Smoked Brisket on Pellet Grill

Hello, welcome back to how to barbecue. I'm Malcolm Reed. Today I'm going to show you how I make a whole

brisket

low and slow on my

pellet

grill

. Now the key to this is to keep the temperatures low for maximum smoke. It's really going to develop that crust, it's going to be a long cook, but the payoff is worth it. You know it's going to be okay, let's start cooking, so today I'm going to start with the whole

brisket

and this one was almost 16 pounds. I saw it in the supermarket, certified angus beef brand. I know it's a good brisket, so I'll put it in the basket.

The first thing I'm going to do is trim it because I need to remove some of this thick fat. It always starts with this thick vein of fat that's on the side, you can pull it back with your hand, work it a little bit, then use the knife to remove it and then the oxidized meat around the edges, whatever gray stuff you want. To remove that, I round the plane, take a little bit of the thin side and shape this plane. Here you can see the way the grain runs. You know it will form beautiful slices when it's cooked. now for the point I also expose a little bit, we turn the breast over and then remove the thick areas of fat, you can remove a little more on the tip end because it is marbled, but on the flat end of the breast I want to leave about a quarter inch of fat and that's all there is to it to trim this brisket it's pretty easy now we're ready to season so I'm going to turn the brisket over and the first thing I'm going to give it is a little of hot barbecue rub, you can use any favorite brisket rub you have.

I really like spicy because it has a little more pepper, a little less sweet and it will give a nice color to the barbecue on the outside, that's where the mahogany will come from. you want to make sure you get the edges of the brisket, it's a large cut of meat, it may require a lot of seasoning now I'm also going to give it a little bit of texture, a little more salt and pepper using my tx rub, don't do it. You don't need to be so heavy with this, especially on the bottom, so we're going to cook it in fat, that looks good, let's pat it now, I'm going to turn the breast over, we're going to do the same for the flat side, this is the side I'm going to keep the full cook on first, you'll get the nice hot rub coating, pat it a little so it adheres to the meat, there's no binder here.

We're just letting the meat hold it and come back with a little bit of the tx texture, baby. I like that, that will make the crust look nice and we pat it gently too. That's it for the seasonings on the outside of this brisket, but it's not done. to go into the pit, but I really want them to have time to work on the surface to melt, that's what's going to absorb the flavor, help us make a nice crust, and form a nice smoke ring. The cooking will be slow and slow, so I'll put it in the pit overnight.

Now the smoke will surround the entire brisket on the

pellet

grill

because I'll keep it at about 195 degrees until it's time to cook. wrap I plan to put the brisket on at 11 p.m. m. and wrap her up the next morning, so I'll take her inside and she'll rest for a few hours. It's been about three hours since I seasoned the brisket. It's time to fire up this Traeger pellet grill. The first thing you should do is make sure you have enough pellets. If you are going to let it run overnight and get some sleep. I'm filling the hopper completely so I turned the tumbager to 195 degrees and turned it on which will give us a nice slow smoke and in fact on mine it has a super smoke function which gives it even more so I'm going to activate that too and it doesn't matter what pellet. grill you're cooking on, if you're running it at 195, it's going to give you a nice low thick smoke which is really what's going to put the crust on, put the flavor on this brisket, so the grill is at 195 degrees, the perfect temperature It took about 20 minutes for it to rise, not long, so now it's time to put this brisket on.

We will simply place it on the rack to give it the shape you want it to cook. I'm just stacking the flat just a little bit I have the point pointed where most of the heat is coming from it's pretty much in the center of the grill I'm going to close the lid let's put this brisket to bed I'll be back to check on it around 7 a.m. . m. Alright, the brisket has been on for eight hours. You can see here on the grill. We're still around that 195 degrees. I want to open it and I know it will be time. to wrap it, let's see what it looks like after eight hours, it's turned dark, it's a little puffy, this is exactly what I would expect from a good brisket, let me pull it out here and show you that you can see the way the crust is toughening.

I have a beautiful color that's starting to thin out now, so I'm going to take it to the cutting board, we're going to wrap it in butcher paper, so I just took some of the butcher paper off here, took two layers out and we overlapped it and everything What I'm going to do is lift it up and place it over the breast and we're just going to tuck it in as best we can around the breast, you want it a little tight on the other side, we're just going to go up, do the same thing, tuck it under the breast. and then for the sides, it's very easy, all you have to do is tuck them right under.

We have it wrapped up nice and tight before putting it back in the hole. I'm going to go ahead and stick in my meat probe. I only have one thermal working point right in the central part of the floor. You can feel like when you walk in you want to get halfway and we're seated. at about 150 degrees internal after eight hours of cooking, that's right where I expected it to be at this point, so I'm going to go back to the rack oriented exactly the same way, just run the probe wire out of the door and in this point I could turn up the heat a little bit, I'll turn it up to 250 degrees and we'll let it finish right there when this brisket reaches about 202, it'll be ready to come off, okay, it's been a little bit.

For over eight hours I've had this wrapped brisket on my pellet grill. You can see that it finally reached 200 degrees internally. Now I haven't messed with this brisket the entire time it was wrapped. I put it at 11 p.m. m. I wrapped it after last night. eight hours, another eight a little over eight hours in the wrap, so it's been 16 hours total and then I'm going to check with my thermopin just to make sure it feels good, oh man that's like butter like butter, look at those 200, I know this point. on soft oh yeah 205 that's perfect it feels good to pick it up that paper did its job and I'm going to put it in a dry cooler and I'm going to cover it and I want it to hang for at least an hour I want to let it sit for two hours then I'll unwrap it , I'll slice it and you know I have to try it.

It's been a long cook on this low and slow brisket but I know it's going to be good so after this two hour rest in the fridge it's finally time to see how our brisket turned out about to run out of daylight again but I have to unwrap this brisket let's start opening the sides this is the moment of truth when you take one out and let's go just look at how it looks, look at that beautiful crust, I mean, it's placed on this paper, it absorbs all that moisture, it moves a little, that's what you want to see, that breast, that means it's loose, so let's pick it up and move it. the paper put it in my pan here I can get this out of the way Piper did her job she protected that brisket but she let me make this crust so now let's cut this guy up and see how it looks first I'll take the tip see if it's green Smoke, tell me I can't see it, oh yeah, that's beautiful.

I'm just going to cut it into nice flat pieces about a quarter inch thick, that's how you want a brisket. slice flat, pull one out here, see if it's tender, I mean, look at that, that's a clapper right there, Jack still screams hot, I see it steaming, is it going to separate? That's the extraction test that comes out perfect now, this is a pellet brisket with the smoke. Ring crust on the outside like a stick burner, how does it taste? Mmm, it tastes like money, even that fat at the bottom, it's delicious, cuts perfect, full of juice.

We'll come back here as we tour the floor when you get back to this. point we start to get into a little bit of that point under the floor, that's where all that juice is now to get the burnt ends, I'm going to cut them on this end with this little ridge that we cut out, we'll put that back in and I can cut it into cubes . Make some delicious Bernie's Bites that are big enough to fit half. I can get some doubles there. Don't think the burnt ends have any juice in them. Check it out.

Gotta try it oh my gosh that melts in your mouth right there that's the fat on that taxi brisket now for these fatty slices you want to flip the brisket over let's cross grain again here's another good burn on the edges the true burnt ends, this is not a fake burn, it ends here and then you can cut it, it's thicker and as thin as you want on the tip, but I'm going to have it about the same width as the slices so you get a little of that fat that the knife slides correctly. through it, that's beautiful, you know, I'm going to prove that point, it's really my favorite part of brisket, I'm telling you low and slow on the pellet grill takes a long time, but man, it's worth it, thanks for watching us today on how to make good barbecue if you like what we are doing subscribe to our channel you can find us on facebook instagram twitter and at the end of the week shel and I will talk about this brisket and all the other delicious things we are cooking our weekly podcast, y'all can listen to it too, see you next time, it's time to have some brisket, I'll tell you what man, pellet grill, it's not a joke about brisket, if you give it time, that's what I'm talking about . about the smoke from the crust, the green and greasy brisket, that's what I call delicious, that's good, they're very good