it .

That bark is gonna start to form .

It's gonna look really pretty .

And so what you're gonna do is you're gonna take your instant re thermometer and you're going to check right in the middle of the flat , you're gonna poke in and check and , and what I want you to do is wrap it around 165 degrees internal temperature .

So let's take this thing outside .

All right .

So here we are at the trigger .

We've got it set at 275 degrees and like I said , I like to cook fat up .

So I'm gonna place this baby on this way .

All right .

So we've been rocking at 275 degrees .

Let's take a look .

And so what you see here is this beautiful mahogany color .

I'm gonna go ahead and test it with my instant re thermometer right in the middle of the flat .

So we're in the 160 degree range , 160 .

I get the 165 .

So I'm ready to pull this thing off and wrap it .

All right , we're coming back inside off the trigger .

It's time to wrap this brisket .

There's several ways you can wrap your brisket .

If this is your first brisket , I'd recommend wrapping in heavy duty aluminum foil .

I'd pull out two arm length pieces on top of each other .

Put the brisket on top , wrap it up , nice and tight .

Go back in the trigger .

That's the most forgiving way to cook .

I'm gonna go the Texas route , which is to wrap in un waxed pink butcher paper .

So the pro of this is all that great bark you created .

It's permeable through this paper .

So you won't actually lose that bark .

There's a little bit of a learning curve with butcher paper .

So , like I said , I'd start with foil first .

Gonna take the brisket here , this beautiful mahogany brisket and I'm gonna put it right in the middle .

I've got two pieces of paper just kind of overlap .

So think swaddling a baby basically , however you wanna do it .

And for me , I'm gonna go back in fat side up .

Um And you know , from here when we go back out on the trigger , what we're looking for , it's just to get it again , probe tender right here in the middle of the flat .

So it's probably around two oh 2 , 203 degrees .

And it's gonna be OK to check it throughout the cook right through this paper .

You don't have to unwrap it or anything like that .

Just check right here and you're gonna be good to go .

So let's go put this back on the trigger , staying at 2 75 taking it home .

All right .

Got this baby wrapped fat up right back in the trigger .

275 degrees .

Not gonna touch it , gonna come back in here and check it in about an hour and a half right here .

And when I get in the one nineties , I'm gonna check it about every 10 , 15 minutes or so until we get to where a probe tender and we're done .

All right .

So we're going to probe this brisket and like I said , we want to check it in the flat .

You can see where I've checked it a couple of times .

I'm OK , going back in the same hole and it feels really tender right now .

So I'm feeling good about this .

It's time really to pull this thing off and we want to let it rest super important to let your brisket rest for at least an hour .

You've been hitting this brisket with high heat for 10 hours or so .

And all the moisture in this brisket is kind of out of the end of the muscle fibers .

And you want to let that thing relax so that moisture redistributes throughout the entire brisket .

You don't want to slice this thing hot this thing .

If you slice it and it's steaming out , that's just robbing yourself of a really juicy bite .

You could have so important to rest at an hour , but you could rest this thing after three or four hours and it would be fantastic .

Just put it in the cooler and lock it down .

So we're done .

Ok .

So we brought the brisket in wrapped , left it wrapped , put it in a cooler and it sat there for just over an hour .

Now we've pulled it out and it's time to slice this and I want to show you this thing fat up .

I told you how this was going to render .

Look how soft this is .

This is going to be an amazing bite and it's just tender as can I can tell just from the touch .

So I wanna talk to you a little bit about slicing .

Common mistake .

I see people make is they take their knife and they just start slicing straight down this brisket .

So the first thing that we'll do when the whole brisket comes out is basically cut it in one third .

So we'll go about one third of the brisket down and we just make a nice , pretty cut here .

You can see on the flat that it's a little more lean .

You can see all the fat here and the point I don't like it when people squeeze their brisket , but just to show you what you can achieve on the trigger , I'm gonna squeeze it for you anyway , just a little bit .

Don't wanna squeeze that too much .

That's again , you're gonna rob yourself with a super juicy bite , squeezing that , but sure it's sexy to look at .

So there you go .

So now we're going to slice this two different directions here on the uh on the leaner side or on the flat , we can go ahead and just slice , slice right down the brisket .

So I'm just gonna slice a few slices here this direction .

And for those of you that like the fat of your stuff , which this is my favorite part of the brisket , you're actually going to spin this because the grain goes a different direction .

So , and I'm gonna , I'm gonna slice mine actually thicker .

So I'm going almost even half inch on this end , opposite direction on the slices .

And I wanna show you look at that gorgeous smoke ring that we got off the trigger .

So oak pellets help with the heavy smoke .

The holy cow , rub the Holy Gospel .

Just give you that gorgeous smoke ring we've got right there .

So here's kind of the difference .

So you can choose if you like the lean or if you like the fatty , pull this apart .

Talk to you about that perfect fat there .

Not too much fat is flavor when used in moderation and that is a perfect amount to me and I can't wait any longer .

So , and you're mad about it that my friends is a Texas brisket .

So I hope you guys enjoy for this recipe and others hit trigger grills dot com slash recipes or download the app .