How to Smoke Brisket + Smoked Beef Tallow | Mad Scientist BBQ

Hey guys, welcome to the mad

scientist

's barbecue. Today I'm Jeremy Yoder. I can't wait to show you how to

smoke

a

brisket

. I decided not to sponsor today because I want to make today's video about barbecue and one of the ways I want to do it. I want to tell you how you can make sure he sees your questions and can answer them meaningfully and comprehensively. A lot of people ask me questions in the comments on Instagram and YouTube via email and it's hard for me to answer them all. of them, but of course, you can still send those questions.

I do my best to answer them, but to make sure I see your question, you can click the link in the wizio description. Basically, you ask me a question and I answer via video. because I want to make sure that I really answer your question and I don't have to give you a one sentence or one word answer, but if you contact me through wizio I will look at that question and answer it. with a video message where I can actually give you a good full answer, also people have been asking me if I can do some type of BBQ boot camp in person and I have looked into it and from what I can see from other people that doing that kind of thing is kind of a canned presentation where they have a raw

brisket

and then they trim it and season it and put it in the

smoke

r and then magically a perfectly cooked brisket and then they show you how to cut it, I don't really am interested in do something like that, but you guys can help me by letting me know in the comments if you're interested in something like what I'm about to describe.

Basically, we show up and go through the whole process. cooking, it would be a long period of time, we're talking 16 hours for a cook, but that's the only way I think you could really learn exactly what I'm looking for when I'm cooking briskets, you could see it, you could feel it. If you can smell it, you could be involved in the process and if you have any questions, I'm there and happy to answer them, so if you find this interesting, let me know in the comments below if you think it's too long. and wouldn't you be interested, let me know too, but back to the video, today's video is an update to a video I made a few years ago where I showed you how to smoke a brisket, but I've learned some new things. since then and I want to pass them on to you so that you have the best information at your disposal when making decisions about how to smoke a brisket, so let's talk about the meat we're going to use today.

This is a 15 pound brisket I bought. from Costco is top quality and this is something that most people across the country will have access to when you use a technique to cook something like this, it will apply to higher quality

beef

, but it doesn't always work to the reverse. So if you can take this and turn it into amazing barbecue, then if you get a wagyu brisket that's just sauce, it's easier and there's more forgiveness if you do it right with this, you can basically apply it to any brisket you get and let's get great results now, this brisket weighs about 15 pounds which is pretty average, anywhere from 12 to probably 18 or even 20 pounds is pretty normal, but I think 15 is about right because if you get a brisket that's too small a lot of times.

It can dry out if you get a brisket that's too big a lot of times the cooking time is so long you're going to give up on it before it's done so 15lbs is great if you want to cut it down it's not a problem. All if you are not familiar with the brisket, let's talk a little about its anatomy, the brisket is a very tough cut of meat and that is why you have to cook it for a long time so that everything breaks down and remains very tender. so I like to think of it this way, you cook it for so long until it's hard that it becomes tender again. now there are two parts to a breast, there is the part called the tip here, this thick part and there are actually there are two muscles there and then there is the flat here where there is just one muscle running underneath this layer of fat, so where is The breast of a cow would be like the muscles of the chest, in human terms it would be like the pectoralis major and the pectoralis. minor then the pectoralis minor does this movement the pectoralis major does this movement well a cow has equivalent muscles it is called deep pectoralis and superficial pectoralis that is not important, but the important thing is that you know that there are two different muscles and we are In the end we will have to cut them differently because their grain structures are different.

Now this part at the top is the fat layer, so from now on we'll call it the top of the brisket, although when it's actually on the cow it's the part that faces the ground, but for our terms this is the top and then the bottom is the bottom, so the top has a layer of fat and the bottom is mostly lean. Our goal when cutting will be to make sure nothing is left. it burns, so the pieces that hang like that we're going to cut off because it's not going to survive, there's no point in keeping it there, plus this layer of fat on top right now the fat is too thick for it all to stay. it renders well during cooking, so let's cut it down to about a quarter of an inch and if you're trimming and you're left with some bald spots where you're trying to trim the fat but you actually hit the muscle underneath, don't don't worry, it's not the end of the world, you go back up, it's normal to have some bald spots, so at the bottom we're going to trim very little, we'll show you when we get there, but another thing.

To keep in mind, here is a piece of fat, we have the thick part, we have the thin part and here is a piece of fat that is not going to melt, so we are going to cut that too, let's take a look at the bottom now. Now at the bottom we have a little bit of fat running over the muscle fiber here, but what we want to focus on is this big piece of fat right here, we're going to take it at an angle. We're not going to trim it all off or you're going to have some kind of cave in the meat which is not good, we're just trying to avoid a lot of fat ending up in the final cooked product, so now two important things: the first is In fact, We're going to cut out some of the meat, so this will be painful for some of you, but you'll end up with a better product after you've done all the work, so it's worth it and what we're doing.

What we're going to do is take a little bit of this flat part where it's very thin and cut it off. The rule I use is that if the meat is thicker than the width of my thumb, it can stay, if not, that's how it is on this brisket. We'll probably have to make a cut that looks like this, so this corner will disappear. The reason we want thicker meat is because that way it will survive cooking, if it's too thin it will dry out and not. be good and it's not worth taking the time to cook it all if it's not going to end up being something you want.

Instead, you can take it off and use it for burgers or sausages or some other purpose where it will be. you know something that tastes good instead of something that just goes to waste so the other thing we'll do is if you're a beginner at cooking brisket and you're afraid that when it's cooked you won't know. which way to start cutting it what you can do is on this thin end you can make a cut like this so you know, oh, that flat spot that's where I start cutting because at the end we have to cut this and if you cut it incorrectly, you have big problem on your hands okay we trimmed this guy enough to put it on the smoker but he still needs to be seasoned and to season him I'm using salt and pepper so kosher salt coarsely ground black pepper what I need .

What I do is a 50 50 mix, so, you know, fill maybe this amount with salt and then an equal amount with pepper, shake it up and then I'm ready to go. There are a lot of brisket rubs you can buy if you find one you love use it but to me a lot of those rubs aren't worth it because number one you're mainly paying for the salt and number two a lot of those rubs actually have The fine powders in them coat the brisket so much that I don't think the smoke penetrates as well as it could otherwise, so I like to keep the mixture simple and for me, salt and pepper is the way to go because if you have great smoky flavor you don't need anything more than salt and pepper it's like a great steak if you cook a great steak and cook it properly you don't need anything more than salt and pepper to make it taste amazing same as brisket At this point we have nice even layer of rub here and we're ready to put this on the smoker.

Now I'm cooking on an offset smoker and there will be some temperature fluctuations because it's just the nature of burning, you know? an open fire so I'm going to keep the temperature between 225 and 250 to start and we're using walnut wood it's my favorite wood you can use oak you can use walnut so many options my favorite is walnut that's what we make. We're using it, so we're going to take this guy, we're going to put him in there and we're not going to do anything to him except maintain the temperature for the first three hours, so when we put it on, we're going to go to the fire that we are in.

Now I'm going to put the brisket with the fat up. An important rule for cooking brisket is to start before you think it's necessary because the brisket can sit longer at the end, but if it's not done, it's not done, so I usually start preparing the brisket at three or four. In the morning right now it's daylight because we want to be able to see everything that's happening on video and if I was out here and it was dark, just wasting time wouldn't help you, so start early if you're cooking a brisket. in an offset smoker it is very, very important that you get clean smoke, which means clean smoke is a fire that is rich in oxygen and produces very good tasting compounds in the smoke.

Now, if you have questions about this, I'll link to my fire management video. and I go into depth and detail the entire process so that you too can produce clean smoke in your smoker. If you are looking for clean smoke, it looks like a mirage, so you may see a little smoke, but you should actually see waves. of heat coming out, so now I can see my own breath much more than I can see the smoke, which tells me that smoke is clean. Remember how I said we want to save all these clippings because we have a purpose for them and what?

What we're going to do with them is turn them into

beef

tallow

, so that piece of the floor that I cut that has a lot of meat on it, what I'm going to do is put it in there for a short period of time. and then I'll take it out, cut it into cubes, and add it to the chili. You can leave it there and leave it like that forever and try to remove as much fat as possible. That's totally fine, but I think you get it. more mileage if you use this in chili or if you don't put it in the smoker and grind it up to make burgers or something so I'll show you two ways I do it this would be the way I actually do it the other would be one cheapest way to make it at home, so making your own suet from brisket trimmings is an economical way to use up those trimmings.

What I like to do is drink wagyu. suet and put it in the smoker because that way it absorbs the flavor of the smoke and still gives the mouthfeel to the wagyu beef, so you don't have to spend billions of dollars to get a wagyu brisket, but it still gets the same mouthfeel as Get a wagyu brisket which is nothing like it so I'll do it both ways, you choose which one you want to do. I prefer wagyu suet, but making the toppings yourself is a great way to do it, I just don't think so. it has the same kind of mouthfeel as wagyu so I suggest you save this container because what I do is I smoke this white utallo and then I'll use some for the brisket and then once it cools I save it new. in the bowl and then use it whenever I want to sear a steak or if I put a wagyu towel over anything else, I get a smoky flavor from the towel I

smoked

, but I don't have to go to the trouble of lighting it. the smoker and doing the long cooking here we go, so we're going to leave the trimmings there and we're going to leave the suet there for a long time to absorb a lot of smoke, flavor the suet when it's ready.

We are just going to take it out, let it cool, put it back in the container, use it whenever we want, we are going to have to filter the cuttings. I'll show you how to do it in a few hours. People ask me. all the time, what kind of wood do you use? I usually tell them that I use walnut and oak, but actually the most important thing than the specific type of wood you're using is that you're using the right size of wood, so I take It's time to split the chunks so that they burn cleanly when you put them in.

I put it on the fire so there isn't a lot of white smoke coming out of the chimney and when you have clean smoke it produces a much better flavor so something like this would be appropriate for this backyard sized smoker, something like this is not totally appropriate, it would sit there, smolder and produce a bunch of disgusting white smoke and then the brisket would taste bitter and if you put 12, 14, 16 hours tocook a brisket you don't want. If it tastes bitter, you want it to taste really good, so this size is what you need, it's been about three hours, so let's start making some changes now.

The first thing is to start basting, so every time I put a piece of wood on the fire I'm going to baste the brisket any part of the meat that is exposed not the fat because I want the fat to continue to melt so I don't want it to cool down. I want the meat to cool on the outside surface so it doesn't burn. Now you can use vinegar. You can use distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar. You can use water. You can really use anything you want, but what I found produces the best results is actually a 50 50 mix of cheap beer and apple cider vinegar, so I think the apple cider vinegar adds a little flavor. nice, somewhat fruity, but there is no sugar, so nothing will be at risk of burning, but the real reason is that beer is about five percent alcohol and has a boiling point of 173 degrees Fahrenheit, then water has a boiling point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, then the acetic acid and vinegar that make up about five percent of the vinegar has a boiling point of about 244 degrees, so I get a rapid cooling, a long cooling period of the water and then a high temperature cooling of the acetic acid in the vinegar.

All together they work to keep the exterior moist and I think the low ph of the vinegar breaks down some of the crunchy stuff. Now that's a long explanation to tell you why I do what I do, but the short version is half beer and half vinegar and I've had the best results. The other thing we're going to change is I'm going to turn up the temperature, so I've been cooking between 225 and 250, now I'm going to turn it up from 250 to 275. One important thing to keep in mind is on a large smoker, you'll end up cooking more. hotter than that, so on my 500 gallon offset I'll cook, you know, at this point, between 275 and 300.

So you want to make sure you're cooking at the right temperature for your smoker with a smoker that small I found that higher temperatures Low ones work best if you look at our cuttings, they are starting to melt so they are not quite how we need them yet, but they are starting to liquefy so it takes several more hours for that to happen, the

tallow

itself is already all liquid and it's absorbing smoke, so that's a good sign. You can also infuse this with herbs and spices if you want, but I like the simplicity of suet and smoke, so We're cooking at 275 and we're going to baste about every 30 minutes until we check back in, but one important thing to keep Keep in mind is that clean smoke sees waves of heat coming out of that stack, that's what you want to achieve for great flavor instead of billowing white smoke, keep it clean until you wrap it, it's been about six hours so I added a little bit of fuel on the fire and I'm going to baste this brisket so we can check the temperature, but the temperature is not the end of it. -When it comes time to wrap, there are things that I look for that are more important than temperature number one is fat rendering, so when I press this fat here it's starting to give, but it's still a little cloudy, it still needs to. render more it needs more time so it's not ready to wrap so I don't care what the temperature is it's not ready if I guess I would say the temperature is probably 165 167 something like that and then we can also see that the tallow that we're trying to get out of these trimmings is coming out really well, so we've got quite a bit of liquid in there and finally this piece that I'm going to use for the chili is starting to look really good, I'm We'll give it a few more minutes to smoke a little more and then we'll cut it up and put it in chili later.

If you're cooking brisket for the first time, you might be wondering how I know when to do it. wrap because that's a really tough question if you've never done it before, you don't have a lot of experience, so I'm going to give you the five things I look for before I wrap a cookie. Number one is evaporation. The conventional wisdom on wrapping is that you take a brisket and cook it until you get to 165 degrees when the temperature stops changing, then you wrap it and then finish it at about 203 degrees now if your goal is to finish a brisket as quickly as possible. as much as possible, so yes, that's the right move, but if your goal is to make the best brisket possible, that's the wrong move, you really want a lot of water to evaporate because it concentrates the flavor and for some reason, I do not do it.

I have an explanation for this, it seems to make the breast more tender in the end. The second thing I look for is color, so if I look at a brisket and it's a nice dark dark color, that tells me there's a lot of smoke flavor in that thing. It will taste amazing. The third thing I'm looking for is crust, so I want that kind of crispy crust on the outside of the breast because when you wrap it there's going to be a lot of water vapor that's going to get trapped in the wrapper and it's going to soften the crust, so what you want to do is It's cooking the brisket so that in the end you have the crust a little crispier than you would normally want because after you wrap it it softens to the right level.

The fourth thing. What I'm looking for is thick rendering and this is crucial, so the layer of fat on top you should be able to push it out, it gives way and you see a sort of translucent yellow color, it shouldn't be cloudy anymore, that tells you. that the fat has rendered properly and it's not going to be chewy and for some reason it makes the whole brisket look moister and then fifth and finally it's the temperature, that's the last thing I look for, it's just kind of a mind control for me because if all those other four components are there, temperature really shouldn't matter much, so I usually check it just out of curiosity, it's not the main thing I look for of those five things, it's the least important at this point. eight hours later, so what I want to do is check that brisket to see if it's ready to wrap and then I also want to check those meat trimmings to see if we have enough tallow to be able to prepare it. and then I'm also going to take out that wagyu beef towel because I don't want it to be too boiling hot when I add it to the brisket because I want to be able to spread it like I would a semi-solid so that I get the kind of coating that I want.

This guy will go get some chili. We see that we have gained a lot of weight with these cuts. At this point, I'll show you what to do with them and then. Let's review this right now. We have good color, but the fat just doesn't want to give enough yet, so we have to render the fat more, so we'll give it more time and hopefully it'll probably be like that. able to get wrapped up I don't know 30 or 45 minutes you see it's starting to render starting to drip juice when I push it so it's getting close but it's not there yet let's go in and I'll show you how to deal with this meat towel now to separate these clippings of the towel you are going to want to use you only need two things a metal strainer do not use plastic let me reiterate do not use plastic ask me how I know not to use plastic I did not use plastic so a metal strainer and a glass container or a glass jar, if you want to store it in a jar, that's what I recommend doing so you don't have to clean more things than necessary, but we'll use a container. today, so all you do is take the strainer, put it on top of the bowl or jar and then pour it over the towel and then here you have a beautiful

smoked

beef suet.

Now, like I said, I definitely prefer wagyu. I tried it both ways, I think. wagyu suet is just superior, you get a buttery mouthfeel and better flavor, it's a wonderful thing, you can use it like I said on steaks, you cook a steak and instead of putting butter on top of it you put something on it that you know is smoky. towel on top oh it goes off amazing okay it's time to wrap because those things I'm looking for are starting to appear. We have a great color, it's nice and dark, which means we should have a great smoke flavor.

We have good crust on it. outside is going to soften a little after we wrap it and the internal temperature is 178 right now so it looks good and here we go the important thing is the thick render so when I push this it just sinks into just the sinks . it just sinks everywhere on the top of this brisket it just sinks that tells me this guy is ready to go the fat is rendered and we're going to wrap it but when we wrap it we're going to have a special process and I tell you that this is a game changer so to prepare this paper to wrap the brisket, I'm going to take this smoked wagyu suet and I'm going to put it on the paper so that the meat side is on top and then we're going to be able to wrap it and then get a lot of moisture because it What you perceive as moisture when you eat a brisket usually turns into fat.

Now the reason I'm using wagyu tallow is because it's different than regular beef tallow, so the fatty acid composition that wagyu tallow is different now, you don't need to know all the complicated chemistry of why that makes the difference, but I just want to show you that this is normal beef tallow, room temperature utah wag has the consistency of room temperature. Butter is so nice and soft that it's hard that you can scoop it out, but it has the hardness of ice cream, so differences in the chemical composition of fat actually have real-world consequences, both in terms of how it feels in the mouth as in the flavor. which gives, for that reason the smoke tower is the way to go, so here I go with the smoked wagyu tallow still warm, so it's a little different in color, it will lighten as it solidifies, but I want to get a good layer on this paper uh I found out that spreading like pizza sauce works best so on the meat side in the claw we don't need suet on this side because guess what it already has a lot of melted fat in it so now let's wrap it once with the fat side down. that tie again and finally that side up we're going to put it back in the smoker like this okay so one thing you can do when you put this back in after it's wrapped if your apartment is way behind in temperature then you had than pointing at the fire all the time, say its temperature is 185 but the floor is, you know, 168 and you need the floor to catch up.

One thing you can do after it is protected in paper, you can turn the floor towards the fire, so that it takes temperature and both sides finish at the same time now there have been a lot of people, I know they put it with one point towards the fire everything time and at the end they say oh the tip was amazing but the floor was hard and dry you can avoid that by changing it if you need to so you may or may not need to change the orientation depending on how your kitchen cooks for me and this smoker .

I don't need to change, so let's keep checking probably every 15 or 30 minutes, we're looking for an internal temperature of probably around 203 degrees, but it's more important than the temperature we're looking for, so it should feel like soft butter when you put it in. the probe and also It is not necessary to unwrap it to insert the probe, simply pass through the paper. That small hole won't make much of a difference in terms of how well this paper retains moisture and speeds up cooking. Okay, this is ready. to go out, so I checked the temperature, it's 202, but it feels perfect, so I'm not going to continue like this, I don't want it to overcook, what we're going to do now is take this off. and I'll leave it at room temperature and let it cool quickly.

I want it to cool to about 180 degrees, at which point I'll unwrap it and wrap it in new butcher paper which I treat exactly the same way I did when I wrapped it the first time, so I'll add the smoked suet, then leave the brisket , I'll wrap it again, at that point it goes into a cooler and I'll leave it there. a cooler for a long time, in fact, I'm going to leave it there overnight and I would recommend that if you can do it depending on how long you do it because a long rest is great, so for me I'm going to let it sit for 12 hours. until tomorrow, when we unwrap it, cut it and taste it, but what I would recommend to you is, please rest the breast for at least two hours, preferably it would rest at five, six, seven, eight hours or more for me.

I've found the best results by letting a brisket rest for 8 to 12 hours and anywhere in between has been phenomenal and the way to do this is to make sure you don't put the brisket straight from the smoker into a cooler or else it will overcook, it will get mushy, you don't want that, but if you let it cool to 180 and then put it in the cooler, the cooler will keep it warm for a long period of time, so you want to keep it above 135 degrees to be safe, but If it drops below that in the morning, you can take it and put it in a 170 degree Fahrenheit oven and then turn the temperature up again so that a long rest will allow all the fat to distribute.

In the end we will have a better product, that is the plan for what we are going to do with this brisket that looks good, the same process as before.Here I have the smoked wagyu suet. Note that it's soft, so it's different anyway. That's why I like it and it tastes very good. The aroma of brisket is filling the kitchen right now. We've let this sit for 12 hours and I would recommend eight to 12 hours as ideal. Now you can rest for only five. hours or maybe even take it up to 17 without really dropping the quality, but what you need to do is program it to work for you, so for example if you have a barbecue gathering at noon on Saturday then you could cook. the day before, remove the brisket at midnight the night before, then let it rest and then say you wake up at 7 or 8am. m., then go grab your thermometer, check the brisket if it needs to warm up a little, put it in the oven and bring it back up to a nice holding temperature that is safe so you can extend the rest to your needs and keep it at a safe temperature.

Now unwrap it and let's take a look so when we look at this we have all the signs we're looking for we have a nice dark color it means there's a lot of smoke flavor in there the fat has been processed very well it actually sticks to my finger when I touch it all of those Those are good signs if you've done it right. It should look a little like a meteorite now. If you don't know the reason the breasts look like meteorites, it's because they come from the sky. I now have documents from upper levels of the CIA that the briskets are sent from outer space.

I think they are sending them from the obelisk on Mars, they are next level good, at this point all you have left to do is cut them and test them, so here we have a flat spot at this end where we cut a piece before so that If you're not familiar with Briskets, you know you start cutting here, so the process will work like this, the thin end, we'll start cutting portion live slice by slice until we see halfway through when you see this extra piece of muscle that's on top of the breast, at that point we're going to turn it 90 degrees and cut that side as well to get pointed slices that are going to be a little thicker and flat slices that are going to be a little thinner if you want a detailed explanation of how to cut exactly one breast.

I have a video on that and I'll link to it in the description, but what we're going to do today is a little bit thinner. simplest, we're going to separate the two sides and remove a few slices from each and see how they turn out, so this flap here a lot of people cut out. I like to leave it on because I like to take it and treat it. Take it carefully and turn it into burnt ends because it can burn on the pot during the cooking process, but if you're careful it won't burn and they are the most magically delicious barbecue bites you'll ever taste now that we look. on the floor portion we see that it's still moist, there's a lot of juice running through here, we see fat on the top, we see a nice crust and then we see the smoke ring, so all in all this should be exactly what we're looking for now. when you hold it up it shouldn't fall apart but it should tear very easily, let's see if it does.

Yeah, that was pretty easy. Now all that's left is to test it perfectly. When you process fat correctly, good brisket is needed and done. It's a great brisket, in my opinion, my favorite bite of the whole brisket is the tip side, so here you can see we processed that fat beautifully, now it's almost gone and then there's a lot of pink from the smoke and there's a lot of it. intramuscular fat, so when I squeeze this, all that juice starts coming out. It's going to be an incredibly moist, smoky, and tender piece of meat, so if there's one bite in a brisket I'm going to eat, it's going to be this one.

That's why I love barbecue. This is exactly what I wanted to create when I started barbecue and when you introduce this to people, your friends and family will know that this is what real barbecue is and we will finally see how it burns. The ending turned out wow, the best bite so far, maybe I was wrong, maybe the last bite was not the one I wanted, this is the one I want moist, uh, so tender, there is more flavor in this bite than anywhere else of the breast, my God, don. Don't trim it when you're preparing this to put in the smoker, leave it there, be careful with it and it will be worth it, this is how you make a brisket now if you've never made one before. and you feel a little intimidated doing it, don't try it, the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it and learning from your mistakes, so what I encourage you to do is Follow this manual on how to make a brisket and if you need to make settings or want to change things to better suit your tastes, then go for it, but this is a great way to ensure you'll be at your best.

Getting it right from the start, the reason people spend 12, 14, 16 hours cooking brisket is because it's worth it. There's nothing else that tastes like it has that feeling in your mouth. That's why brisket is a superstar in the barbecue world. and although it takes a long time, people are willing to do it because there is nothing like it. If you enjoyed the video and found it useful, hit the like button below and subscribe to the channel, it really helps us. Also follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Mad Scientist Barbecue. I'll see you next time.